Neckbeards among the Welsh clergy, 1800s

As far as I can tell, nowhere have neckbeards been more popular than among the 19th century Welsh clergy. Photos of clergymen from around this time show that a high proportion of them wore the neckbeard. Some examples below.

Rev. Jenkins Babell 

Rev. W. Jones 

Rev. A. Williams 

Rev. D. Roberts

Rev. David Hughes 

Rev. John Jones

Lucius Robinson

Lucius Robinson (1810-1891) was an American politician who served as Governor of New York from 1877-1879.

Lajos Kossuth

Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894) was a Hungarian politician who led Hungary's struggle for independence from the Austrian Empire, and served as Governor-President of Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution from 1848-49. After the revolution was quashed by the Austrians and Russians, he was removed from power and left Hungary, though he continued attempting to rally people in support of Hungarian independence. He became famous throughout Europe and the US as an icon of democracy and other liberal values such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Today he is considered the father of democracy in Hungary.

How popular were neckbeards in the 1800s?

It's obvious that neckbeards were more popular in the 1800s. But can we quantify just how common they were? To take a first stab at this, I had a look through the vintage photos sold by Tiddalik's Vintage Photography. These include many photos of men from Victorian Britain. I simply counted the total number of men depicted in the photos, and then counted the number of men wearing neckbeards. At the time of writing, the numbers are:

Number of men: 200

Number of men with neckbeards: 19

That's quite remarkable: nearly 10% of the men shown in these photos have neckbeards! Of course, this was not a random sample of British Victorian men; presumably, most of these men will have been fairly rich. Still, it suggests that the neckbeard was once among the most popular beard styles, at least among certain groups of men.

Some good neckbeards from the Tiddalik archives:

James Clyman

James Clyman (1792-1881) was an explorer of the American Far West. He was known for travelling with Jebediah Smith, and for sewing Smith's scalp and ear back on after Smith was mauled by a grizzly bear.