1650-1900

Elizabeth Ewing
Everyday Dress

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 1650-1900
Everyday Dress

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Happy crowds enjoying the seaside in Ramsgate
Sands, 1852, but dressed as for town; no
beachwear then. By W P. Frith, notable as a
.

recorder of the Victorian scene.

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Everyday Dress
1650 -1900

Elizabeth Ewing

Chelsea House Publishers

New York
Philadelphia
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e
pnpBox 2270
PO ^ ter Street

Fort Wayne.
IN 46801-2270

©Elizabeth Ewing 1984

First published 1984

First paperback edition 1989

All rights reserved. No part ol this publication may

be reproduced, in any form or by any mean-.,
without permission from the Publisher.

Published in the USA by

Chelsea House Publishers.
Printed and Bound in Mexico

9 8

ISBN 1-55546-750-4
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Contents

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Picture Acknowledgements 6 6 Doing the Sewing 80
General Acknowledgements 6 The Role of Women at Home - From
i The Early Ways 7 the Mantua-maker to Making Do -
Dress Versus Fashion - Materials for The Reaction Against Home Sewing
Ordinary Clothes - The Role of the Secondhand Clothing
Tailor - Where to Shop in Restoration
7 Cleaning and Dyeing 95
Times
Washing Day - Dyeing and Colour
2 Living in the Late Seventeenth Century 16 Problems
The Account Book of Sarah Fell -
8 Gradual Revolution in the Nineteenth
A Traveller's View of Textiles -
Century 105
The Importance of Appearances -
The Sewing Machine - Mass-
A Ballad View of Dress
production for Men - Slow Reform for
3 Moving With the Times 24 Women - Sweated Labour - The New
A Suit for All - Restoration Women Uniformity
More at Ease - Wigs for Men
Select Bibliography 140
4 Eighteenth-Century Variety 37 Index 142
Boom in the Wool Trade - Details in
Dress - The London Shops

5 The Beginnings of the Industrial

Revolution 56
New Inventions and the Cotton
Industry - A Dress Revolution for
Ordinary People - Shopping for a
Country Parsonage - The New
Simplicity - The Shawl
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Acknowledgements

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Picture Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement for permission to Collection: 22, 23, 24, 36, 37, 44, 49, 65, 66, 69,
reproduce illustrations is made as follows: no, 114, 115, 117; Renfrew
70, 88, 91, 106, 108,
Museums and Art Galleries 63 Science
District : ;

Reproduced by gracious permission of Her Museum: 5, 40, 41; Staffordshire County

Majesty the Queen: frontispiece Museum Service: 46, 48, 113, 116; Victoria &
Cheltenham Museum: 93; Fashion Research Albert Museum: 6, 17, 45, 47, 50, 57, 59, 60, 61,

Centre, Bath: 8. 25, 29, 30, 52, 53, 55, 56, 95; 67, 68, 94, 97, 98, 107; Doreen Yarwood (from
Mansell Collection: 1,2,3, 4. 7> 9. io **• I2
. -
T 3> The British Kitchen, published by B. T.
15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 31. 32, 55, 34. 35. Batsford) :83 University of Reading, Insti-
79, ;

38, 42, 43, 51, 54, 58, 62, 64, 71 72, 73, 74, 75, 7b,
,
tute of Agricultural History and Museum of
77, 78, 81, 84, 86, 87, 89, 96, 99, 100, 102, 103, English Rural Life: 80
104, 105, 109, in, 112, 118, 119: Publisher's

General Acknowledgements

Because of its subject this book has called for ous help in locating and giving me the use of
material from a number of sources outside the many books not easily accessible.
normal ambit of costume history. For guidance, Penelope Bvrde, Keeper of Costume at the
help and information I have been deeplv and Museum of Costume, Bath, has provided inval-
constantly grateful to Doreen Yarwood, whose uable help in suggesting many illustrations
widespread, immensely varied but closely co- from the excellent resources of the Costume
ordinated studies of many aspects of human Research Centre there and in giving me per-
activity have been invaluable to me in dealing mission to use a number of illustrations not
with the many factors apart from fashion which otherwise available. The staff of the Mansell
have always influenced the dress of ordinary Collection most patiently and enterprisingly
people. located material for illustrations in scores of
I am also greatly indebted to the librarians files. Many local museums also responded very
and London College of Fashion and
staffs of the cordially to requests to reproduce items in their
Clothing Technology and of the Uxbridge and possession.
Ruislip (Manor Farm) libraries for their gener-
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The Early Ways

