Health and the Habitual Traveller in the 19th Century

Recently I’ve been contributing to a new series of stories, drawing on the archives of Lloyds’ Register – a fantastic archive, with a wealth of sources on many aspects of maritime, but also broader social, history. The full series can be found here: https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/stories/

Part of my remit for the series of posts was to delve into the photographic archive of Lloyds’ surveyors…with some magnificent beards on show. But it also got me thinking about some of the issues involved in health and travel. With their permission I’m sharing one of the posts, about advice for travellers from Victorian physicians. 

Today we are able to travel potentially thousands of miles in a single day, in a comfortable seat, served a meal, and hopefully arriving in good shape ready for a holiday or a business meeting. But as we explored in other posts, the surveyors of Lloyds’ Register were often required to undertake a great deal of travel in the course of their work, and sometimes over long distances. In the course of their work, were they putting themselves and their health in danger?

Many medical practitioners thought so. In the 19^th century, travelling, especially often, could be risky, uncomfortable and, as some argued, even dangerous to health. A range of books were becoming available aimed at the growing numbers of travellers, warning them of the potential dangers that could await them on a long journey if they did not take necessary precautions.

One example from 1883, The Book of Health gives a useful insight into the sorts of attitudes that medical practitioners held about travel. The book contained a detailed section by the University College Hospital physician J. Russell Reynolds titled ‘Travelling: its influence upon health’.  Here Reynolds was keen to set out different circumstances in which travel (which he defined as ‘all that is involved in locomotion’!) and how tey could be negotiated in order to make it as easy and painless as possible.

James Pollard – ‘The Louth-London Royal Mail, Travelling by Train from Peterborough East’ – Image from Wikimedia Commons/Google Art Project

One of the first issues he dealt with was the length of the journey. Shorter and infrequent journeys, he argued, were usually fine, and ‘travelling in moderation is a matter of utter indifference to the majority of people’. But if an individual was ‘utterly unaccustomed’ to traveling by road, rail, horse or boat, any number of ‘peculiar effects’ might be experienced, which might be painful, distressing or even dangerous. These could range from fatigue and muscle ache, to complete exhaustion, particularly if the only distance an individual was accustomed to was between their ‘bed, chair and chimney corner’.

If they weren’t used to it, the short sea voyage from Folkestone to France could be an ordeal and ‘a thing to be dreaded’. Long trips on crowded trains or bumpy carriages brought all manner of miseries, leaving people feeling giddy, looking pale and ‘disturbed for hours or days afterwards’ by the experience.

Image Copyright Wellcome Trust

But there were a second group of travellers, such as the Lloyds’ surveyors, for whom regular travel was part of their working life. As such, they faced different challenges. One was, argued Reynolds, simply the ‘dull monotony’ of regular journeys, which could make the traveller feel listless, tired and longing for a rest, not to mention the many petty annoyances caused by other travellers…something the modern commuter can sympathise with! Another was the issue of trying to focus on working and reading whilst on a journey, which ‘neither improves the brain or the mind’. The regular traveller was argued to often neglect food and diet, at the expense of his health, but worse still was the ‘fidgety anxiety and unrest’ caused by the journey.

Indeed, the ‘compulsory journeys’ of the commercial traveller, undertaken for business and not pleasure, were viewed as worst of all since the traveller had no control over his trip, and was simply forced to head off to far flung territories at the whims of his employer. This, said Reynolds, could only be injurious to his health and state of mind!

Once underway, or arrived at their destination, the unwary traveller faced different challenges, most notably the change of air, climate and food, each of which had the potential to leave them with a ‘tired brain and a disordered stomach’. Whilst ‘something really wholesome and palatable’ might be obtained in larger towns in Europe, ‘stale, hard cheese, some musty bread and sour beer’ was a constant hazard, and a heavy midday meal was ‘a terrible burden to the Englishman’! All manner of local diseases, to which the English traveller had no resistance, lurked in food, water and the environment, putting them at risk.

