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I deleted my original post, as I found a long discussion of
the word "jack". The last paragraph of long article mentions
the use in cavalry gear.
JACK
JACK, a word with a great variety of meanings and applications, all traceable to the common use of the word as a by-name of a man. The question has been much discussed whether Jack as a name is an. adaptation of Fr. Jacques, i.e. James, from Lat. Jacobus, Gr. Ifiecof3or, or whether it is a direct pet formation from John, which is its earliest and universal use in English. In the History of tile Monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury, 1414, Jack is given as a form of JohnMos est Saxonum . . . verba et nomina transformare. . . . ut . . . pro Joizanne Jankin sive Jacke (see E. W. B. Nicholson, The Pcdigree of Jack and other Allied Names, 1892). Jack was early used as a general term for any man of the common people, especially in combination with the womans name Jill or Gill, as in the nursery rhyme. The New English Dictionary quotes from the Coventry Mysteries, 1450: And I wole kepe the feet this tyde Thow ther come both Iakke and Gylle. Familiar examples of this generic application of the name are Jack or Jack Tar for a sailor, which seems to date from the 17th century, and such compound uses as cheap-jack and steeple-jack, or such expressions as jack in office, jack of all trades, &c. It is a further extension of this that gives the name to the knave in a pack of tards, and also to various animals, as jackdaw, jack-snipe, jackrabbit (a species of large prairie-hare); it is ,,also used as a general name for pike.
The many applications of the word jack to mechanical devices and other objects follow two lines of reference, one to objects somewhat smaller than the ordinary, the other to appliances which take the place of direct manual labor or assist or save it. Of the first class may be noticed the use of the term for the small object bowl in the game of bowls or for jack rafters, those rafters in a building shorter than the main rafters, especially the end rafters in a hipped roof. The use of jack as the name for a particular form of ships flag probably arose thus, for it is always a smaller flag than the ensign. The jack is flown on a staff on the bowsprit of a vessel. In the British navy the jack is a small Union flag. (The Union flag should not be styled a Union Jack except when it is flown as a jack.) The jack of other nations is usually the canton of the ensign, as in the German and the United States navies, or else is a smaller form of the national ensign, as in France. (See FLAG.)
The more common use of jack is for various mechanical and other devices originally used as substitutes for men or boys. Thus the origin of the boot-jack and the meat-jack is explained in Isaac Wattss Logic, 1724: So foot boys, who had frequently the common name of Jack given them, were kept to turn the spit or pull off their masters boots, but when instruments were invented for both these services, they were both called jacks. The New English Dictionary finds a transitional sense in the use of the name jack for mechanical figures which strike the hours on a bell of a clock. Such a figure in the clock of St Lawrence Church at Reading is called a jack in the parish accounts for 1498-1499. There are many different applications of jack, to certain levers and other parts of textile machinery, to metal plugs used for connecting lines in a telephone exchange, to wooden uprights connecting the levers of the keys with the strings in the harpsichord and virginal, to a framework forming a seat or staging which can be fixed outside a window for cleaning or painting purposes, and to many devices containing a roller or winch, as in a jack towel, a long towel hung on a r&ler. The principal mechanical application of the word, however, is to a machine for raising weights from below. A jack chain, sc called from its use in meat-jacks, is one in which the links, formed each in a figure of eight, are set in planes at right angles to each other, so that they are seen. alternately flat or edgeways.
In most European languages the word jack in various forms appears for a short upper outer garment, particularly in the shape of a sleeveless (quilted) leather jerkin, sometimes with plates or rings of iron sewn to it. It was the common coat of defence of the infantry of the middle ages. The word in this case is of French origin and was an adaptation of the common name Jacques, as being a garment worn by the common people. In French the word is jaque, and it appears in Italian as giaco, or giacco, in Dutch jak, Swedish jacka and German Jacke, still the ordinary name for a short coat, as is the English jacket, from the diminutive French jaquette. It was probably from some resemblance to the leather coat that the well-known leather vessels for holding liquor or for drinking were known as jacks or black jacks. These drinking vessels, which are often of great size, were not described as black jacks till the 16th century, though known as jacks much earlier. Among the important specimens that have survived to this day is one with the initials and crown of Charles I. and the date, 1646, which came from Kensington Palace and is now in the British Museum; one each at Queens College and New College, Oxford; two at Winchester College; one at Eton College; end six at the Chelsea Hospital. Many specimens are painted with shields of arms, initials and other devices; they are very seldom mounted in silver, though spurious specimens with silver medallions of Cromwell and other prominent personages exist. At the end of the 17th century a smaller jack of a different form, like an ordinary drinking mug with a tapering cylindrical body, often mounted in silver, came into vogue in a limited degree. The black jack is a distinct type of drinking vessel from the leather hotel and the bombard. The jack-boot, the heavy riding boot with long flap covering the knee and part of the thigh, and worn by troopers first during the 17th century, was so called probably from association with the leather jack or jerkin. The jack-boot is still worn by the Household Cavalry, and the name is applied to a high riding boot reaching to the knee as distinguished from the riding boot with tops, used in full hunting-kit or by grooms or coachmen.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Jack shows up in stories too, Jack and beanstalk being the most well known Jack story, but there are others.. in the television production of The Story of English, Jack (and jack stories) was one word that had a large part of an episode devoted to it.
and a jack of all trades.. (a general handyman/person) is a well know 'jack'.
jack shows up in lots of idioms. you can high tail out of a place, but if you take an others car, or vehicle, you highjack it.
i am sure there are other jack words and idioms.
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I can just remember from when I was a small boy small pieces of liquorice called black jacks. They sold for a farthing each, and then after the disappearance of the farthing for 4 for a penny.
Bingley
Bingley
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>after the disappearance of the farthing for 4 for a penny.
does this mean that a farthing was a ha'ha'penny?
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does this mean that a farthing was a ha'ha'penny?Yup. It's cognate with our words fourth and quarter. From PIE * kwetwer- 'four'. Sorta like a fourthing ... http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE257.html
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Neat pictures, jheem--thanks. D'you know, that 1850 one looks to me like it used to read 1851.
(Aside: hmm--1850 one...1851.)
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Yes, it does. Hmm. Does anybody know when the wren replaced Britannia on the back of the farthing?
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Edward VIII
The Britannia reverse gave way to a picture of a wren designed by Harold Wilson Parker on the accession of Edward VIII in 1936, although examples of these farthings dated 1937 are exceedingly rare. from: http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/farth.html
formerly known as etaoin...
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Darn my eyes, always chasing after images, rather than reading the words one directory up. 
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Dear jheem: looking at your post before I looked at the
coin, I expected to see a WREN.
Seeing E VIII, was reminded of joke about his being demoted
from Admiral in RN, to third mate on an American tramp.
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For the younger amongst us: WRENS == Women's Royal Navy Service. (What happened to the 'E'? Must've lipogrammaticized ...)
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