Dress Versus Fashion Social history, dealing with ordinary people,

Costume historians and students of dress have has only in the last century engaged substantial
always tended to devote most of their attention attention and dress has not generally been a
to fashionable clothes. To do so is natural. main part of it.
Fashionable dress aims at attracting attention. The subject of ordinary clothes is vast. Po-

It has always been the style of dress favoured at tentially, it covers occupational clothes - those
a certain time and place by a privileged group or worn for specific kinds of work, uniforms of all

class proclaiming its special identity by its kinds, and it could range from almost the top to
choice of clothes. Such clothes were valued and the bottom of society. But for most people
treasured and often kept for posterity. It fol- today and yesterday ordinary dress means the
lows that such fashionable clothes of the past kind of clothes worn by the man or woman 'in
constitute almost exclusively the costume col- the street', by the general mass of people going
lections displayed inmuseums and art galleries about their business or other daily activities,
and preserved by costume collectors. They working for their living, or at leisure or play.
provide most of the material of most costume What did they look like? What were their
histories, written and illustrated. Most of the clothes made of? How and where did they get
best known portraits of individuals in past them ? One thing that is certain is that ordinary
centuries show royal, notable or fashionable clothes bore little resemblance to what was
people attired in their best clothes. decreed by fashion, not least because the range
Clothes, however, have a far wider context of clothes available to the ordinary wearer at
than this. Clothes before anything else differen- one time and place was extremely restricted.
tiate mankind from the animal world. They If the art of past centuries, and collections of
have always been to some degree the concern of dress, are generally reflections of high fashion,
every human being. They affect human dignity how can we know what ordinary people wore?
and self-respect whatever the rank or status of Fortunately, so far as England was concerned,
the wearer and therefore they influence and from the later seventeenth century onwards a
reflect his place in society. But relatively few rich store of personal diaries, memoirs, letters
people through the centuries in any country and personal histories survives and records in
have worn fashionable dress, or have been able considerable detail the ordinary life of the
to do so. The majority of ordinary people have times, including much about dress. Many
to work to live, to provide themselves with writers go into the subject in considerable detail
shelter and food and clothes and the other and write with an ease and intimacy which
appurtenances of life out of money that is come undulled across the centuries - perhaps
usually limited. They wear ordinary clothes and the more so because often they wrote with no
such clothes have a story of their own which is thought of posterity or even of publication;
too little told; indeed it is very difficult to tell. only by accident have many such writings been
The clothes were normally worn out. The idea of preserved.
keeping them did not normally occur to people. The period covered by this book, the two-
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
and-a-half centuries from 1650 onwards, has a clear as it progresses. It was such people,
unitv of evolution, covering in most respects the making their way in the world by their own

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riseand development of what we commonlv call efforts, geared up to the increasingly varied
the modern world - a world of national growth activities of the professions, business, trade,
and expansion, exploration and discovery, science, invention, who were to set the main
science and invention, economic and industrial pattern of everyday dress.
progress on a scale never before seen a world of
:

Materials for Ordinary Clothes

new ways of life for its inhabitants, of new social
From earliest times four natural fibres, cotton,
structures and class distinctions. Something of
flax, silk and wool, used in a great variety of
what such changes meant is reflected in every-
forms, have been the mainstay of the dress of
day terms by changes in the dress of ordinary
mankind everywhere. Not till the present
people which reveal, consciously or uncon-
century's vast contrivance of man-made fibres
sciously, much about the circumstances in
has the ages-old pattern been disturbed and in
which they lived and their attitude to them.
many ways the ages-old natural materials are as
Local archives sometimes contribute further
strong!}- enthroned as they have ever been.
information. As the whole period is one of an
increasing rise in the numbers and importance
of the middle and lower classes and of increasing 1 Early spinning and weaving, from a twelfth-
attention being given to ordinary people and century manuscript in Trinity College,
their affairs, the picture becomes increasingly Cambridge.
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The spinning of yarn and the weaving of cloth covered, preserved by local peat and containing
were the first crafts of all to be practised by evidence of a community of fishermen, farmers

