Brown Bess
The name familiarly given in the British Army to the old flint-lock musket. (Brown Musket was in earlier use: both names existed long before the process of ‘browning’ the barrel (introduced in 1808), and apparently referred to the brown walnut stock.)
| [1708 S. Centlivre Busie Body i. i 13 My last Refuge, a brown Musquet. 1754 Connoisseur No. 31 The ceremony is performed by a brown musket.] 1785 Grose Dict. Vulgar T. s.v., To hug brown Bess: to carry a firelock, to serve as a private soldier. 1797 Gent. Mag. LXVII. 1022 ‘Etymologus’ asks ‘Can you trace the application of the term Brown Bess to anything loading or fatiguing, such as a musket to soldiers tired on a long march or to a wooden pump? Or is it..derived from the colour of the material? Why is Bess the more favourite term than Nan or Moll? A brown musket is not an uncommon phrase, taking the part for the whole, the stock for the steel. But why is Bess brought in?’ 1809 R. Porter Trav. Sk. Russ. & Swed. (1813) I. xxiv. 273 A good soldier..sleeping with his hand on his musquet, his wedded wife and dear brown Bess. 1820 Combe (Dr. Syntax) Consol. ii. (D.) Religion Jack did never profess, Till he had shoulder'd old Brown Bess. 1860 Gen. P. Thompson Audi Alt. III. cxix. 61 Without more danger from Enfield or Whitworth than from Brown Bess. c 1880 Grant Hist. India I. v. 26/1 Britons with their old ‘brown Besses’. |