Jack Tar

Image:Royal Tars.jpg

There is some dispute among historians about the origin of "Jack", but it was a frequently used generic name for the common man.{{Cite web

|url=https://www.mun.ca/mha/mlc/articles/introducing-merchant-seafaring/jack-tar.php

|title=Jack Tar: Myth and Reality

|author=

|website=More than a List of Crew

|publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland

|accessdate=27 June 2018

}}

There are several plausible etymologies for the reference to "tar":

• During the age of wooden sailing vessels, a ship's rigging was rope made of hemp, which would rot quickly in such a damp environment. To avoid that, the ropes and cables of the standing rig were soaked in tar, which had to be replenished by tarring.{{Cite web

| last = Bruzelius

| first = Lars

| title = Fordyce: Blacking Rigging, 1837

| work = Blacking Rigging

| publisher = The Maritime History Virtual Archives

| year = 1998

| url = http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Seamanship/Fordyce%281837%29_p46.html

| doi =

| accessdate = 19 April 2010

}}

{{Self-published source|date=June 2020}}

• Seamen were known to "tar" their clothes before they departed on voyages to make them waterproof before the invention of waterproof fabrics. Later, they frequently wore coats and hats made from a waterproof fabric, called tarpaulin. Sailors were thus known as Tarpaulins as early as 1660. Stanza 26 of the Ballad of Gresham College, composed in 1660, states:

The Colledge will the whole world measure,

Which most impossible conclude,

And Navigation make a pleasure

By fynding out the Longitude.

Every Tarpaulin shall then with ease

Sayle any ship to the Antipodes.

Tarpaulin was later shortened to "tar".

• In a widely-accepted myth with no period evidence, it was said that sailors smeared their hair with tar. In a book published in 1915, the author surmised that it was common among seamen to plait their long hair into a ponytail and smear it with high-grade tar to prevent it from getting caught in the ship's equipment.
• Linehandlers would pull their hair back in ponytail fashion and then apply a tarry substance to prevent any strands from flying loose and becoming entangled or ripped out during the complicated and dangerous linehandling maneuvers that kept their ship at full sail
• https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/uniforms-usnavy/historical-surveys-of-the-evolution-of-us-navy-uniforms.html#on

• James Gillray's 1807 political caricature British Tars Towing the Danish Fleet into Harbour features the cabinet ministers George Canning, Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh as British sailors.
• Gilbert and Sullivan's 1878 operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, subtitled The Lass That Loved a Sailor, uses the synonym "tar" frequently in its dialogue, including the songs "The Merry Maiden and the Tar" and "A British Tar".
• In the 19th century, coopers who crafted barrels on ships were often called groggers or jolly jack tars, as when a barrel of rum had been emptied, they would fill it up with boiling water and roll it around, creating a drink which was called grog.{{cite web | last=Finney | first=Words Clare | title=The Last Master Cooper | website= Port Magazine | date=7 April 2015 | url=https://www.port-magazine.com/food-drink/the-last-master-cooper/ | access-date=13 January 2024}}
• One of John Philip Sousa's lesser-known works was his "Jack Tar March", written in 1903, which featured "The Sailor's Hornpipe" tune in one of its segments.
• Ship Ahoy! (All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor) is a 1908 music hall song with the line "all the nice girls love a tar".
• The second verse of George M. Cohan's song "You're a Grand Old Flag" contains the line "Hurrah! Hurrah! for every Yankee Tar".
• Jack Tars: Life in Nelson's Navy is a best-selling non-fiction book written by Roy and Lesley Adkins about the real lives of sailors in Horatio Nelson's age.{{cite book |last1=Adkins |first1=Roy |last2=Adkins |first2=Lesley |title=Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy |date=October 2, 2008 |publisher=Little, Brown |location=London |isbn=978-1408700549 }}
• The traditional English folk song "Go to Sea Once More", alternatively titled "Jack Tarr the Sailor", tells the tale of a sailor by the name of Jack Tarr who loses everything after an ill-advised drunken escapade while he is ashore in Liverpool.
• The traditional English folk song "Jacky Tar" was sung by Eliza Carthy (previously collected and sung by A. L. Lloyd as "Do Me Ama"): Roud 511; Laws K40; Ballad Index LK40.{{cite web |title=Do Me Ama/Jacky Tar |url=http://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/domeama.html |website=Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music |accessdate=28 June 2018}}
• John Adams called the crowd involved with the Boston Massacre "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs".{{cite web |title=Speech by John Adams at the Boston Massacre Trial |url=http://www.bostonmassacre.net/trial/acct-adams3.htm |publisher=Boston Massacre Historical Society |accessdate=28 June 2018 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171216064005/http://www.bostonmassacre.net/trial/acct-adams3.htm |archive-date=16 December 2017}}
• "Heart of Oak",. the official march of the Royal Navy, features the line "Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men".
• Rollins College of Winter Park, Florida, chose the "Tar" as its mascot.{{cite web |title=What's A Tar? |url=https://www.rollins.edu/magazine/archive/fall2009/stories/whats-a-tar.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611045528/http://www.rollins.edu/magazine/archive/fall2009/stories/whats-a-tar.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 11, 2011 |publisher=Rollins College |accessdate=5 March 2021 }}
• People born in Swansea, Wales, are known as "Jacks" or "Swansea Jacks". One explanation for the name is that the people of Swansea had a reputation as skilled sailors and that their services were much sought after by the navy.{{Cite web |url=http://www.kgbanswers.co.uk/why-are-swansea-city-football-fans-known-as-jacks-or-jack-army/2372962 |title=Why are swansea city football fans known as jacks. Or jack army? – KGB answers |access-date=2013-10-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021065431/http://www.kgbanswers.co.uk/why-are-swansea-city-football-fans-known-as-jacks-or-jack-army/2372962 |archive-date=2013-10-21 |url-status=dead }}
• In Anthony Shaffer's comedy/thriller play Sleuth, the most prominent of Andrew Wyke's automata is Jolly Jack Tarr, the Jovial Sailor. This life-sized figure laughs, and his body shakes appropriately with the pressing of a remote control button. He is in several scenes, including one in which a clue to a murder is hidden on Jolly Jack Tarr's person.
• The term forms the basis for the expression, "I'm alright, Jack", which signifies smug complacence at the expense of others.
• Period writers often referred to the simplicity of Jack Tar, and when he was represented as a drunk and a womanizer, the moral of the story was that he was easy prey for women, publicans and keepers of boarding houses.

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/artrigging00steegoog/ |title=The Art of Rigging |last1=Art |first1=George Biddlecombe |last2=Steel |first2=David |year=1848 |via=Internet Archive |location=London, England |publisher=Charles Wilson |oclc=44687779 |pages=36, 52}}
• {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5pSfvSPqEPIC/ |title=Rudimentary Treatise on Masting, Mastmaking and Rigging of Ship |last=Kipping |first=Robert |year=1861 |via=Internet Archive |location=London, England |publisher=John Weale |oclc=26927349 |pages=99-101, 105, 108}}

{{wiktionary|jacktar}}

Category:Nautical terminology

Category:Maritime folklore