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early man and century by century, in country and hunters. Among the relics found and now in
after country, they retained many of their Glastonbury Museum are spindle whorls, weav-
original features. Even today some processes ing combs, loom weights and bobbins of this
have remote past and
close affinities with the period showing considerable expertise.
are living history. This continuity was very It is known that these people kept flocks and

strong in the seventeenth century, when devel- herds of animals; and sheep were indigenous to
opments had been great but traditional pro- Britain, running wild in the forests which
cesses had not been transformed at any point by covered most of the country. The type was a
mechanization. small, black-faced one similar to some still

How, when and where the processes of spin- found in St Kilda, the Shetland Islands and
ning and weaving were first devised are all outlying districts of Wales, Scotland and
unknown. The earliest known evidence lies in Ireland.
the Bronze Age, reached at different times in From the beginning wool was established as
different parts of the world. Archaeologists the main material for spinning and weaving.
have gone as far back as 4500 bc in dating some Cotton did not grow in Britain, so was not used
pieces of linen found in Egypt, the earliest till it could be imported. Flax grew in a few
civilization to be recorded with any certainty. areas, but was much more difficult to spin and
Linen, cotton and wool were all available there weave than was wool, and also was much less
and used there for spinning and weaving, wool useful for an agricultural populace living in a
being the material most widely used for clothing cool or cold climate. Silk was an ancient mon-
by ordinary people, as in many other countries opoly of the East, a scarce luxury probably first
throughout history. In Britain in particular brought to England by returning Crusaders in
wool was not only important in ordinary dress the Middle Ages.
but wool and wool textiles were Britain's first
and main product for export and therefore a
vitally important source of growth and develop-
ment and rising national wealth.
The earliest known example of weaving in
Britain consists of some pieces of a rough wool
material ascribed to about 2000 bc and ex-
cavated in 1878 from a funeral barrow at
Rylestone in Yorkshire, where they had been
preserved miraculously by being kept dry in an
oak coffin.

How weaving started in Britain is unknown;

the perishable nature of the cloth and of the
wooden appliances first used for spinning and

weaving have defeated investigation. The lake

villages of Meare and Godney, near Glaston-
bury in Somerset, have yielded the earliest
surviving evidence. Built on stilts on a large
lake known as Meare Pool, they flourished from
about 250 bc to ad 50. Though drained about 2 Wheel for spinning and bobbin-winding, about
1717, the site was not excavated until the 1890s, 1300, drawn from the Luttrell Psalter in Trinity
when these remarkable villages were dis- College, Cambridge.
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SSSffl^^S w fititom te u)fat

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J&W1.

3 'When A dam delved and Eve span ' ; from the Britain's economic progress was therefore in
Verislav Bible, 1340. many respects increasingly linked with the wool
trade. What amounted to legal enforcement to
wear wool was provided by the enactment from
There is some evidence that a wool trade with the fourteenth to the early seventeenth cen-
the Phoenicians existed in Britain before the turies of a series of sumptuary laws placing
Romans came. The latter brought new skills to many restrictions on the type of dress permitted
the craft and exported cloth to Italy, where to the general populace. Sumptuary laws, gov-
wool was the material most in demand for dress erning personal habits and behaviour, as dis-
by all classes. After them the Anglo-Saxons tinct from the general regulation of society by
played their part in fostering the development law, are strange to modern thinking but were an
of trade in wool with Europe, which flourished accepted part of the hierarchical society which
between the eighth and the eleventh centuries. prevailed all through the Middle Ages and after
The Normans pursued the same policy and them, upholding the belief that class distinc-
looked to a growing home and overseas trade in tions should be preserved in the interests of the
wool and woollen fabrics as the main basis of the stability of the state and that social climbing
economic expansion on which they were intent. should be discouraged. Such laws specified that
Subsequent rulers had the same policies, Ed- only people above a certain rank or possessed of
ward I and III being particularly active in this a specified income should be allowed to wear
direction. rich fabrics, fine furs, embroidery, jewels and

10
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many other costly adornments, most of them
imported. The privileged were few in number