But it wasn’t all bad news, and there were also many potential health benefits. In fact, regular sea travellers were perhaps the best placed to enjoy them since going by sea was seen as the most beneficial. A long sea voyage, for example, might give the traveller a welcome escape from an unhealthy city environment, and an opportunity to rest. Whilst journeys by carriage or rail might be shorter, they were also potentially more uncomfortable, shorter and involved added stresses such as meeting connections, and less opportunity to relax, eat and read the newspaper. A journey by boat, however, promised long days out of reach of letter and newspaper, routine without monotony, and the restorative benefits of sea air. 

Travel and Quarantine in the 19th Century

Amongst the many impacts of COVID-19 has been the devastation of the travel industry, and its knock-on effects on the global economy. We are all having to think carefully about the ways we travel, not only internationally, but even around our own countries and communities. At the moment, a summer holiday in the sun seems like a long way off.

In Britain, one of the solutions being put in place as we tentatively begin to consider heading out again, is to impose a two-week quarantine on incoming travelers and tourists, in attempts to limit the spread or import of the virus. It all feels very odd in an age where we have become so used to travel that it has become easy, routine and even mundane. But it’s worth remembering that these issues and restrictions are not new, and that the dangers of epidemics have actually shaped travel, and affected individual travelers, for centuries. What was it like to be quarantined in the past? In 1892, a letter was sent to the Coventry Herald newspaper from a Mr W.H. Grant, a traveller to America, who found himself quarantined on a Canadian island in the midst of a deadly outbreak of Typhoid fever.

(Image of a ‘Beaver Line’ ship from WWW.NorwayHeritage.com/Gallery – creative commons licence)

Grant was headed for New York but, due to overcrowding on direct sailings, due to a cholera scare, he elected instead to go on one of the Beaver Line’s ships via Montreal, and finish his journey to NY by rail. Things immediately began to go wrong. The ship he boarded at Liverpool, the ‘SS Lake Huron’, was itself badly overcrowded and ‘taxed to its utmost capacity’, and they departed in bad weather and heavy seas. The ship had not even got as far as New Brighton, in Merseyside, when “a sort of mutiny occurred on board, culminating in a free fight between six or eight of the seamen and officers”. The ship was forced to anchor whilst a tug took the offenders away.

(Image of SS Lake Huron from WWW.NorwayHeritage.com/Gallery –  creative commons licence)

But worse was to come. It rapidly became clear that a serious infectious disease had broken out aboard the ‘Lake Huron’. This was initially “hushed up” and Grant reported that the crew were seen throwing dead bodies overboard with no ceremony when they thought “the act could not be observed by passengers”. When a steward came down with Typhoid fever, it was no longer possible to conceal the truth, and it became clear that the vessel would not be welcomed in port.

(Image ‘Man with Typhoid’ copyright Wellcome Trust, Wellcome Images)

On arrival in Quebec the SS Lake Huron was put into quarantine off an island in the St Lawrence River – “a veritable forest with rocks, valleys, mountains, bays and the most magnificent scenery imaginable”. After two days the passengers were ordered ashore “taking whatever baggage and things we should require” whilst the ship was disinfected. Hopes of a comfortable quarantine looked doubtful though. On landing, all sick passengers were transported to a hospital some distance away, whilst the rest of the passengers were led to clearing in a forest, occupied by whitewashed, one-story buildings, with no locks on the doors, nor separate areas for men and women. They were also dismayed to see nearby a “lonely graveyard in a swamp, where 5420 people were buried twenty-five years ago, within a few months having died of ship fever and cholera”.

With true Victorian efficiency, the passengers of the SS Lake Huron quickly took control of the situation and formed a management committee. Also, true to form though, this was not some egalitarian or Utopian commune, but strictly class divided, with all first- and second-class passengers having their own ‘shed’, subdivided into areas for men and women and children, and those from steerage in another “some distance off”. No need to have the poor near the posh!

Eager to restore some sense of ‘normality’ though, working parties of able men were quickly set up, who rigged up hammocks, cut down trees and even decorated the buildings with ferns and shrubs. Bonfires were made up to cook food, and dinner was served every evening at six o clock by the two cooks from the ship. In this version of ‘lockdown’ passengers soon began to make their own entertainment too. After two days Grant reported that people were busy rambling, exploring, hunting, swimming, and even organizing hill-climbing competitions. A variety of animals were captured including squirrels, snakes and titmice, providing diversion for the youngsters.

