British Army lifts facial hair ban after a century

[-:Undertaker:-]

British Army lifts facial hair ban after a century

The Welsh Guards show off facial hair after The King ended the century-long ban last month

👑 The Beards Have Arrived! 👑

Like it or lump it, the beards are here! Members of Number 2 Company proudly took up their posts on Kings Guard this morning, marching from Wellington Barracks to Buckingham Palace and St James’s Palace.#WelshGuards #TheBeardsHaveArrived pic.twitter.com/kkPfpKLlQp

— Welsh Guards (@Official_1WG) April 15, 2024

Soldiers in the British Army have been showing off their new beards for the first time after King Charles gave the green light to lift a 100-year ban on facial hair.

Fuzzy-faced troops from the Welsh Guards have become the first to be pictured sporting their military whiskers, while wearing their iconic black bearskin hats and red tunics.

The infantry soldiers are part of the Army's Household Division and are charged with guarding royal palaces and carrying out frontline combat operations overseas.

Good stuff as a beard wearer myself (for about 13 years and counting).

The Royal Navy has always allowed facial hair, and the Royal Airforce lifted its ban in 2019. If you look back at British Army photographs and paintings back in the pre-World War I era, you'll see that beards and moustaches were the normal. The ban was brought in around World War I because of the fear that facial hair would impede on the use of gas masks when chemical warfare became a thing. Then of course, facial hair went largely out of fashion so the ban stayed. Queen Elizabeth II was apparently not a fan of beards, so no doubt the ban stayed longer than it would have done for this reason.