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and while it appears that sumptuary laws were
often flouted, they acted as a further stimulus to
the wool trade.
Linen was used to a small extent by ordinary
people, mostly the more privileged who could
afford to employ for trimmings and access-
it

ories and for the shifts and shirts which were the
only generally worn items of underwear. By the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries linen was
coming into more general use for these pur-
poses, and also for collars and cuffs, women's
tippets and caps and men's 'bands' or neckwear.
Cotton, which had to be imported, was scarce
and did not play any substantial part in every-
day dress until imports soared in the latter part
of the eighteenth century.
The immense growth of the wool trade took
place in an England as yet untouched by
industry, dominated by agriculture; a
seventeenth-century England in which sheep
were still England's richest agricultural prod-
uct. In the process of growth and expansion
England had moved far from being a simple
4 Spinning and weaving, c.1520; a family
rural community where 'Adam delved and Eve
affair carried out in the home.
span'. But the spinning and weaving continued
with ever-increasing impetus. Most of the woollen fabrics) and worsteds, the south-west
spinning was still a cottage industry, carried on was noted for its high-quality broadcloths
mainly by the women and children of the which were being sought by the wealthier
household; but now they worked not only for classes and which also 'clothed the fine gentle-
their own clothing and other needs but also for men and rich merchants of half Europe' by the
an ever-growing market at home and overseas. seventeenth century. The north was homelier,
The weaving had for the most part gone out with an output of rougher types of woollens
of the four walls of every home. It took six worn by ordinary people in the country and in
spinners to keep one weaver fully employed, so the growing towns. Chief of them were kersey (a

when spun the yarn was increasingly bought by coarse wool) and fustian mixture of wool and
(a

an entrepreneur, a dealer who concentrated on linen or cotton). From records dating from the
supplying spun yarn to full-time weavers. By sixteenth century there emerges a kind of local
this means growing home and overseas markets history of fabrics. Thus drugget (closely woven
could be supplied. wool) and cantel were products of Bristol;
In the course of this development cloth serges of Taunton and Exeter; linsey-wolsey
production had also moved far from the original (linen and wool) of Kendal; shaloon (twilled
weaving of rough homespuns and now em- worsted), for linings, of Newbury. Welsh flan-
braced a great variety of fabrics, most of them nel, according to tradition originally used by
indigenous to certain areas and even particular William the Conqueror, continued to flourish
towns. East Anglia specialized in baizes (plain throughout the centuries.

1
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
The Role of the Tailor
The shaping of garments to the body, by cutting

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the cloth and stitching the pieces together and
the creation of clothes of innumerable shapes
either to fit the body or to change its shape for
various reasons, practical or decorative, is

almost entirely a western innovation of not

many centuries' duration; it is implicit in the
western concept of dress in general and not only
of fashion.
This view of dress introduces a new figure, the
tailor. He is so basic to western dress that Leslie
Hunter and Margaret Stewart, the authors of
The Xeedle is Threaded, the authoritative his-
tory of the clothing industry, declare sweep-
ingly at the outset, 'A full history of the tailor
would embrace the whole story of civilization.
There is no older craft.'
Before the seventeenth century tailors
operated at all levels, from the exclusive and

6 The early tailor in his shop, cutting a garment;

lus workers are busy in the background.
Frankfurt, 1568.

5 Spinning machine, ij-<). using water power.

The increasing wealth of Britain in the latter

part of the seventeenth century had a consider-
able effect on the structure of society. It meant
that the ordinary man even if he started in poor
,

circumstances, could now look forward to a

prosperity and status hitherto improbable. As
early as the beginning of the century this had
begun to be apparent. John Stow in his Survey
of London (1603) had noted, 'in wealth, merch-
ants and some of the chief retailers have first
place' and Philip Stubbes made a similar com-
ment. The tradesman became a worthy and
dignified member of the community, mixing
with the gentry and even enjoying the possi-
bility of marrying into titled families.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
fashionable, with premises in the elegant shop- and trimmings, which were all normally pro-
ping centres of London and later of the main vided by the customer.

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provincial towns, to village and itinerant crafts-
men, the latter travelling the country with their Where to Shop in Restoration Times
equipment and visiting their customers, like the Where did people acquire not only the cloth to
daily dressmakers of more recent times. be made up by the tailor but also the trimmings,
The claim that his was the first craft is also accessories, gloves, stockings, hats and so
put forward for the tailor by R. Campbell in The forth ? Country people - and the great majority
Complete London Tradesman, i74y. It details of peoplecame into this category in the seven-
300 trades and admits only one possible fore- teenth century - depended mainly on the great
runner of the tailor in the shape of Prometheus, variety of pedlars and travelling salesmen who
arguing that as the tailor had to have a needle went the rounds of an area, calling at houses
before he could ply his craft fire and metal must
, great and small, and on purchases made at fairs
have come first. (In fact the first needles were and markets, held from time immemorial at
probably made of animal bone, so this point is certain places, usually at fixed times, weekly,
not admissible.) monthly or seasonally. All these were as old as
In practical terms Campbell recalls that the history, and to tell the history of pedlars and
tailors of England formed one of the earliest fairs would need volumes to do it justice. The
trade guilds, were originally known as 'cissotii', first shops probably came into existence when

