Can You Have a Beard in the Navy
When razors finally flood the streets of Hoxton and Shoreditch and the hipsters emerge clean shaven, rightful ownership of the beard will return to the Royal Navy.
For over three millennia seafarers have been pictured sporting total sets - with pottery from ancient Greece and Phoenicia oftentimes painted with the exploits of bearded sailors.
Leaping forrard to 1519 the face of the human who led the first voyage to circumnavigate the globe, Ferdinand Magellan, was festooned with grey hair. However with only 18 of the 237 men returning alive from the expedition it'southward little wonder shaving wasn't a priority.
Getting to the Brits, Sir Francis Drake - crewman, privateer, slaver and scourge of the Spanish - carried off a particularly fine, pointy example. Buried at body of water in 1596 wearing full armour and with a full set, to this solar day divers go on to wait off the coast of Panama for his pb coffin.
Amongst the sailing, and piratical fraternity beards were yet very much the club of the solar day in 1716 when a certain Edward Teach rose to notoriety. Better known as Blackbeard his short but spectacular career saw him terrorise the Caribbean, described by his contemporary Captain Charles Johnson thus:
"And then our Heroe, Captain Teach, assumed the Cognomen of Black-beard, from that large Quantity of Hair, which, similar a frightful Shooting star, covered his whole Face, and frightened America more than any Comet that has appeared there a long Time. This Beard was blackness, which he suffered to grow of an extravagant Length; as to Breadth, it came upwards to his Optics; he was accustomed to twist it with Ribbons, in pocket-size Tails."
In the 1870s the facial furniture of Majestic Navy sailors came under the scrutiny of none other than Queen Victoria herself.
Whilst her personal preference was for beards without a moustache, those "offering a rather soldierlike appearance", she ordered the First Lord of the Admiralty that in the example of sailors only "an unabridged bristles... kept short and very make clean" would suffice, adding that "on no business relationship should moustaches be allowed without beards. That must exist clearly understood."
Information technology was an club Victoria's grandson George, later King George V, took very seriously. Handed over to the Navy to educate at the pre-pubescent age of 12 the immature man grew a slap-up bristles in his tardily teens.
Serving on the likes of HMS Bacchante, and later commanding Torpedo Boat 79, HMS Thrush and finally HMS Melampus in 1891, his natty beard proved something of a trademark.
Almost a century after, having sunk the Argentine flagship, the General Belgrano, and triumphantly flight a Jolly Roger, HMS Conqueror sailed into her home port of Faslane with the majority of her officers gathered atop the fin wearing cracking full sets.
Current Imperial Navy rules prepare exacting standards for those sailors who wish to proceed the tradition, all clearly laid out in 'The Queen's Regulations for the Purple Navy', paragraph 3818.
First upwardly, the gentleman in question must request the permission of his Commanding Officeholder to grow a bristles and it must be "kept neatly trimmed peculiarly, at the lower cervix and cheekbones."
Non simply that simply "It is within the subjective sentence of the Control to define an acceptable appearance of a beard, as much depends on the features of the individual."
Not permitted, even so, is 'Designer Stubble', defined equally hair shorter in length than two.5mm, nor 'Extended or Hipster Beards', defined every bit being more than 25.5mm in length.
"A beard should exist of a length that does not extend beyond the top part of the collar front end of a service shirt. More specifically, if the Naval serviceman was wearing a shirt and tie, the beard would not obscure the knot of the tie. The breadth of the bristles should non exceed the maximum width of the line between the Naval serviceman's ears."
Too out are 'Beards taking an excessive time to grow', so bad news for the more follicly challenged. If you can't "grow a sufficiently thorough beard" in a fortnight the Captain will be waving a Gillette (other brands of razor are available).
Operational reasons have as well seen blanket orders for sailors to shave, usually when conditions mean breathing apparatus may take to be worn. Whiskers can forestall the rubber of gas masks forming a good seal around the face, leaving the wearer at risk.
It's partly for this reason that since 1985 the likes of the US Navy has insisted that all its sailors are clean shaven.
So United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland may have a shrinking Majestic Navy, down to simply 77 ships from a peak of one,400 at the outbreak of the Second World War, merely at least when it comes to beards Britannia however rules the waves.
As for the Royal Marines... well that story will have to look for another day.
Source: https://www.forces.net/news/beard-royal-navy-tradition
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