North British relic?

Hi,
this has been asked elsewhere.
This relic is a metal detector find; I would say it has clearly got the N.B.R. motif of the North British. It does not seem to be a normal button and it was found in Northern Ireland and was found in a place where a number of Victorian military buttons have been found, this doesn't necessarily mean they are connected.
Does anybody recognise what it is? I realise the range of items which got railway branding is wide, covering every aspect of human activity of the age.
Any thoughts?

 

Is that green verdigris or enamel? I certainly know of no historic Irish railway company with those initials (you can rule out the BNCR .... theirs always included the 'C' and looked nothing like that one) and can't find a remotely clear photo (even on an auction site) of a North British uniform online. Nor do I know of any likely connection or event which would involve uniformed NBR staff visiting Ireland.

Here's a link to the NBR Study Group, who could definitely rule your find in or out:
http://www.nbrstudygroup.co.uk/

It looks a bit too old to be connected with the National Bus and Railworkers Union and I can find no 'Regiment' or 'Reserve' with those initials.

I hope someone on here can be more helpful. Best of luck with your search.

 

Given the 4-leaf clover border and the location in Northern Ireland I wonder if it could be an NI railway company such as Newry Belfast Railway ?

 

I wondered about a local railway connection, but we're firmly in ex-GNRI territory and certainly no constituent company (at formation in 1876) bore those initials. Those were:
Ulster Railway (inc 1836 originally built to 6'-2" gauge)
Irish North Western Railway formed (in 1862) from:
:: Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway (1849)
:: Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway (1854)
Dublin and Drogheda Railway (1836 originally 5'-2" gauge)
Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway (inc 1845 AFAIK originally 5'-2")
(These last two merged as the Northern Railway of Ireland, a year before the GNRI was formed)

Smaller concerns amalgamated later were:
Newry and Armagh Railway (1864-1879)
Belfast Central Railway (1875-1885)
Newry, Warrenpoint and Rostrevor Railway (1846-1886)

Whether any component of any of these ever started life with the initials NBR I don't know, but there were certainly none which operated any form of service.

The only other player in the area was the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway, formed from the Dundalk and Greenore Railway plus the Newry and Greenore Railway, both acquired and merged into the DN&G by the LNWR in 1867 and which remained independent of, though latterly operated by, the GNRI.

Four leafed clovers are symbolic in many Northern European folk cultures, but the good old Shamrock carries more meaning in Ireland.

I hope the OP (@whitlow ) checks back on his thread, as some indication of whether the emerald green remnant on the find was enamelling or merely verdigris after all it's years in the ground would help!

 

Deleted

(slight editing issue. Try typing ":: D" without the space between the colons and the 'D'. Took me a few trys to suss it!)

 

I don't think the green colour is enamelling, just the normal green verdigris.
I had two thoughts and been discussed elsewhere:
1, did North British Railway have cross Irish Sea shipping interests? Could the badge be from a seamans' uniform?
2, another common explanation given for buttons turning up in unexpected places, is that textile waste was used as an agricultural fertiliser (more correctly "soil conditioner"), buttons would obviously end up left in the mix even if they were systematically removed. It was never considered a high grade fertiliser and would unlikely have been transported far or oversea.

 

Cheers for the info @whitlow . Regarding the North British Railway uniform, I'm afraid I can only refer you back to my post [#2].

The NBR did operate the West Highland Railway (Glasgow Queen St - Craigendoran - Fort William - Mallaig) between opening in 1894 and grouping in 1923, so some shipping interests aren't beyond the realms of possibility.

Edit: Just turned up that the NBR ran a steamer service on the Clyde to the Isle of Arran, but why anything from there would've turned up in Ulster is beyond me!

 

Of course we have all digressed slightly, as in my initial post and pictures the relic doesn't seem to be a normal button, it may not be a button at all but it has only been denoted as such for descriptive ease. The motif is the significant detail.

 

The NBR ran some services to Silloth, near carlisle. There were steamer services to Liverpool and some to Dublin.