RE/OTC/CLIFTON brass shoulder title.

Brass shoulder title , still retaining the original 3 rear loop fixings.

Interesting history about the the man who was the founder of this OTC is Major Henry “Harry” Clissold, DSO, RE — the man most associated with this exact unit:

• He was a schoolmaster at Clifton College and became Commanding Officer of the Clifton College Officer Training Corps, spending nearly three decades there before the war.

• When war broke out in 1914, his long OTC experience got him commissioned as a Temporary Major RE and tasked with raising and training the 1st South Midland Field Company from scratch.

• That unit went to France in April 1915, joined the 48th (South Midland) Division for the rest of the war, and fought at Bazentin Ridge, Pozières, the Ancre, and Langemarck.

• He won the DSO in 1916, explicitly cited for his long OTC service and rapid, efficient raising of the company.

• He was killed on 28 September 1917 near Ypres when a shell hit his dugout during a German barrage, killing him along with four sappers,  and is buried at Duhallow Advanced Dressing Station Cemetery.

So the badge isn’t just a generic school title, it’s the actual insignia of the OTC unit that produced one of the RE’s more notable Territorial Force company commanders of WW1, and it directly ties into the training pipeline that fed RE officers into the war.