and collectively were described as the Fraterni- pedlars and other salesmen found enough cus-
tatis Cissorum. They had acquired a high degree tomers in one place in a growing society to
of skill by the seventeenth century and consis- up a permanent location where
justify setting
ted of master tailors, journeymen and appren- customers would come to them.
tices. Journeymen were sometimes employed In Britain, London had a long lead in this
by the more prosperous master tailors and respect. By the seventeenth century shopping
sometimes worked on their own, in town or was well established and had achieved consider-
village or travelling from place to place. Ap- able variety. London Bridge, the only one
prentices went through an organized training. crossing the Thames until Westminster Bridge
The tailors can have had no easy task, because was built in 1750, had two close-packed rows of
paper patterns for clothes as we know them did shops all along its length before the Great Fire
not exist until the seventeenth century. The and these were bigger and better in the speedily
earliest recorded tailors' patterns are in Spanish rebuilt capital. All round the area, the hub of
books and are dated 1589 and 1618. The French the smaller London of Restoration times, with a
Le tailleur sincere is dated 167 1. population of half a million, streets and areas
The tailor was an important member of were given over to certain specific ranges of
society by the seventeenth century, working for goods, often given abiding names such as
both men and women, skilled enough to make Threadneedle Street and Petticoat Lane.
his own patterns for the very elaborate clothes Dress played a prominent part in this early
often seen in paintings. He by no means worked shopping precinct. Mercers, ladies' tailors (who
only for the wealthy and privileged and he were men, of course) and lacemen clustered in
played a large part in the dress of all who could Paternoster Row, drapers and booksellers were
afford to keep up any kind of creditable ap- cheek-by-jowl in St Paul's churchyard and its

pearance. From account books and general environs. Cheapside was full of shops selling
allusions it appears that ordinary people em- tempting accessories. On London Bridge fash-
ployed him, and that he was not usually highly ion goods predominated. In the new London
paid. The amounts he received are regularly far there was a start of the westward trend which
less than those given for cloth, linings, buttons has been a feature of London shopping ever

13
7
An old London shop,
before lyoo.
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since,with the New Exchange in the Strand
becoming a particular centre of attraction for

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the small purchases increasingly sought after in
the new mood of easy, informal enjoyment of
the passing moment which was a feature of
Restoration England. This enjoyment ex-
tended to a much greater variety of people than
in the past. From the times after the Fire,
Covent Garden and Holborn began to be drawn
into the shopping network.
The shops, however, remained small, some-
times consisting of the ground floor of the
owner's home, with a window enlarged to
provide a display of his wares. This continued
through most of the eighteenth century. In
addition to the multifarious shops there still
remained even in London a motley array of
pedlars,hawkers and street traders of all kinds,
most of them dealing in small items, like pins
and ribbons, but including second-hand clothes,
which amounted to a vast section of the cloth-
ing trade, as will be shown later.

London, in the middle of the seventeenth

century, was the Mecca of shopping for the
whole of England, supplying the needs of people
not only of the upper but also of the growing
middle classes. Visiting friends from the town
would be given commissions by rural people.
Requirements, from tailor-made clothes for
men to caps and bonnets for women, would be 8 Traditional working people 's everyday dress,

ordered by letter. As transport to and from seventeenth century; above, left to right, the tailor,

London improved this traffic increased. Only the mower ; below, the butcher.

gradually did other towns acquire shops that

could to any extent compete with the capital. In
the seventeenth century almost the only ones to
do this were the two next largest towns, Bristol
and Norwich, with populations of about 30,000
each.

15
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Living in the Late Seventeenth
Century
The Account Book of Sarah Fell Fell's account book, unique as an outline docu-
Something of how people living the ordinary mentary of the kind of life she led. To give it its

lives of the late .seventeenth century, with The Household Account Book of Sarah
full title,

limited money and time to devote to clothes, Fell of Swarthmoor Hall was never meant for
dealt with dress problems for themselves and publication and survived bv a happv series of
their families, shown in unexpected ways bv
is chances; it was not published in full until 1920,
recollections and records which some of them though it deals with five years of the 1670s.
left. These are varied and considerable. It is a large book of 600 pages, 510 of which
For a backward view from an isolated part of
the north country towards the end of the 9 The pedlar remained unchanged for centuries
seventeenth centurv a useful item is Sarah and was a familiar sight all over Britain.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
form the actual accounts kept for each member dark colours. She bought green ribbons, and
of the family (three sisters and often the had stockings dyed sea-green and sky-blue.

