The True British Tar, Carington Bowles, 1785, British Museum.
Beyond the window lies a ship at anchor, but clearly our sailor is a bit more focused on the sacks of Spanish dollars he's procured. His table is scattered with coins and bedecked with bottles of Madeira. Lying against the box on which he sits is a neglected pipe, spilling its flames and smoking worryingly.
Our mariner wears a round hat lined with gold tape, and decorated with a blue bow (typical of works by Carington Bowles). Flowing from beneath is a wig with a long, tightly bound queue. Sailors of the eighteenth century wore their hair short, until just about this period when long and tightly bound queues begin to appear alongside should length and shorter hair styles. This is the earliest image I'm aware of that clearly shows a common sailor with a long, tightly bound pigtail or 'rattail.' His neckcloth is a sort of burgundy color, and fringed at the edges.
The jacket itself is blue, but it is impossible to tell if it is single or double breasted. Either way, it has brass buttons on both the front and the slash cuffs. Out of the jacket pocket, or perhaps spilling out through a rear vent, a burgundy handkerchief spotted in yellow hangs loose. His red waistcoat has white metal buttons, and a colorful blue ribbon and fob extends from beneath it.
Red striped trousers lead down to clocked stockings, pointed toe shoes, and yellow metal oval shaped buckles. The straps of his shoes are trained "sailor fashion."
Jemmy's Farewell, John Hodges Benwell, 1781-1785, British Museum.
Jemmy's Return, John Hodges Benwell, 1781-85, British Museum.
These illustrations were meant to accompany the ballad 'Auld Robin Gray,' which was originally published in 1772. The artist, John Hodges Benwell, died in 1785 at the age of 21. Benwell was first recognized as an unusually gifted artist at 16, so that restricts the dates during which these drawings could have been made to 1781-1785.
Scots are rarely addressed on this blog. This is largely because a glance at a common sailor will tell you little or nothing about their regional identity. Sailor's slop clothes served to merge them into a transatlantic (and, indeed, worldwide) clique. Clothing blurred the boundaries within the British Empire, and made all of its wearers Jack Tar.
This is also true of commanders. Even when it is Scottishness itself that an artist objects to, a sea captain like James Lowry will still look more like a sea captain than a highlander.
The Scotch Triumvirate, artist unknown, 1752, British Museum
Figures of less renown (or notoriety) are also portrayed as indistinguishable from their fellow seafarers.
Etched from the Life on Board a Scotch Ship: Cook, Captain, and Mait,
artist unknown (John Kay?), c.1750, National Maritime Museum.
I can think of only one other case in which a Scotsman was portrayed wearing regional dress in a primary source image. John Paul Jones, being an American rebel and Scotsman to boot, is portrayed wearing a tam.
Mara Riley, of The Appin Regiment reenactment organization, pointed me to this runaway advertisement found by Dan Rosenburg. Three runaway highland sailors are mentioned as running away 'from on Board the Ship Donald...in their own Country Garb.'
Over at the blog Fishy Fashion and Maritime Modes, Adam Hodges-LeClaire mentions the occasional appearance of Scotch bonnets, a finding echoed by Matthew Brenckle. Adam dug up this piece from the early nineteenth century, in which a sailor's dress is a more subtle mix of highland style and sailor's slops.
Detail from Makeing a Compass at Sea or the Use of a Scotch Louse,
Thomas Tegg, date unknown, National Maritime Museum
Benwell is not the first to portray Jemmy in the Sailor's Farewell and Sailor's Return from Auld Robin Gray. The printer Robert Sayer twice portrayed Jemmy, but in neither did he include even a hint to Jemmy's Scottish heritage.
In the Farewell, Jemmy is portrayed wearing a floppy cocked hat with a blue bow. His jacket is a double breasted pale blue with white metal buttons. A black neckcloth is bound tightly, draping over his white shirt and an oddly placed brown leather belt is buckled around his waist. Jemmy sports sideburns and a queue bound in a black bow.
