Thus every day we were seeing knowledge drip away as these little pieces of our history are often discarded as 'interesting but unidentifiable'. Today many hundreds a year are discovered by metal detectorists, many of which are unknown and would remain unrecorded as there has not been anywhere to record and identify these items. Recording find spots of unusual or unknown types can help allocate identities to previously non-confirmed issues and can often be the crucial final piece of evidence needed.

Many of these units we know little about and often the only surviving artefacts we know of, to even physically show they ever existed, are their uniform buttons. Whilst there are some sites and books that deal with the Regular Regiments of Cavalry, Infantry and the few Corps of the period, there are very few on the ever expanding finds of these smaller irregular units. The Early British Military Button Project aims to record new finds and provide the most definitive resource of these artefacts and covers the militias, volunteers and yeomanry units.

Civil war navy buttons