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mother). It records in detail every imaginable From the fact that so many purchases are
kind of payment made for house, family, serv- made from surrounding towns and villages it
ants and farming activities. A wealth of inform- appears that shopping facilities were not avail-
ation emerges on what the Fells wore; the able locally. The biggest suppliers are in Lan-
account book details every item. The first entry caster, 20 miles away across two tidal estuaries.
was made on 25 September 1673, the final one Gloves sometimes come from London. Cloth for
on 15 August 1678. Those relating to purchas- the tailor often comes from Kendal. Many items
ing clothes appear cheek by jowl with every- of clothing were made for servants, as was
thing else, from eggs to horseshoes, candles to customary at the time and for a considerable
carpentry, sheep shearing to chimney sweeping, time to come. Stores also came from Kendal.
pigs to postage. The account book demonstrates that 'a large
The Fells do
attempt to be self-
not proportion of the food and clothing for the
supporting in the old way. They seem to have ordinary family was provided entirely by the
grown hemp and kept their own sheep for wool, women and children'. Women played an im-
but they regularly pay for spinners and portant part in the household, being responsible
weavers. There is an entry for 'milling and for the dairy, orchard, garden, the management
dressing 12 yds wt. kearsey of oures'. They also of pigs and poultry, the spinning of wool and
pay for the knitting of 'stockens' and for flax and the brewing of beer.
'washing and rinshinge', which presumably
means their household laundry. They make A Traveller's View of Textiles
innumerable purchases of many kinds of cloth - Starting little more than a decade after Sarah
'kearsey', fustian, 'callicue' (calico), Cumber- Fell's record and continuing into the next
land cloth, 'sasnett' (a soft silk), holland, and century (although not published until 1947) was
also buy 'ribbins', tapes, thread, buttons. Their The Travels of Celia Fiennes. It was forward-
regular tailor, 'Math ffell' (Matthew Fell), ap- looking, outward-looking, a paeon of praise for
pears 59 times in the accounts. He was a local England's progress, seeking to 'add much to its
man, living near Ulverston, and he worked for Glory and Esteem in our eyes to improve trade
'
,

all the women of the family,

was usual duringas and the general good.
the seventeenth century where tailored items Celia was an astonishing woman who from
were concerned, even among those of limited the late 1660s travelled on horseback through
means. Women dressmakers scarcely existed. most of England with an acutely perceptive eye
The amounts paid to him vary from a few pence for every kind of fact and detail: in 1702 she
to several shillings, usually entailing work for wrote it all down. The result was the first
several people. What was done was usually comprehensive survey of England since
described merely as 'worke', though occasion- Harrison's and Camden's in Elizabethan times
ally a 'wastcoate' or coat is specified. and for the present purpose it is treasure trove,
The Fells also buy and
hats, gloves, shoes dealing as it does with spinning and weaving,
clogs.They pay for footing their 'stockens'. the buying and selling of cloths, markets, fairs
They buy hemp for shirts and shifts, but after and the intensely lively, ever-growing wool
spinning and weaving these presumably were trade of pre-industrial England at a time of
made at home, as was usual until the nineteenth great social and political changes.
century. Sarah from time to time sends petti- The first version was called Through England
coats to Kendal to be dyed, and other 'dieing' on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and
also goes there. Although she became a Quaker, Mary and that is what it is. Celia's name is on
Sarah did not feelbound to wear only austere, the title page. She had companions, but men-

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10 Haymaking in the early seventeenth century ; people knitting four or five in a company under
an illustration for a ballad. the hedges'. At Derby 'they make great quan-
tetys of gloves. I did not observe or learn any
tions only two servants, and also spare horses, other trade or manufacture.'
but she does not say how many. She gives no She goes on to Leeds, 'a large town this is . . .

