The Beefeaters are the red-coated figures at the Tower of London, and they are neither actors nor ordinary tour guides. Every one is a decorated career soldier, and they live inside the fortress they guard.
Getting the job
The requirements are severe. A candidate must have served at least 22 years in the British armed forces, have reached the rank of warrant officer or senior non-commissioned officer, and hold the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. There are about 32 posts, and they come up rarely.
Successful applicants move into flats within the Tower walls with their families. The community inside has its own chapel, chaplain and doctor, and residents have to be let back in after the Tower is locked at night — a genuine daily inconvenience that comes with the address.
In 2007, Moira Cameron became the first woman appointed in the corps’ 522-year history.
The name
Nobody is certain. The likeliest explanation is the most literal: warders were historically paid partly in rations of beef, and a large daily beef allowance was a mark of favour. A rival theory derives it from buffetier, a servant at the royal sideboard, though the French origin is now generally doubted.
Not the same as the King’s Guard
This confusion is universal. The King’s Guard are the soldiers in bearskin hats outside Buckingham Palace who stand still and say nothing. The Yeomen Warders are at the Tower, wear Tudor bonnets rather than bearskins, and will talk to you at length — indeed, entertaining the public is a formal part of the job.
There is also a third body, the Yeomen of the Guard, who are the monarch’s personal bodyguard and appear at state occasions. Their uniform is similar, which does not help anybody.
The uniforms
Two of them. The scarlet and gold State Dress, dating from 1552, is worn for ceremonial occasions and weighs a considerable amount. The everyday undress uniform — dark blue with red trim, introduced by Queen Victoria in 1858 — is what you will usually see.
The tours
Free with admission, running every half hour, and the best hour you will spend at the Tower. The Warders are practised storytellers with a fondness for the gorier material, and the delivery — deadpan, well-timed, honed over years — is a performance in its own right.