The threat of the disease remained, and three families from the steerage buildings were taken to hospital, but after a couple of weeks, Grant was hopeful of returning to the ship and onward to his destination. Here his letter ended, and it is not clear what happened next. (It’s also worth noting that this wasn’t to be the last time this particular ship was quarantined at Quebec: in 1899 an outbreak of smallpox on the ship caused a similar situation.) But whilst the detail and context of his story are unique, they still resonate. Even in unfamiliar circumstances, surrounded by the threat of contagion, and uncertain of the future, people still found a way to preserve some sense of ‘normality’.

(Image ‘Passengers on board ship undergoing quarantine examination, 1883’ copyright Wellcome Trust/Wellcome Images)

And this, without trying to sound glib, is where history IS useful – not necessarily so much in terms of particular approaches or responses, (and hopefully not in terms of the prospects for modern quarantine!) but more in reminding us that what we are experiencing now is not new. The past is strewn with epidemics. We routinely teach children about the Bubonic Plague: our very language is shot through with references to it…e.g. things we should avoid ‘like the plague’. Smallpox. Typhoid. Spanish Flu. Each obviously has its own context, its own effects and symptoms, and each leaves its mark in the collective memory. The important thing to remember, though, is that in time they pass. It might not feel like it at the moment, and the media love their ‘things will never be the same again’ headline-grabbers, but we will come out of the other side of this, hopefully stronger and better prepared for the next one.

The ‘Toilet Arts’: Men’s Personal Grooming and Advice Literature in the 19th Century.

One of the big themes of my research project, and of a large section of the forthcoming book, is the rise, over time, of shaving as part of men’s self-fashioning and personal grooming. One question that has interested me from the start is that of how men learnt to shave? Who told them what equipment to purchase, how to sharpen razors, make lather and avoid injuring themselves? Fraternal networks – dads and brothers, as well as male friends – were all strong potential sources of information about personal grooming in the past, much as they still are today.

Image from British Library Flickr, available under creative commons

But I’ve also been interested in advice literature for men. The eighteenth century saw the rise of polite conduct literature, instructing young ladies and gentlemen in how to look and behave properly in public. This often included general instructions on dress and appearance, manners, speech and deportment, and even posture and how to stand properly. But before the nineteenth century there was generally more conduct literature available for women than men.

The early decades of the nineteenth century, however, saw conduct literature gradually replaced by a more general kind of advice literature, along the lines of ‘How to be a Lady/Gentleman’. I’ve been scouring as many as I could find to see if they offered anything more on what were sometimes referred to as the ‘toilet arts’! In particular, I wondered if there might be any evidence for how to look after beards, particularly at the height of the Victorian ‘beard movement’. What were the expectations surrounding cleaning, fashioning or cutting facial hair, and general expectations of appearance?

In general, over-attention to appearance was regarded with suspicion, and some advice literature cautioned men not to fuss too much in front of the mirror. As The English Gentleman, His Feelings, His Manners, His Pursuits of 1849 cautioned men that ‘directly you begin to be over-careful and elaborate in your dress, and give yourself a finical and effeminate appearance, from that hour do you commence vulgarity”. Although he should never be slovenly, a man should think no more about his appearance once he had left the dressing room and, once in public, should ‘avoid looking in the mirror’ or a window to check appearance!

Sometimes advice on personal cleanliness could appear in gentlemanly advice literature, although the amount and form varied greatly with each publication. The Gentleman’s Manual of Modern Etiquette (1844) for example, instructed men that the “flesh, teeth and nails should be cleansed at regular intervals”, and the nails in particular should “never be permitted to grow to an offensive length”.  Arthur Blenkinsopp’s A Shiling’s Worth of Advice on Manners, Behaviour and Dress (1850) noted also that faces, hair and teeth should be kept scrupulously clean.