At first, I thought Jemmy was wearing a small kilt (called a fèileadh beag), whichhangs down to just above the knee. Bill Johnson, more knowledgeable than I in highland dress, offered this observation:
A closer examination of the backside of the garment suggests Jemmy is in fact wearing slop or petticoat trousers, possibly made of tartan. There does not appear to be any pleats (hand-thrown or stitched in). Early small kilts were usually made from 3-4 yards of single-width fabric, with the pleats roughly hand-thrown as it was put on; with a light stitching to hold them in place (usually in a box pleat); or with a drawstring to bring them together. It is not a garment easily donned in the crowded confines of a ship.
This different cut and lack of fabric suggests that these are plaid petticoat trousers. Bill continues:
Two early 18th century portraits of the Laird of Grant's piper (1714) and Champion (1715) show a colored tape being worn around the border of their respective kilts. A tapestry on the Isle of Mull show the same type of trim, again being worn by the chief's retainers. My question on the Benwell paintings is whether this was meant to be trimming, or an easy way for the artist to finish off the hem.
Beneath this puzzling garment is revealed brown breeches held by a knee buckle over white stockings, pointed toe shoes, and large rectangular white metal buckles.
The presence of breeches is exceptional. In the eighteenth century, kilts were never worn over breeches. What were worn over breeches, as we've seen time and time again in this blog, were petticoat trousers. This is where we run into a problem with these drawings. As follower Phil Hosea points out: petticoat trousers are intended to be cheap, easily replaced, and protect the breeches beneath. None of these apply to kilts.
My best guess is that this is a nod to the combination of highland dress and slop clothes. The breeches are worn underneath the kilt-like-petticoat-trousers, and the two garments share a passing similarity in the way they are worn.
Was Benwell basing Jemmy on Scottish sailors he had actually seen or met? Or was this a fanciful imagination of the two worlds colliding? While I'm inclined toward the latter, it's impossible to say for certain without further research on Benwell himself.
On his return, Jemmy wears the same clothes as when he bid adieu to Robin. His jacket is town and tattered, and he now has the sailor's trusty stick, but otherwise his dress is the same. We do get a better look at his ragged queue.
In this image, he still wears breeches beneath his kilt, proving that their inclusion was no fluke on the part of Benwell.
Ban-yan Day on board the Magnificent; or, Pease Porridge hot from the Coppers!, John Nixon, 1789, British Museum.
Here King George III is depicted dining on the 74 gun Magnificent. Built in 1767, the Magnificent served the Royal Navy well through the American Revolutionary War and into the Napoleonic wars, before striking an uncharted reef and sinking in a mere hour and half off the coast of Brest in 1804. Miraculously, the entire crew survived.
John Nixon illustrates a scene of His Majesty and a small retinue on the Quarterdeck of the Magnificent on Banyan Day. One day a week the meals aboard Royal Navy vessels were without meat. King George inquires after what the seamen eat, and then asks for Pease Porridge. Accompanied by a full punch bowl and cheese, the small gathering are treated to music and the smiling faces of common tars as they dine.
Two common sailors stand to the side, watching the meal of their sovereign. Standing tall, one sailor wears his loose hair at shoulder length, and a yellow neckcloth. His double breasted blue jacket ends at the waist, with cuffs closed with cloth covered buttons. Close fitting white trousers end above the ankle, showing his pointed toe shoes, rectangular white metal buckles, and white stockings.
His mate has a remarkably long queue bound tight, and tied with a bow. He has also buttoned shut his mariner's cuffs, but appears to be wearing a single breasted jacket with flap waist pockets and white metal buttons. His neckcloth is white, as are his trousers or petticoat trousers/slops.
The apparent companion piece to yesterday's subject, this Pollard sketch gives us a much better picture of the common sailor. Three tars stand beside a sizable gun, watching their mates pummel each other to the apparent disinterest of the officers in yesterday's sketch.
Though difficult to see in the above image, the fellow to the far right is the boxer. Interestingly, he wears a cocked hat with a large cockade on his right! His hair runs into a queue, rather unusual for a sailor. Still, he wears a short jacket and no waistcoat, both of which are more common among tars. Otherwise he wears plain breeches and stockings running to a shoe with a pointed toe.
