The Age of the Beard: Putting on a Brave Face in Victorian Britain

The Age of the Beard:

Putting on a Brave Face in Victorian Britain 

Florence Nightingale Museum
18th November 2016 - 30th April 2017

This winter, the Florence Nightingale Museum attempts to unravel the astonishing appeal of mutton chops, goatees and the most flamboyant of moustaches with a photographic exhibition and season of special events dedicated to the Great British Beard. What is a Soup Strainer? Or a Thigh Tickler? Find out at the Florence Nightingale Museum this winter – if you dare.

In collaboration with Beard historian Dr Alun Withey, from Exeter University, the Nightingale Museum will showcase the best of Victorian facial hair, including some bristly soldiers that Florence Nightingale herself might have nursed. Our hairy celebrations will be brought up to date with a series of events including beard and moustache trimming and styling in the museum and a quiz to test your beardy knowledge. A Christmas panto – Bluebeard, of course – will provide outrageous hirsute fun for adults only.

St Thomas’ Hospital
2 Lambeth Palace Road
London
SE1 7EW
T: +44 (0)20 7188 4400
E: info@florence-nightingale.co.uk

Beaten by a whisker: the golden age of big beard

Forget it, hipsters, an exhibition shows we reached peak face fuzz 150 years ago

Bearded bard: Tennyson’s wife was appalled by his sudden shaving shyness

“What is it with men and beards these days?” someone asked me at dinner last week while pointing at my hairy jawline. “It seems every man in London has one.” It does appear that we are living in an age of unparalleled facial hair, but is this the golden age of the beard?

Not according to an exhibition at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London, The Age of the Beard: Putting a Brave Face on Victorian Britain. A perplexing location, perhaps (my knowledge of Nightingale is limited, but I’m fairly certain she didn’t have a beard), but as it turns out, facial hair was all the rage during the Crimean War. According to the exhibition’s curator, Dr Alun Withey, ordinary Victorians witnessing the return of the hirsute and burly Crimean veterans wanted to imitate these British heroes. It was the catalyst for a beardy renaissance lasting 50 years.

Fake face fuzz made of goat’s hair

     

The exhibition is a celebration of this hairy period. As you walk through you see portraits showing that, in the Victorian era, as today, beards were sported by men from all strata of society. They became so popular that some folically challenged men were ashamed. So ashamed that they hid their smoothness with ugly false beards — on display here — made of goat hair. By 1860 the beard was the ultimate symbol of the Victoria man. Writers, politicians, sports stars and even the royals had joined the trend.

Albert Smith was one of the first people to climb Mont Blanc and travelled the country on his return from the Alps sporting a mighty beard and telling tales of his courageous journey. As a matter of fact, Smith had stayed clean-shaven for his expedition; only when he got back did he grow his brush, to appear more convincing as a Victorian adventurer.

Doctors advised their patients to grow beards on health grounds. As the factories of the Industrial Revolution churned out their noxious waste, Dr Mercer Adams said that men should take advantage of nature’s respirator, which would block out “dust, ashes and carbonaceous matter”. Meanwhile, the soldiers and diplomats of the British Empire were writing back to London begging their superiors to relax the rules on being clean-shaven. Apparently the locals, particularly in India, kept laughing at these baby-faced men and wouldn’t take them seriously.

It’s speculated that the cause of the recent beard boom was the financial crisis. As wallets were squeezed, men put down their razors and embraced their grizzly selves. The Victorians also preached the virtues of these economic benefits. In 1861 the British Medical Journal even warned about the 36 million working days a year lost to the economy in the time men wasted shaving. Perhaps that is why the two political titans of the day, Disraeli and Gladstone, whose portraits hang in the show, sported their own unique whiskers. Disraeli opted for a goat-like tuft, while Gladstone had pubesque curls trailing around his chin.

An extreme version of the “French Fork” style

They wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet. She famously despised facial hair, and reportedly declared that she “wouldn’t tolerate any minister of mine wearing a beard”. This prompted one whiskered backbencher, Rob Jones, to write to the prime minister after several years of being overlooked for promotion asking if it was the beard stopping his path to the cabinet table. “It is not your beard that is holding you back,” she allegedly replied.

I was luckier during an encounter with our second female prime minister. This year, in a sweaty room at the Conservative Party conference, I introduced myself to Theresa May. As I sipped warm white wine and made small talk, she caressed my beard with her eyes. I started to wonder whether the prime minister was a secret pogonophile. At that point the Merkel of Maidenhead leant over to an aide and pointed at the well-oiled locks that clung to my jawline. “This really does prove we are a party for everyone,” she said. And with that she swivelled on those trademark kitten heels of hers and disappeared.
Tennyson’s wife called for an act of parliament to ban the beard

The beard’s appeal to the opposite sex was as divisive in the Victorian age as it is now. Spare a thought for poor Emily Tennyson, the wife of Queen Victoria’s poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, also depicted in the exhibition. They had been engaged for 20 years before they got married. For every one of those 20 years he was clean-shaven. The day after the wedding he began to grow the large mane that immortalised his image. Emily was in despair. She was so distraught that she railed against his decision in her diaries, calling for an act of parliament to ban the beard so he would be forced to shave it off.

The exhibition’s impressive series of portraits is joined by a collection of vintage grooming tools and enough mustachio-related wisdom to entertain anyone curious about the world of facial fuzz. By the time you’ve finished you’ll be able to tell your Dundreary Whiskers from your Piccadilly Weepers, and recognise a Swallowtail from a Hollywoodian.

Do be careful when you deploy these nuggets of wisdom, though. At a recent event I found myself regaling a guest with my new knowledge. “There are said to be more bacteria in beards than under fingernails,” I boasted. She took one look at my fur and was off before I could say pogonophobia.