Barrow in Furness Mystery Ancestor in (now identified) uniform

awmc1: This looks like an officer's uniform from the Order of St John of Jerusalem, The Knights Hospitaler (aka St John Ambulance) - the medal is certainly the Order of St John.
However, the hemet looks more like a police helmet and the sword confuses me, as a Hospitaler wouldn't normally have had one. Maybe someone else knows for sure.

dlundbech:
Thank you for that information. Any guess as to time period?

awmc1:
Sorry, not really. The style of the helmet seems to be late 19th century - but civil uniforms are very hard to date.

ajw423uk:
That lion is the badge of the King's Own Royal Regiment, the local regiment for Lancaster. Couldn't he be an officer in that regiment? Infantry regiments did wear a police style helmet in the late 19th/early 20th century ( still do in fact, for the bands).

awmc1:
In that time Barrow would have been considered part of Lancashire - so that would make sense. The medal is certainly 'Order of St John', perhaps he was wearing his chivalric order on his military uniform.

dlundbech:
So......if he was in the army (the King's Royal Regiment is a Lancaster army division?) would it be allowable to add other emblems?

awmc1:
I guess that what people are allowed to do and what they actually do in personal photographs are two different things. I'm no expert, but I understand that chivalric orders and invested orders (like knighthoods etc) can be worn with military dress-uniforms