The lanyard had a genuine purpose in war. It was originally a piece of cord, approximately a metre in length, used to secure a jack-knife which was issued to both the artillery and the cavalry. The knife had a number of uses; the blade was for cutting loose horses which became entangled in the head and heel ropes of the picket lines, and the spike of the knife was used as a hoof pick, for the removal of stones from horses hooves. A fuse key was also attached to the lanyard.

Hanging loose, the lanyard soon became dirty and for the day-to-day barrack routine it looked out of place on an otherwise smart uniform; so for peace time purposes the lanyard was plaited, and whitened with Blanco, to match both the white bandolier and the white waist belt worn by the gunners of the day. The lanyard was worn on the left shoulder with the end containing both the knife and fuse key tucked into the left breast pocket.

In 1920 the lanyard was moved to the right shoulder, simply because of the difficult problem of trying to remove the knife from the pocket underneath the bandolier. By now the bandolier and belt, worn with battle dress, had long ceased to be white, whilst the lanyard remained so.

The knife was removed in 1933 and the lanyard then became a straight cord, worn purely as an ornamental item of dress.

In 1955 it was, for a short time, reintroduced in the plaited style, but it quickly went back to the straight lanyard currently worn today.

There is simply no truth either to any other popular story regarding the Artillery's white lanyard.