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'''Jack Tar''' was the common Englishman's name for the sailors of the Royal Navy during the time of the British Empire. ''Tar'' by itself was a synonym for ''sailor''. ''Jack Tar'' was a personification of a sailor.
There are three plausible etymologies for this name.
# Sailors frequently wore coats and hats made from a waterproof fabric called tarpaulin. This may have been shortened to "tar" at some point.
#It was common amongst seamen to plait their long hair into a pigtail and smear it with high grade tar to prevent it getting caught in the ship's equipment. This practice continued until the early 20th century.
#In the age of wooden sailing vessels, a ship's rigging was rope made of hemp, which would rot quickly in such a damp environment. To avoid this, the ropes and cables were soaked in tar. Since it was a routine part of a sailor's day to "clap on to" and "heave" these ropes, his hands would be stained with tar, and thus earned the nickname "tar".
Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', subtitled ''The Lass That Loved a Sailor'', uses the synonym ''tar'' frequently in its dialogue, including the songs "The Merry Maiden and the Tar" and "A British Tar".
One of John Philip Sousa's lesser known works was his "Jack Tar March", written in 1903, which featured the "Sailor's Hornpipe" tune in one of its segments.
One line from the second verse of George M. Cohan's song, "The Grand Old Flag" contains the lyric, "Hurrah! Hurrah! For every Yankee tar".
This name was used by a famous resort of the 1950s and 1960s which was located on the West End of Grand Bahama.