guards

Guards

The Bearskin was  usually worn as part of a ceremonial military uniform. Traditionally, the bearskin was the headgear of grenadiers, and is still worn by grenadier and guards regiments in various armies.

AWI     97th regt

 TRIALS have begun to test a potential breakthrough in artificial fur that may replace the bearskin ceremonial caps worn for nearly two centuries by the Foot Guard regiments.

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The alternative to the glossy black bear fur of the Guards’ imposing ceremonial caps is being tested by the textiles agency for the Services. Samples are also being examined by the Guards.

The British Army has been trying for ten years to find an alternative to the bearskin fur because of rising complaints from animal welfare pressure groups, who have accused the Guards of being party to the slaughter of thousands of bears every year in Canada.

The Household Division has countered the animal rights’ case with the defence that none of the bears culled has been killed because of an order for bearskins from the Army.

scots guards

A spokesman for the Household Division, which comprises the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, Scots Guards, Irish Guards and Welsh Guards, said: “Twenty thousand black bears have to be culled in North America each year, from which we buy fewer than 100 pelts a year for the Guards’ bearskin caps

During the nineteenth century, the expense of bearskin caps and difficulty of maintaining them in good condition on active service led to this form of headdress becoming generally limited to guardsmen, bands or other units having a ceremonial role. The British Foot Guards did however wear bearskins in battle during the Crimean War.
The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the British Empire, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia on the other. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

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and on peacetime manoeuvers until the introduction of khaki service dress in 1902.

Following the Battle of WaterlooBattle of WaterlooIn the Battle of Waterloo forces of the French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte and Michel Ney were defeated by those of the Seventh Coalition, including an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher...

fusiliers

and the action in which they gained their name, the Grenadier GuardsGrenadier GuardsThe Grenadier Guards is the most senior regiment of the Guards Division of the British Army, and, as such, is the most senior regiment of infantry. It is not, however, the most senior regiment of the Army, this position being attributed to the Life Guards...

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were permitted to wear the bearskin. This tradition was later extended to the other two regiments of GuardsFoot Guards-British Army:The Foot Guards are the Infantry regiments of the Household Division of the British Army. There have been six regiments of foot guards, five of which still exist...

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. The officers of Fusilier was originally the name of a soldier armed with a light flintlock musket called the fusil. The word was first used around 1680, and has later developed into a regimental designation.-

regiments also wore the bearskin as part of their ceremonial uniform. The bearskin should not be mistaken for the busbyBusbyBusby is the English name for the Hungarian prémes csákó or kucsma, a military head-dress made of fur, worn by Hungarian hussars. In its original Hungarian form the busby was a cylindrical fur cap, having a bag of coloured cloth hanging from the top. The end of this bag was attached to the right...

, which is a much smaller fur cap worn by the Royal Horse ArtilleryRoyal Horse ArtilleryThe regiments of the Royal Horse Artillery , dating from 1793, are part of the Royal Regiment of Artillery of the British Army...

and hussar regiments in full dress. Nor should it be confused with the similar but smaller 'Sealskin' cap worn by other ranks of the Royal Fusiliers, actually made of raccoon skin.

The standard bearskin of the British Foot Guards is 18 inches tall, weighs 1.5 poundPound (mass)The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...

s, is made from the fur of the Canadian black bearAmerican black bearThe American Black Bear also known as the North American black bear is the most common bear species native to North America. It lives throughout much of the continent, from northern Alaska south into Mexico and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This includes 41 of the 50 U.S...

. However, an officer's bearskin is made from the fur of the Canadian brown bearBrown BearThe brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It weighs 100 to 680 kilograms and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family, and as the largest land based predator.While the brown...

as the female brown bear has thicker, fuller fur, and is dyed black. The British Army purchase the hats, which are known as caps, from a British hatmaker which sources its pelts from an international auction. The hatmakers purchase between 50 and 100 black bear skins each year at a cost of about £650 each. If properly maintained, the caps last for decades; some caps in use are reportedly more than 100 years old.

reported that bearskin caps might be phased out because of a shortage of bear skins. The article stated that, at that time, bearskin hats cost £7/5s each (about 35 contemporary US dollars; £600 in 2007 pounds) and noted “it can readily be seen what a price has to be paid for keeping up a custom which is rather old, it is true, but is practically a useless one save for the purpose of military display..”