Why do beefeaters

Getty Images. What does a Beefeater do? Why are they called 'Beefeaters'? How do you become a Beefeater? What you might not know. More like this. Odd events in the Royal family's calendar 16 Jul 16 July Your Comments Join the conversation. To use comments you will need to have JavaScript enabled. Top Stories.

Newsround Home. However, the name Beefeater is more likely to have originated from the time when the Yeomen Warders at the Tower were paid part of their salary with chunks of beef.

This took place right up until the s. There are 73 Yeomen of the Guard, all of whom are former officers and sergeants of the British Services.

It is the oldest of the Royal bodyguards and the oldest military corps in existence in Britain. Yeomen of the Guard. The Yeomen of the Guard have a purely ceremonial role.

Their most famous duty is to 'ceremonially' search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster prior to the State Opening of Parliament, a tradition that dates back to the Gunpowder Plot of , when Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament. Searching the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.

After his victory at the Battle of Bosworth , he gathered a group of soldiers together to become his personal bodyguard together and they accompanied him wherever he went as his nearest guard. He took the remainder of the bodyguard away with him. The twelve he left are origins of the Yeomen Warders who guard the Tower still today. They are different from the Yeomen of the Guard, who accompany the Queen on state occasions and are the Queen's personal bodyguards.

State Dress Uniform. Both the Yeomen of the Guard and the Yeomen Warders are best known for their scarlet and gold State dress uniforms which date from and are worn on state occasions.

Speculative science. This sceptred isle. Root of all evil. Ethical conundrums. This sporting life. Stage and screen. Birds and the bees. Somebody told me it doesn't come from their eating habits. Incidently those often finely whiskered gentlemen at the Tower are called "Yeoman Warders" not "Yeomen of the Guard", an entirely different organisation with a similar anachronistic uniform.

John K. Bromilow, Okehampton United Kingdom Brewer also mentions 'buffetier' in his Phrase and Fable, and adds that although the word actually doesn't exist in French, it probably was the prototype for the present Engish word a corruption of a corruption? The yeomen in olden times did serve at table, so it may be correct. I looked up 'buffetier' on google.

My German colleague says he has never heard it used but would understand it to refer to someone in the role of servant at a buffet.