(Author’s own image – original document copyright British Library)

One of my favourites is the ominously-titled ‘Don’t: A Manual of Mistakes and Improprieties More or Less Prevalent in Conduct and Speech’ which, as the name suggests, was all about how NOT to do it. Personal grooming was singled out for a barricade of ‘DON’Ts’! These included not using hair dye, since ‘the colour is not like nature, and deceives no one.’ The use of hair oil by men was ‘considered vulgar, and it is certainly not cleanly’. But, perhaps more importantly:

“DON’T neglect personal cleanliness – which is more neglected than careless       observers suppose.

DON’T neglect the details of the toilet. Many persons, neat in other particulars, carry blackened fingernails. This is disgusting. DON’T neglect the small hairs that project from the nostrils and grow around the apertures of the ears…”

If men had beards or whiskers they should be careful to wash them after smoking, and should not get into the habit of “pulling your whiskers, adjusting your hair, or otherwise fingering yourself’!

Others contained useful titbits about shaving kit. L.P. Lamont’s Mirror of Beauty (1830) contained a useful recipe for the ‘Genuine Windsor Shaving Soap’, along with instructions as to how to put the melted soap into a shaving box, to use while travelling, or for convenience, whilst Charles Gilman Currier’s The Art of Preserving Health reminded men that the beard ought to be washed very often and should be kept clean.

Specific advice about shaving beards and whiskers was more likely to be found in specific publications dedicated to the task. These came in many forms: in the eighteenth century the first shaving manuals were published by cutlers and razor makers such as Jean-Jacques Perret and Benjamin Kingsbury. Over time these began to proliferate, and included everything from instructions given out with shaving products to manuals dedicated to shaving and personal grooming more generally. There are too many to include here in detail, but a few examples will illustrate the themes.

(Author’s own image – original document copyright British Library)

The alluringly titled Gentleman’s Companion to the Toilet of 1844, for example, by the anonymous ‘London Hair Dresser’, contained a raft of useful information for shavers, from how to choose, strop and sharpen a razor, and the proper way to use it. Debates raged around whether shaving with hot or cold water was better: the author of the Gentleman’s Companion was in no doubt that hot water was the only way to ‘soften the beard or improve the edge of the razor’. Another useful section dealt with which shaving soap to pick. The best strategy, argued the author, was to ignored the advertising puffs (“There are many soaps which are ‘puffed off’ as “the best article manufactured for shaving”…but some of them are utterly worthless”). He also advised sticking to the widely available Naples soap, and avoiding alkali soaps, with their light and frothy lather, which would “much annoy you by [causing] those irritating pains which are frequently felt after shaving with a bad razor”.

(Author’s own image – original document copyright British Library)

Edwin Creer’s Popular Treatise on the Hair argued that men risked their health if they neglected cleanliness of their beards, since facial hair “collects dirt, smoke and dust from the atmosphere…and were it not that the beard intercepts those particles, they might otherwise find their way to some internal organ”. Creer also argued that occasional shaving could be useful in strengthening the beard, but preferred to let nature run its course.

Nevertheless, styling, brushing and trimming the beard and whiskers was also recommended. As Creer noted, the ‘cut’ of the beard was everything: it should neither be ‘short and scrubby’ nor long and unkempt. Equally important in preserving the lustre and appearance of a full beard was that it should be well kept. Dedicated ‘whisker brushes’ were available to comb out the tangles and remove errant particles of food. It was, after all, hard to look like a gentleman with bits of dinner lodged in the prolix fronds!

Throughout the nineteenth century, then, gentlemanly grooming was seen as important, and facial hair, whether shaving it off or beautifying the beard, was an important part of this. Perhaps the final word belongs to The Hairdresser’s Chronicle in October 1871, which contained the following, under the title ‘How to Begin the Day:

“Be very careful to attire yourself neatly; ourselves, like our salads, are always the better for a good dressing. Shave unmistakeably before you descend from your room; chins, like oysters, should have their beards taken off before being permitted to go down…”!

Beard Sculpting in the 19th Century.

Over the course of the past four or five years or so, one of the biggest growth areas in the personal grooming industry has been in products for cleaning, styling, or beautifying the beard. A whole host of options are now available, including beard oils, moisturisers and styling waxes, specially dedicated beard trimmers, and even templates, offering a myriad of different options for sculpting the preferred look.

