Jack Tar and the gentleman officer; the role of uniform in shaping the class and gender-related identities of British naval personnel, 1930-1939

Rather than examining the navy as a professional fighting organisation, this essay approaches the institution as one in which a range of masculine identities and lifestyles were constructed. From this perspective, its focus is on the material culture of naval uniform, and the function of uniform in defining and communicating particular understandings of class and masculinity. It demonstrates that the respective uniforms of various ranks associated their wearers with specific clusters of stereotyped socio-cultural qualities and characteristics, and indeed with substantially different incarnations of masculinity. The essay also relates the design of naval uniform to much wider class- and gender-related debates within British society during the period.