South Australian Volunteers
Both these uniform buttons are for the South Australian Volunteers, which Cossum dates as 1860-1880 (my dating is 1861-1877). The puzzle is that the family tailoring firm, for many years the sole government uniform supplier, did not change their name from G. & W. Shierlaw to Shierlaw & Co until after 1890, as explained in the article below:
However, this article was slightly inaccurate. William Shierlaw placed this notice in 1891, and also placed a new advert:
This doesn’t explain the dating of the white-metal button. Digging into the records further, I discovered an alternate name to the firm at the same address:
There were references to Messrs Shierlaw & Co in various articles during the 1870s, so perhaps they were known colloquially by that name, even if it did not change legally until 1891.
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