This included the presidency armies of the East India Company from 1757 onwards (along with the succeeding British Indian Army), [52] and colonial units from Canada.

This tendency towards variations in appearance, commented on by contemporary observers, would subsequently be compounded by weather bleaching and soaking. The ready availability of red pigment made it popular for military clothing, and the dying process required for red involved only one stage. The British Army underwent significant changes during the eighteenth century, mainly to ensure they would be able to perform well in the numerous wars that Great Britain participated in during the century, such as the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, and the French Revolutionary Wars. The significance of military red as a national symbol was endorsed by King William IV (reigned 1830–1837) when light dragoons and lancers had scarlet jackets substituted for their previous dark blue, hussars adopted red pelisses and even the Royal Navy were obliged to adopt red facings instead of white. The earliest reference to the association with the lobster appears in 1740, just before the French and Indian War.While on campaign, the army would gather a large group of followers ranging from sutlers, who would sell commodities to the soldiers, to the wives and women who chose to follow their men into war. Although scarlet is the primary colour of the tunic, its piping is white, and the unit's facing colours appear on the tunic's collar, cuffs, and shoulder straps.

During the 18th century the weapon of choice was the Brown Bess musket which had been used by the army since the 1730s. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well—and, indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William’s in his regimentals. A normal private soldier may have been paid 8d if serving with a Regiment of Foot but received almost 2s 6d if enlisted with the cavalry.However the extensive use of this colour by British, Indian and other Imperial soldiers over a period of nearly three hundred years made red uniform a veritable icon of the British Empire. Even after the adoption of khaki Service Dress in 1902, most British infantry regiments (81 out of 85) and some cavalry regiments (12 out of 31) [44] continued to wear scarlet tunics on parade and for off-duty "walking out dress", until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

An 1823 recipe for dying 60 pounds (lbs) - about 27 kg - of military woollen cloth lists: 1 lb of cochineal, 3 lbs madder, 6 lbs argol ( potassium tartrate), 3 lbs alum, 4 pints tin liquor ( stannous chloride), 6 lbs cudbear ( orcein) and two buckets of urine. O'Sullivan alludes to two other encounters in which Irish rebels defeated English forces wearing 'red coats'. During the 19th century, several volunteer militias in New Zealand wore a variety of scarlet, dark blue, or green tunics, closely following the contemporary uniforms of the British Army. Life in the army was extremely disciplined [31] and even minor matters of misconduct did not go unpunished. There is no known basis for the myth that red coats were favoured because they did not show blood stains.The weights often quoted in contemporary documents are given per running yard, though; so for a cloth of 54" width a yard weighed 24 oz. These include the Australian, Jamaican, New Zealand, Fijian, Canadian, Kenyan, Ghanaian, Indian, Singaporean, Sri Lankan and Pakistani armies.