Etiquette of Wartime Beards

Twenty-five years ago, the fashion of shaving was so tyrannical and bigoted that the Englishman who wore a beard was looked upon as revolutionary in politics and heretical in faith. Archbishop Tait, a most liberal prelate, when Bishop of London, forbade a clergyman of the highest character to read prayers in his own church on the occasion of a confirmation, because he let the hair grow on his upper lip. – Above, an 1891 patent for a mustache spoon. These types of spoons supposedly helped keep soups off of the popular Gilded Age beards, too.

It is reported that a recent order allows the British soldier to do as he pleases about shaving. He can now suffer a natural growth to conceal the least shapely part of his face and protect important organs of life. The permission marks the highest reach of the beard movement in England.

Yet twenty-five years ago, the fashion of shaving was so tyrannical and bigoted that the Englishman who wore a beard was looked upon as revolutionary in politics and heretical in faith. Archbishop Tait, a most liberal prelate, when Bishop of London, forbade a clergyman of the highest character to read prayers in his own church on the occasion of a confirmation, because he let the hair grow on his upper lip.

Lord Chief Justice Bruce refused to hear a bearded young lawyer, who attempted to address him. Merchants forbade beards to their clerks. A London bank issued an edict that “Gentlemen were not to wear beards or mustaches during office-hours.” Congregations refused to hear the sermons of ministers who appeared as, doubtless, the Master did, with their faces. unshorn of their natural growth of hair.

Even in the United States, the beard-movement encountered fierce and foolish opposition. The late Dr. Hopkins, of Vermont, was one of the few clergymen who dared to go unshorn. When he was elected a Bishop of the Episcopal Church, many hints were given him that he should shave and thus show proper respect for the sacred office. He declined to follow the suggestion, and now a score of members of the House of Bishops wear their beards.

Men may not match women in the extravagance of their devotion to fashion, but, certainly, no brother has the right to cast a stone at his sister, seeing that the history of the beard records so many illustrations of male folly. She may be guilty of tight-lacing and thereby suffer from ill-health and a disfigured form. But he, if he shaves, exposes himself to throat diseases and possibly the weakest and most unsightly part of his face to public view, and that, too, against the efforts of nature to protect and hide it. — Daily Telegraph, 1914

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Facial Hair Etiquette

Simion Grahame was a Scottish-born writer and courtier to James VI. He urged gentlemen to keep their beards and moustaches clean, well trimmed and tightly curled.

Simion Grahame (1570-1614) was a Scottish-born writer and courtier to James VI. One of his better known works was Anatomie of Humors, in 1609. Much of this work dwells on human emotions, melancholy, in particular, something to which Grahame himself seemed familiar. 

Interspersed with advice on conduct, manners and how to forge and maintain good relationships with others. In one chapter Grahame urged gentlemen to keep their beards and moustaches clean, well trimmed and tightly curled. — “…A man is to be commended if he be [clean] in his linings, his hair well dressed, his beard well brushed and always his upper lip well curled… For if he chance to kiss a gentlewoman, some rebellious hairs may happen to startle in her nose and make her sneeze…”


Those who did not attend to their facial hair, wrote Grahame, were slobs, not fit to socialize with:. —“[These] snotty nosed gentlemen, with their drooping moustaches covering their mouth and becoming a harbour for meldrops [mucus]… He will drink with anybody whatsoever, and after he hath washed his filthy beard in the cup… he will suck the hair so heartily with his under lip.” — Simion Grahame, The Anatomie of Humors, Edinburgh

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia