Today in 1853 - Gloves are invented. In the same way that Wellington boots were named after Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and the cardigan was named after James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan - gloves were named after Reginald Glove, Duke of Chipping Sodbury, and hero of the Crimean War. Attempting to find a means to prevent chafing to the trigger fingers of his troops in the biting winds of the Crimean, Glove experimented with a number of options. Many were complete failures - such as the handsock, which caused an entire division of troops to be wiped out by the enemy due to the complete inability to hold anything... and the pocket, which (although later becoming very popular indeed) was not practical in the heat of combat. Glove eventually hit upon the idea of woven tubes, sewn together in the shape of a hand... a device able to keep a hand warm and prevent chafing while still leaving the fingers free for delicate manipulation. The Duke decided to name this thing after himself... so for many years, soldiers across Europe frequently wore a pair of Reginalds into battle. It was only later when it was pointed out to Glove that the phrase ramming Ones hands into a pair of reggies had negative connotations that it was decided to rename them. For a long time, gloves were illegal outside of the military, but after de-regulation in the early 1900s, manufacture rates grew to the point where almost everyone could own a pair of gloves, reggies or sherbert doves (Cockney).
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 11:25:10 +0000