Prior


Prior to the 1850s, it was very unusual for men the Great Britain or the United States to wear facial hair. But by the second half of the century, fashionable men were sporting copious and often outrageous beards and mustaches. When and how did the change in fashion occur?
Some British officers stationed abroad in the vast empire began to imitate Continental European officers, for whom mustaches were fashionable. Indeed, on the continent having a mustache tended to indicate that the mustachioed man was in the military, which is why pacifist anabaptist men wore (and continue to wear) beards without mustaches. But in the British army, with few exceptions, full beards were banned.
That regulation changed out of necessity during the Crimean War. Because of a shortage of shaving soap, and to protect the soldiers’ faces from the extreme cold temperatures, the men were allowed and encouraged to grow beards. When the bearded soldiers returned to heroes’ welcomes in Great Britain, Queen Victoria remarked that their beards made them “the picture of real fighting men.” Suddenly beards were associated not with slovenliness or insanity, but with courage and manliness, and they began to sprout on the faces of civilians and soldiers alike. Magazines and newspapers carried the new style across the ocean, and it soon swept the male population of the United States as well, so that whereas facial hair had been very rarely seen before, by the time of the American Civil War most men were bearded.
In 1860 the British army enacted regulations preventing soldiers from shaving above their lips, essentially mandating mustaches for men who could grow them. In time beards were again prohibited, but the military mustaches remained, with regiments often adopting mustache styles unique to their regiment.
It all ended, however, during World War I with the advent of chemical warfare. The necessity of wearing gas masks, and the fact that the masks would not seal on a bearded or mustachioed face, caused the enactment of regulations requiring that soldiers be cleanshaven.
These days the British and U.S. armies again allow mustaches, but, with some limited exceptions, beards are prohibited unless worn for religious reasons. Beards have always been allowed in the British navy, by the way, but are allowed only with an approved waiver in the U.S. navy.
The photo is of three men of the 72nd Regiment of Foot (Highlanders), taken in 1856.

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