The Name BROWN BESS

[Loyalist Dave]

This article from The Royal Armories, on the origin of the nic name used for The King's Musket...,

History of The Term 'Brown Bess'

LD

 

[Rifleman1776]

An interesting and fun read. But, like so many olde stories the 'real' facts may never be known. e.g. Bowie knife legends. I have read several versions of where the BB moniker came from. The one I like the best says that the British soldier urinated on their musket barrels to brown them. I know, I know, in reality they were required to keep those musket barrels polished in the white. And, then the 'Bess' part was a reference to Queen Elizabeth. Nothing for real there but just an amusing story.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Dave,
I read that paper a few tears ago and it is backed by solid linguistic evidence.

dave

 

[Bushfire]

All good, except Sheila isn't a derogatory term. It literally just means woman in Australia.

 

[tenngun]

Just a random thought. Are there any other guns you can think of that are remembered by just a generic name unrelated to it being a gun?
‘Kentucky Rifle’ or Plains gun or jaegar rifle tells us it’s a gun
Derringer doesn’t tell us by the word it’s a gun, but to a non historian or gun nut nothing says Brown Bess is a gun