Shaving Set of Queen !

[Ascet]

This is a 'regulation' brush from an English Naval Officer.

In the old days the English Queen gave the new officers shaving equipment including this traditional horse hair brush, with lead metal part and wooden handle, a hair brush, another brush for clothes, a razor etc.

Later it stopped being delivered as a gift from the Queen, when the officer was assigned to her first ship.

But the families followed that tradition and it became a family gift to the young marine soldier.

Who has more information and photos of this English tradition, sadly lost?
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This type of brush is still used by Spanish barbers, and it is still manufactured here (it must be remembered that Mahon, in the Balearic Islands, was for a time an English marine military base), and despite the fact that the English left, the traditional brush among our Spanish models .. and continues to be manufactured by Danidom, currently

 

[BigJ]

Great history!!

Thanks for sharing.

 

[ajkel64]

Thanks for sharing this with us.

 

[mata_66]

Now that I've read the OP horse brushes finally caught my attention! When you mention the old days are you referring to Queen Victoria?

Vie-Long still produces similar horse brushes for professional use:

Maggard sells the "Cachurro" in the same line. I might grab one from Gifts&Care in Spain and call it my "Naval Officer brush from yesteryear"!

I had a look at the current Danidom products and sadly they look very cheaply made.

 

[mata_66]

Who has more information and photos of this English tradition, sadly lost?

I couldn't find anything except a list of provision given by the British Empire to the navy before a campaign.
I also found out that shaving brushes that were shared amongst the troops were the culprits of an anthrax epidemic in the US Navy in 1918 during World War I.

 

[Scaramouche]

Bacillus anthracis is a gram-positive bacterium, a particularly nasty one, which in spore form can survive for decades in very harsh conditions. Cutaneous anthrax case fatality rate (CFR) among the individually described cases from brush contamination was almost 40%, and over 50% of those had been given antiserum, the only treatment available at the time. Average CFR for Ebola, for comparison, is around 50%, along with pneumonic plague (a variant of the Black Plague or the Black Death, which needs no other introduction). Unvaccinated smallpox was about 30-90%, dependant. Retrospective report from Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2017:

Anthrax Cases Associated with Animal-Hair Shaving Brushes

During the First World War, anthrax cases in the United States and England increased greatly and seemed to be associated with use of new shaving brushes. Further investigation revealed that the source material and origin of shaving brushes had changed ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Not a disease to be trifled with, then or now, and it's in good company with some of the most deadly diseases known to man.

 

[Hydguy]

Very cool info!
It's always neat to learn about traditions of foreign militaries.
I had an opportunity to meet some Royal Marines back in '95 in the Mediterranean when I was deployed on the USS Wasp with the 24th MEU (SOC). We were doing some cross deck training, They were happy to trade items of theirs, for items of ours. I traded one Royal Marine one of my utility covers (camouflage hat to y'all civilians) for his beret and crest. My mom still has that somewhere in her stuff.