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What have the 1st. Earl of Avon, Arthur Wellesley, General Fitzroy James Henry Somerset and James Thomas Brudenell have in common? Let me add a few more names to the list to give you a bit of help. James Belcher, Gebberd Lebericht von Blücher, and Lewis Carroll's Alice of 'Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' fame. Got it yet? No? Well, I'll tell you. The one thing that these seven, and many other people, have in common is that they all gave their names to items of clothing. So let's start with the last. The Alice stories were based on Alice Liddell, the second daughter of the Dean of Carroll's Oxford College. Carroll, real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was an eminent mathematician with an unhealthy obsession with young girls. But it was John Tenniel, the illustrator of the books, who was responsible for the depiction of Alice wearing this now-famous hair adornment, the Alice band. By the way, the colour 'Alice blue' has nothing to do with this Alice. It is a delicate shade of blue-green, the favourite colour of US President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice. James Belcher was an entirely different character to Alice. 'Jem', as he was known, was a prize-fighter who wore a blue neckerchief with white spots, which became very fashionable. Born in 1781, he lost an eye in a fight when he was twenty-two, and retired to run a pub, only to die in 1811. The term 'belcher' is used for any type of multicoloured neckerchief. Gebberd Lebericht Blücher was a field marshall in the Prussian army. During the initial stages of the battle of Waterloo the English army just managed to hold back the French assaults, a state of affairs which changed when the seventy-three year old field marshall led his Prussian troops into the fray and so helped to win a mighty victory. Field Marshall Blücher generally wore heavy half boots which became known as 'bluchers'. Talking of boots and Waterloo, the original wellingtons were men's leather riding boots which covered the knee, and were introduced in the early nineteenth century by Arthur Wellesley, the 1st. Duke of Wellington, hero of Waterloo. He also introduced the Wellington coat, and the American giant sequoia was named Wellingtonia in his honour. He was violently opposed to parliamentary reform, and this caused public rioting in the streets of London, so violent that he ordered iron shutters to be fitted to his London home, thus earning him the nickname of 'The Iron Duke'. During the Crimean war the British soldiers were issued with knitted woollen waistcoats to protect them from the extreme cold. These garments were introduced by James Thomas Brudenell, 7th. Earl of Cardigan, and hence were known thereafter as 'cardigans'. During this same campaign, General Fitzroy James Henry Somerset wore an overcoat fashioned with a diagonal seam running from the collar to the under-arm, thus giving more room for garments worn underneath. The general happened to be 1st. Baron Raglan, and his new sleeve became known as the 'raglan sleeve'. It was Raglan who gave the muddled and mis-understood command which led to the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. The Crimean war also saw the introduction of the 'balaclava helmet', which was a woollen garment which covered the head and neck worn by soldiers at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. But where does the 1st. Earl of Avon fit into all this. Well, way back in the first half of the nineteenth century there were two brothers who were felt makers. Their names - Thomas and William Beaulieu. There was also a Norfolk squire, one William Coke, who asked the hatters, James Lock & Co., to design for him a hat which would not catch on overhead branches while he was out doing what Norfolk country squires did - hunting, shooting and fishing. They came up with a hat with a rounded crown and narrow curled brim which they named after the felt from which it was made - beaulieu - which became corrupted to 'bowler'. From 1860 the bowler became a part of the working man's wardrobe, and after the first World War, no city business gent would be seen without one. But the bowler was gradually replaced by the homburg. This is a hat which originated in the Prussian town of Homburg, - a felt hat with a stiff curled brim and a high crown creased lengthwise. (The similar hat with a low crown is the 'fedora', named after the principal character in a popular play, Fédora, by the French playwright Sardou.) The homburg also became known as the 'trilby' after such a hat worn in the London stage version of the novel 'Trilby' by George du Maurier. A black version was the favourite headgear of the dapper Foreign Secretary of the 1930's, Robert Anthony Eden, and it soon earned the nickname of the 'Anthony Eden'. When Anthony Eden was elevated to the peerage he took the title 1st. Lord of Avon. There are many other fascinating stories explaining why things are called what they are. Maybe reading about these few may whet your appetite to learn a little more about the etymology of our fabulous language - English. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 1 NOVEMBER 2000 |