As I’ve been studying the history of men’s personal grooming in the past, I was interested to see if beard grooming was just a modern thing, or if there was a historical precedent. The obvious place to start was in the Victorian period, when large numbers of men were sporting prodigious facial hair. Surely, with all these huge beards on show, keeping them pristine must have been important?

As I’ve mentioned many times in other posts, the Victorian beard was a statement of manliness. It spoke of supposed natural male authority, strength and even virility.  It was, as H.W. said in 1855, in his article ‘Beards and their Bearers’, a “cherished ornament”. And this was a case where bigger was regarded as better. Men were extolled to let their beards grow long, full and ‘natural’, an outward symbol of the power that lay within.

(Unidentified man from a Victorian carte d’visit – author’s own collection)

But therein also lay an important point. The emphasis upon ‘natural’ suggested that, rather than being clipped, shaped, oiled or waxed, beards should be left to do their own thing, as prolix and rampant as possible. In the early 1850s, there were sustained attacks on shaving, which was set up as a potentially dangerous act – one that robbed the body of a key source of protection against dust or germs but, even more importantly, sapped the strength from a man’s body. With shades of the Biblical character Sampson, the American Presbyterian minister and dietary reformer Sylvester Graham argued in 1849 that the “habitual shaving of the beard diminish[ed] the physiological powers of man”.

At the same time as attacks on shaving, came stern warnings to men about the dangers of artifice in appearance. Whilst they should by no means be slovenly, neither should men be too absorbed or finical in their appearance ‘from whence commences vulgarity’. There were also sexual connotations. Victorian men who spent too much time in front of a mirror, or were too keen on cosmetics, risked suspicions of effeminacy.

(Advertisement for Hovenden and Sons in the Hairdresser’s Chronicle – author’s own image)

But this is not to say that beard care was entirely absent from discussion. Men’s etiquette and conduct manuals did contain some advice about how to manage and care for a beard. Above all things, most authors agreed that beards should be kept clean.

Brushing was important, not only in keeping the beard luxuriant and shiny, but also in rescuing small bits of food that had become trapped in the undergrowth. As the authors of ‘Good Manners’ suggested in 1870, “The beard should be carefully and frequently washed, well-trimmed and well combed, and the hair and whiskers kept scrupulously clean, by the help of clean, stiff hair brushes, and soap and warm water”.

Special ‘whisker brushes’ were available to do the job properly, advertised in newspapers. In one advertisement in the Greenock Advertiser, ‘whisker brushes’ could be bought for the knock-down price of five and a half pence. In Bell’s Weekly Messenger in December 1850, ‘whisker brushes’ were included in a broader advertisement for ‘Christmas Presents this Month’. Clearly the ideal present for the whiskerando who has everything!

A little trimming or clipping was permissible, to keep everything neat and tidy since having a scruffy, unkempt beard suggested slovenliness, and it was considered ‘quite the usual business of a man’s person to trim the beard’. For those who could afford it, a valet or manservant might also do the job. As Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Managementpointed out, a good valet should “brush the hair, beard and moustache, where that appendage is encouraged, arranging the whole simply and gracefully according to the age and style of countenance”.

(Image Copyright of Wellcome Collection)

Applying any cosmetics to the beard, though, was actively frowned upon, and there were even some suggestions that the products themselves were unpleasant. An article in the Hairdresser’s Journal in July 1868 noted the use of iron dye, containing hydrosulphate of ammonia and hartshorn for colouring beards and moustaches but noted that the ‘abominable odour’ and ‘putrid smell’ of the ingredients meant that ‘any fellow who would apply this hateful thing to his facial hair must be strong of stomach, and not over delicate as to the sense of smelling’.

Indeed, although there were many (often delicately scented) products for shaving available across the nineteenth century, there are only fleeting references to cosmetic products specifically for beards.

Nineteenth-century men, then, didn’t really go in for beard sculpting, in the belief that the beard was best left to grow ‘natural. And whilst today the idea that beards might be dirty still resurfaces from time to time, the Victorians had that covered. As ‘Xerxes’ wrote in the Folly and Evil of Shaving in 1854, “the beard keeps away nearly the whole of the dirt from the face, [and] does not prevent soap and water from penetrating beneath it to remove what dirt may accumulate there”. As such, they reasoned, “it follows that that portion of the face covered by the beard must be cleaner than the part not so covered, as well as cleaner than the head”. So, there you have it. Bearded men are the cleanest around!