Just to the right is a tall, hatless man with curly hair. He wears a jacket with drop down collar and what appear to be turned back cuffs. Like the others, he wears no waistcoat. His petticoat trousers are drawn up just a bit so we can see the knee of his breeches before the plain stockings.
Leaning over the gun is another of their mates. This one wears a knit Monmouth cap. His jacket is like that of the last fellow, with drop down collar, but no cuffs. Though it is unclear, I think he wears a single breasted waistcoat and cravat. We get a pretty decent view of the pocket to his petticoat trousers.
In the background is the last of their mates. Perhaps he wears a round hat with a tall, cylindrical crown, the type more commonly seen after 1780. Alternatively, and given the rough edges of the brim, it could be interpreted as a tall Dutch cap. Unfortunately, there isn't enough detail in the figure to be more exact.
The Virtuous and inspir'd State of Whigism in Bristol 1781, artist unknown, 1781, British Museum.
This cartoon references the special election for a Member of Parliament for Bristol. The figure holding the striped American flag with the words "The Voice of Rebellion is a Supreme Law which passeth all Understanding" is Henry Cruger.
Born in New York, Henry Cruger was one of a very, very few American born politicians to actually attain a seat in Parliament. A radical supporter of the American cause during the Revolutionary War, he lost his seat in Bristol in 1780. According to the catalog entry for this piece at the British Museum, Sir Henry Lippincott, another Member of Parliament for Bristol, died shortly after the election. Special elections were called, and so Cruger ran again. His outspoken support for American independence is lampooned in this cartoon, and is only barely exaggerated. The British Museum states that Cruger ran up American flags on churches in Bristol during the election.
A sailor sits astride a decorated bull in a procession of Whigs, proclaims "You English Scoundrels hers the American Flesh & Blood of a Bull." He waves a pendent with thirteen stars, and sits in front of a bundle labeled "Secreted Copies." This bundle probably refers to the secret correspondence that Cruger was suspected of carrying on with his American counterparts.
Our mariner's outfit is clearly that of a sailor. A single breasted jacket that ends about just below the waist over a single breasted waistcoat is fitted with a short collar and plain cuffs. The sailor's round hat is bound with tape around the brim and the crown with a large rosette on the front. Beneath the hat is a bob wig with a queue. His trousers fit close to the leg with narrow vertical stripes.
In the end, Cruger lost his election bid. The people of Bristol elected him mayor that same year. He moved to the newly independent United States in 1790 and served in the New York State Senate.
Sheppard gives us a scene of jovial gaiety as sailors, women, and gentlemen all enjoy dancing in the Park. If you look to the background on the right, you can see the Greenwich Observatory. Arguably, this was the institution that most effectively placed British mariners at the top of the international pecking order. Their accurate charts and chronometers gave Britain a nautical edge they would enjoy for generations.
Here a sailor frolics with his lass. Jack cheerfully waves his cocked hat to the figures in the foreground. A black neckcloth is tied under his collar, but we can see the open top of his shirt beneath it, and so the tar lacks a waistcoat. He does wear a double breasted jacket and petticoat trousers.
Like the mariner in the background, this tarpawlin wears a double breasted jacket (this one with lapels) and no waistcoat. A black round hat with a buckled band about the brim sits atop his head. He wears a black neckcloth and striped trousers with a broad fall fly. The familiar stick is tucked beneath his arm as he dances to the fiddler.
Our fiddler has seen enough of the sea. He is missing an eye and a leg, and so sports both a cane (which hangs from a strap around his left hand) and a peg leg. His cocked hat is trimmed with tape and decorated with a cockade. The breeches and waistcoat, coupled with this hat, might suggest him to be a landsman, but the tell-tale wounds of the sea, along with the flat bottom of his waistcoat, suggest he is a sailor. As an invalid or pensioner, a fellow such as him would not have been an uncommon sight in Greenwich.
