Moustache Ban

Faded photographs of moustachioed Victorian males show only one side of 19th century Britain's love-hate relationship with the hairy upper lip. A wealthy Englishman named Henry Budd died in 1862, leaving one London Estate, Pepper Park to his son Edward, and another estate, Twickenham Park, to his second son William - on condition that they did not wear moustaches. Seven years later, a British upholsterer left £10 to each employee, “if no moustaches”. In 1904, Regent Street drapers in London stopped employing assistants who wore moustaches (or patyed their hair in the middle). The Bank of England, by contrast, neatly and surreptitiously avoided interfering with staffs’ private lives: moustaches were merely forbidden “during working hours”.