Uncovered: The First ever Beard and Moustache Competition?!

Last week, hordes of hirsute men descended upon Antwerp in hopes of securing a prize at the World Beard and Moustache Championships. This has become a major event, attracting thousands of entrants, and headlines all across the world. It has also spawned a whole host of smaller versions which, again, prove extremely popular. (I can speak from experience here, having been lucky enough to be a guest judge in the Devon and Cornwall beard and moustache competition a couple of years ago!) The first world championship was held in 1990.

(Image my copyright)

But, quite by accident, whilst trawling through Victorian journals in the British Library, I’ve chanced upon an earlier example than that. In fact, quite a lot earlier. Actually… nearly 150 years ago!

In 1873, advertisements began to appear in newspapers around the country for “The First Beard and Moustache Show” to be held at North Woolwich Gardens in London on 30 July. The idea came from its proprietor – William Holland – theatre owner, impresario, and regular organiser of public entertainments for working class East Londoners. With thanks to Lee Jackson, (owner of the fab Victorian London site, and author of ‘Palaces of Pleasure’) for sharing some of his gems, amongst Holland’s other recent events had been a ‘beautiful baby’ show and even a ‘Barmaid show’, which involved being served drinks by different barmaids and voting for whichever you thought was the best!

(A Victorian pleasure garden, c. 1850 – image from Wikimedia Commons)

The advertisements advised suitably bearded men (and the public) of the date and venue, and Holland clearly had hopes of attracting a big audience. Prize medals were promised for all winners, and the event was to be judged by a “jury of ladies”, drawn at random from the expected crowds, who were to determine the “best cultivated hirsute appendage”!

Generally, the idea seemed to be quite well received. A journalist in the Sporting Times wrote of his disappointment at not being able to attend the event, fully supporting the need for such a show, and even offering advice for the judges. It was not necessarily the biggest, longest or thickest beard or moustache that should win, he suggested, but whichever’s “colour, form and cut” was most aesthetically pleasing. But, noting the comments of a female friend who pointed out that, as a rule, ladies preferred “plenty of hair on the male subject”, he seemed resigned to the fact that the “shaggiest monster” would likely win the prize!

A hack in the East London Observer was less impressed. “The novelty of the thing will no doubt make it a profitable speculation, but what about those who go to show themselves and, still more, who are they who will go to look at them? Beards and moustaches, disgusting”.

According to one report there were around thirty entrants. Unable to attend on the day, one hairy hopeful, apparently a “Mr Charles Chaplin, resident somewhere in Essex” (but unlikely to be THAT Charles Chaplin!) even sent a “specimen of his beard” by post, which was over forty inches long. Another entrant claimed to have a moustache that dangled down sixteen inches on either side of his face…an impressive 32 inches from end to end!

Despite this promising start, however, it seems that things didn’t necessarily go so well on the day. First, it seemed that the event had not attracted the large audience that it probably merited, and reports suggested that it was quite thinly attended.

(A late 19th-century ‘carte d’visit of an unknown gentleman – image my copyright)

But worse still, sniffy reports also appeared in the press suggesting that the show itself hadn’t exactly been a rip-roaring success. According to Reynolds’ Newspaperon the 3^rdAugust, there were only six competitors; five who showed up on the night, plus the man entering by post. The winner was one “Mr Gordon, blessed with a fine, glossy, flowing beard”. But in the moustache category there was only one entrant – a moustachioed man with a wooden leg, forcing Mr Holland to stand in order to at least make a contest of it. Holland was apparently renowned for his own trademark moustache, and “Holland’s points [were] known all over London”. According to the report, “the prize was generously conceded to the gentleman short of a limb”.

It was also reported in The Era, quoting Mr Holland himself, that some of the competitors proved nervous and reluctant to submit themselves to judgement. Candidate number one took the stage “looking very foolish and trembling at the knees”. Number four had “nothing worth calling a beard”, and the facial hair of another was “scrubbiest among the scrubby”. Only Mr Gordon, the eventual winner, stood out, “proudly conscious of his hairy superiority”. It was noted that, rather than staying to enjoy the approbation of the ‘crowd’, the entrants were keen to make their exit as swiftly and expediently as possible.