In the background far to the left, there is a circle of men and women, and I presume this is a game like Blind Man's Bluff. With his back to us in the center is a man with a jacket ending at the top of the thigh, a round hat with flat brim and conical crown, and trousers that end about the bottom of the calf. The jacket has a single vent in the back, and he wears a wig with queue. Wigs of this style are unusual among common sailors, and I believe this is the only example I've ever seen.
Running down the hill are a pair of sailors and their girls. The sailors wear collared jackets, trousers, and round hats. One wears a single breasted waistcoat, and the other may be interpreted as wearing the same or doing without a waistcoat altogether. The tar on the left carries a stick.
The Sailmaker ticketting the Hammocks on board the Pallas, Gabriel Bray, 1774, National Maritime Museum.
Deftly working his hands over a hammock, a sailmaker sits back against the ship's capstan. Beside him is a fellow sailor, probably his mate, who folds the finished hammocks into proper rolls. The sailmaker's mate will soon drop his completed work through the hatch below for storage or use.
The sailmaker wears a round hat and fairly long hair. Though unruly, his hair is tied into a short sort of queue. Beneath a high collar, you can see just the hint of his black neckcloth. His simple blue jacket ends at the waist and is closed with cloth covered buttons at the mariner's cuffs. We get a good view of the side pocket of his trousers. Interestingly, the pocket does not appear to be part of a seam. His trousers end above the ankles, revealing plain stockings and the sailmaker's shoes which have a somewhat pointed toe, and are fitted with rectangular buckles.
His mate wears a knit or work cap of some kind, possibly striped. He too wears a short jacket, one which appears to be white and possibly decorated along the seams with tape. It appears that his jacket has slash cuffs on a bottom seam. For those interested in the cut of sailor's jackets or their construction, this images gives a very good view of the seams in the jacket. The mate also wears trousers with side pockets, but this pair seems to be too long, extending well down past his shoes to the grating on which he stands. It could be that this sailor has just purchased these trousers from a slop chest, and has not yet had the chance to fit them more properly. What do you think?
Though most of Bray's works are unsurprising in their depictions of dress, there are the odd ducks. The last image I posted was of a marine and sailor wearing odd fur caps and what appear to be vambraces. This is another odd piece.
A sailor leans back against a line to relax, while his mates sew in the background. The first thing that I noticed in this image is the very long and tightly bound queue. A vast majority of images of the time show sailors with short hair. Occasionally they will have side curls, but most do not have queues. This proves definitively that sailors could and did wear their hair longer than many popular representations show. As to how common this actually was, it is difficult or impossible to say.
The other odd bit is his cap. It looks like a cross between an infantry forage cap and a light infantry cap of the French and Indian War. With a red brim bound in white tape around a black crown, I have to say I've never seen anything quite like it.
Another notable feature of the sailor at the center is his blue and white checked shirt. Few images show this, but it is perhaps more common than we know. Other lower class laborers are known to have worn similar patterns on their shirts, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume sailors did as well. His waistcoat is a plain white with slash pockets at the waist, and his trousers are white as well.
Behind him and to the right is a jack in the same cap, with a black neckcloth, white shirt, and white trousers. To his left is a tar in the same slop clothes, but wearing a round hat.
This image is an important reminder that we don't have all the answers. As much as we may examine the sources available to us, we have to recognize that not all sources are available. The passage of time means the destruction and loss of countless written, physical, and visual sources, not to mention the memories of those who lived at the time. Strive as we might to capture an understanding of an era, we have to acknowledge that our understanding will be incomplete.
EDIT: When I first started this blog, I did not rely on catalog entries for the images I collected, or at least not as much as I should have. Adam Hodges-LeClaire pointed out that the caps are typical of British marines, and the National Maritime Museum's assessment is in agreement with him: "From his apparent headgear the seaman shown and the man seated on a sea chest with a tankard in his hand, far right, are probably Marines." We can reasonably conclude that the fellow sewing in the background with the round hat is a sailor, but the others should probably be regarded as marines.
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