• The officers of the Royal North Lincolnshire Militia used to wear bright yellow waistcoat
  Waistcoat
  A waistcoat or vest is a sleeveless upper-body garment worn over a dress shirt and necktie and below a coat as a part of most men's formal wear, and as the third piece of the three-piece male business suit.-Characteristics and use:...
  
  s
• The uniforms of the old Lincolnshire Regiment were green with yellow facings. The fastenings of the uniform tunic, which were known as frogs, were also yellow.
• A species of newt, frog or eel (there is disagreement on this point) found in the Lincolnshire Fens had yellow undersides.
• It is a derogatory name, implying that the Fen-dwellers creep around in the mud, and so get yellow bellies.
• Opium extracted from poppy heads, and taken to relieve malaria that was prevalent in the fens in earlier centuries, turned the skin a shade of yellow.
• Sheep grazing in mustard fields were dusted by pollen from the blossom that turned their undersides yellow. Alternatively, the long under wool of sheep grazing in the Lincolnshire Wolds
  Lincolnshire Wolds
  The Lincolnshire Wolds is a range of hills in the county of Lincolnshire, England. It is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty , and the highest area of land in eastern England between Yorkshire and Kent...
  
   became discoloured by the yellow clay. (Neither of these can be considered a unique occurrence in Lincolnshire however)
• Women traders on street markets in past times are reputed to have worn a leather apron with two pockets, one for copper and silver and one for gold. At the end of a good day they would say they had 'a yellow belly' meaning they had taken a large number of gold sovereigns.
• The expression is based on the old belief that if a person born in Lincolnshire placed a shilling on their abdomen on retiring to bed and slept flat on their back all night, then the next morning the shilling would have turned into a gold sovereign.
• The stage coaches that operated in Lincolnshire in times past had yellow body work.
• A folk etymology says that the term originated from Elloe, the name of the rural deanery that serves the fen area of the Lincoln Diocese
  Diocese of Lincoln
  The Diocese of Lincoln forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England. The present diocese covers the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire.- History :...
  
  . This in turn took its name from the Saxon Wapentake which was referred to as Ye Elloe Bellie - Elloe meaning out of the morass while bel was the Celtic word for hole or hollow.
• Less reputable inhabitants of Cleethorpes
  Cleethorpes
  Cleethorpes is a town and unparished area in North East Lincolnshire, England, situated on the estuary of the Humber. It has a population of 31,853 and is a seaside resort.- History :...
  
   may have engaged in a form of piracy. They took torches down to the beach on dark nights and used them to trick passing ships into sailing towards the lights believing it to be the harbour. The ships would hit the shallow waters on the Cleethorpes coast and run aground where they would be raided for their cargo. On one occasion the locals are supposed to have believed they had lured a ship whose cargo had great value, but when they found the cargo was actually a vast amount of yellow flannel material. They could not be seen selling or using the cloth they had stolen so in order not to waste it they made undergarments out of it, so many of the locals were soon in possession of flannel vests and became yellow bellies.

External links

• Lincolnshire people — BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
  page; offers a number of explanations for the name.
• Nobbut A Yellerbelly — Publisher's page; gives a short description of this book on the Lincolnshire accent, with examples. By Alan Stennett. ISBN: 9781846740053