(detail from ‘A Bearded Dandy Admiring the Ladies through his Monocle – from Wellcome Images)

Neither, it seems, were the jury of 12 ladies entirely enamored of their new role, appearing reluctant to touch the entrants’ hairy appendages, and generally seeming embarrassed to be there. All in all, as reports in several newspapers attested in similar terms –  “it wasn’t much of a success”.

If all this is true, it begs the question as to why? Why in what was, after all, a golden age for the beard, did Mr Holland’s innovative event not capture the public’s imagination and become a celebrated and regular event? The answer, I think, is simply that his timing was out.

By 1873, the great Victorian ‘beard movement’ was in its third decade – a long time for any fashion. The young bucks who formed its vanguard in 1853 were, by now, hurtling headlong into middle age. Some of the arguments made in support of the beard, once so compelling, had now began to lose their potency. As I’ve discovered in the process of my project on the history of facial hair too, by the last quarter of the 19th century, younger men were beginning to return to the shorter, neater styles of facial hair and, indeed, to the shaved face.

Sadly, it is likely that Mr Holland’s groundbreaking Beard and Moustache Show was probably around 15 years too late. To be fair, it doesn’t seem to have dampened his spirits, and he continued to put on all sorts of weird and wonderful entertainments for the discerning folk of London. So, out of respect to him and his innovative ideas, let’s instead say that William Holland was ahead of his time, and that it took the rest of the world 117 years to catch up!

 

 

What About Whiskers? The forgotten facial hair fashion of 19th-century Britain.

In 1843, an article appeared in the New Orleans ‘Picayune’ newspaper, titled ‘Whiskers. Or, a clean shave’. Dwelling on their utility as ‘ornamental appendages to the human face’, the authors sought to discuss how they contributed to the ‘”masculineness” of manhood’. They even – jokingly – referred to an, as yet undeveloped branch of natural sciences; ‘Whiskerology’.

Victorian carte d’visit depicting unknown man with HUGE whiskers – recently used in our ‘Age of the Beard’ exhibition

Taking a long view of facial hair fashions since the 17^th century, it’s broadly true that beards and moustaches began to decline after around 1680, and disappeared completely through the eighteenth century, until, first the moustache, and then the beard returned with full vigour in the middle of the nineteenth century. So, from bearded, to beardless and back again in around 200 years.

But that’s actually not quite the case. Around the turn of the nineteeth century, male facial hair made what might be regarded as an initial skirmish, before the full frontal facial assault of the 1850s. It was not long-lived; by no means was there a ‘whisker movement’. But, for the first decade of the 19^th century, whiskers were definitely a ‘thing’.

There is sometimes confusion about what whiskers actually are, and how they differ from beards. Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably. Even in contemporary articles whiskers could be used as a catch-all for beards or for beard hairs. But technically they refer to different things. Whilst beards are of the cheeks and chin, whiskers are specific to the sides of the face, and jawline. Also, whilst beards are generally a single entity, whiskers, like moustaches, come as a pair.

(Image from Wikipedia: Edward Askew Southern as ‘Lord Dundreary’)

The fashion for whiskers seems to have begun quite abruptly around 1800. There were sneering reports, for example, of a new trend amongst young men about town, for cultivating their side -whiskers, and showing them off in public. To a polite society still embracing ideals of neatness and smooth, manly elegance, this was little less than scandalous. The desirability of whiskers, however, was such that the wigmaker Ross of Bishopsgate took to the Times to advertise his new contrivance of a wig with whiskers attached through ‘such remarkable adhesion as cannot be discovered from Nature itself’. This ‘new invented whisker’ could be combed to suit any fashion, but came at the high price of three pounds and three shillings – a full pound dearer than his standard, un-whiskered perukes

