SAM BROWN BELT - STORY

The Story of the Sam Browne Belt---

    Remember the line up of the old days with starched cotton trousers and Brown shoes and Sam Browne belt--- trying to get the strap correct and many offrs trying to hide the paunch behind the diagonal strap and shirt getting crumpled and CO's never happy with the turnout.

General Sir Samuel James Browne VC GCB KCSI (3 October 1824 – 14 March 1901) was a Indian Army cavalry officer in India and Afghanistan, known best as the namesake of the Sam Browne belt. He was a British recipient of the Victoria Cross.

He was born in Barrackpore, India, the son of Dr. John Browne, a surgeon of the Bengal Medical Service and his wife Charlotte.

At Seerporah, in an engagement with the Rebel Forces under Khan Allie Khan, on the 31st of August, 1858 Captain Samuel James Browne, Commandant of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, received a severe sword-cut wound on the left knee, and shortly afterwards another sword-cut wound, which severed the left arm at the shoulder.

Sometime after this incident he began to wear the accoutrement which bears his name, as compensation for the difficulty his disability caused with wearing his officer's sword. A Sam Browne belt is a wide belt, usually leather, supported by a narrower strap passing diagonally over the right shoulder; the diagonal strap stabilizes the scabbard of a sword if worn. Later such a belt would be adopted by other officers who knew Browne in India and thereafter became a part of the ceremonial attire of British, Indian and many Commonwealth Armies, now discontinued in the Indian Army.

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