By 1808, so popular had whiskers become, that even women were apparently trying to get in on the act. Several fashion journals (such as the popular ‘Le Belle Epoque’) reported a coming trend for ladies to train their lovelocks down the side of their faces ‘in imitation of whiskers’. For some this was a step too far. ‘I am at a loss to conceive what a gentleman will be pleased with in a lady’s whiskers’. Nonetheless, this was clearly a popular fashion. Whether it was ‘The Countess Dowager of B—s whiskers’ which were apparently ‘already in great forwardness’, or the ‘belles of Cockermouth’, a set of whiskers was seriously a la mode. At one stage it was suggested that an enterprising perfumer was even selling preparations ‘To Ladies of Fashion ‘who have tried various preparations for changing the hair, whiskers and eyebrows, without success’, but this proved to be an error of phrasing, as the Satirist magazine were happy to poke fun at!

There were certainly products aimed specifically at cultivating whiskers though. By 1808, ‘Prince’s Russia Oil’ and ‘Macassar Oil’ were in demand, and advertisers claimed that they were specifically designed to ‘promote whiskers’ and prevent damage or discolouration caused by frequent wetting.

Some of the arguments made for whiskers during this period were also in fact remarkably similar to those later made for beards. Echoing later claims for the innate masculinity of beards, whiskers were said to be ‘grave and manly’. Whiskers had been venerated by ‘the ancients’, lending them an air of authority and wisdom. It was, as one commentator noted, ‘silly to oppose so ancient a custom in an age so attached to antiquity’. Moreover, the ‘cruelty of shaving’ was matched by the dangers of the shaking hands of ‘unskilled operators’ (barbers). Most of all, it was argued, whiskers were beautiful, especially when set against the ‘unfringed faces of the present day’.

(Image from Pinterest – owner of original copyright unknown)

At the same time whiskers were beginning to be held up as a desirable characteristic of the male face. A man obtaining goods under false pretences was described in 1811 as of ‘gentlemanly appearance’, and of ‘handsome countenance, who wears black whiskers’. A report of the suicide of Royal Footman Andrew Tranter in 1810 noted his reputation for ‘neatness and cleanliness’ in his dress and appearance, and that he ‘wore very large whiskers and was considered a handsome young man’. Such seemingly innocuous reports in fact hides an important transition; after more than a century, facial hair was again aesthetically and socially pleasing but, more than this, cleanly.

In 1813, ‘The Spirit of Public Journals’ reported the ‘Growing custom of encouraging whiskers’ and the barbed criticisms levelled at them by critics. It was apparently even suggested that an Act of Parliament should be made to curtail the fashion. Even then, the subject of male facial hair was contentious! Fortunately, the author argued, the ‘Whiskerandos’ outnumbered their tormentors and merely increased in proportion to the opposition levelled against them.

Despite the ‘Spirit’s enthusiasm, however, it seems that the fashion for side-whiskers had abated by the end of the 1810s. It’s not clear why it declined; perhaps Victorian society was not quite ready for the hirsute revolution of the mid century. But it is interesting to consider whiskers, not only as a sort of trial run for what came later, but also as an often-forgotten element in men’s facial hair fashions. It wasn’t all beards and moustaches.

(Image from Pinterest – owner of original copyright unknown)

As the current beard style continues to change, at the moment with beards seemingly getting smaller and more closely trimmed, will we see the return of such fantastic styles as the ‘Dundreary’ whiskers or (please no!) the ‘chin curtain’? Perhaps the Whiskerandos will rise again. If they do, you can be sure that this particular ‘Whiskerologist’ will be there to document it.

Announcing…’The Age of the Beard”

I’m delighted to be able to announce the launch, in November 2016, of the exhibition linked to my Wellcome Trust project on the history of facial hair in Britain.

Between Mid November and March 2017, the Florence Nightingale Museum in London will host ‘The Age of the Beard’ – a photographic exhibition of some of the finest examples of Victorian facial hair, along with a range of other fantastic exhibits including Victorian razors and shaving paraphernalia, advertising and all sorts of other beard-related facts and figures.

(Henry Wellcome, to whom I owe my career! – copyright Wellcome Images)

Along with the exhibition will be a series of public events, including talks, family activities and even a production of the pantomime ‘Bluebeard’.

Full details are available from the museum’s website here

I hope that many of you can come and join us, and celebrate the golden age of the hirsute face that was Victorian Britain!