details of herself, but her main travels were esteemed the wealthyest town of its bigness in
during her thirties. Of her clothing she mentions the Country, its manufacture is the woollen
only a dust-coat and 'night cloths and little cloth the Yorkshire Cloth in which they are all
things'. But she gives a profusion of first-hand employ'd and are esteemed very rich and very
information of what she saw with sharp obser- proud'.
vation of mining, drainage, agriculture as well Colchester 'is a large town', which specializes
as cloth manufacturing, particularly of wool in making the plain woollen fabric called Bayes;
processing, from weaving to marketing, all over 'great quantities are made here and sent in
England. Bales to London, the whole town is employ'd in
She notes that, 'The ordinary people both in spinning, weaveing, washing, trying and dress-
Norfolk and Suffolk knit much and spin, some ing their Bayes, in which they seem very
with the rock and fasoe as the French does industrious.' Norwich has, as well as a ca-
[distaff and spindle], others at their wheeles out thedral, '3 Hospitalls for boys girls and old
in the streets and lanes as one passes.' She people who spinn yarne, as does all the town
describes the fulling or finishing of wool cloth besides for the Crapes, Callimanco [Calico] and
and flax-growing near Moreton-in-the-Marsh in Damaskes which is the whole business of the
Gloucestershire. In East Anglia she goes to place. Indeed they are arrived to a great perfec-
Wymondham, 'where you meet the ordinary tion in their worke so fine and thinn and glossy
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
their pieces are 27 yards in length and their ate in our age of mechanization and mass-
price is from 50 shillings to three pound as they production.

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are in fineness a man can weave 13 yards a day,
; Many hands, toiling industriously, may have
I saw some weaving, they are all employ'd in made light work of dress problems for the very
spinning, knitting weaveing dying scouring rich, but they would make light pockets for the
fulling or bleaching their stuffs.' majority of people, and clothes were costly, a
Exeter is 'a town very well built the streets major item of expenditure for all who had any
are well pitch'd spacious noble streets and a regard for appearances. They had to be cher-
vast trade is carryd on as Norwich
; is for crapes ished and made to last. They were refurbished,
callimanco and damaske soe this is for Serges - altered, given new trimmings of lace, ribbon,
there is an incredible quantety of them made brought up to date, eventually often cut
frilling,

and sold in the town; their market day is down member of the family. Such
for a smaller
Fryday which supplys with all things like a faire expedients were resorted to by all classes' of
almoste; ... the whole town and country is society, including the apparently prosperous.
employ'd for at least 20 miles round in spinning, In The Lives of the Norths, which throws much
weaveing, dressing and scouring, fulling and lightupon seventeenth-century life and habits,
drying of the serges, it turns the most money a Roger North describes his visits to Sir Dudley
weeke of anything in England ..." North: T have come there [to his house] and
At Taunton there is an unusual dress note: found him very busy in picking out the stitches
'You meete all sorts of country women wrapp'd of a displaced petticoat', prior to a renovation
up in the mantles called West Country rockets carried out by Pepys was
his wife. Elizabeth
[rochets], a large mantle doubled together of a housebound whole day doing a similar
for a
sort of serge, some are linseywolsey, and a deep refurbishing; the diarist notes: 'So home, and
fringe or fag at the lower end these hang down ; dined with my wife, who, poor wretch, sat
some to their feets some only just below the undressed all day till ten at night, altering and
wast, in the summer they ar all in white lacing of a noble petticoat.'
garments of this sort, in the winter they are in Nearly all classes found clothes a constant
red ones . . . they never go out without them and problem, usually because of the high cost and
this is the universal fashion in Sommerset and
Devonshire and Cornwall.' This kind of local 1 1 A family group, early seventeenth century,
dress rarely gets recorded. from an illustration for the Roxburghe Ballads.
The only other specific reference to a garment
is in her note about Kendal: 'The Kendall
Cotton is used for blanckets and the Scotts use
them for their plodds [plaids] and there is much
made here and also linsiwoolseys . . . twice a
weekes the market furnished with all sorts of
things.' Kendal Cottons were woollen cloth
generally dyed green, a reminder of Falstaff 's
'three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green'.

The Importance of Appearances

The sheer toil, trouble and frustrations involved
in dress in the centuries when everything, from
spinning and weaving the cloth to cutting out
the garment and the last stitch of the last seam
had to be done by hand, are difficult to appreci-

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
the time and trouble it took to get garments letters between Sir Ralph and his wife Mary
made and then them
the trouble of caring for deal with clothes. He quizzes her about not

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and keeping them in good condition. Only the having worn her new clothes: 'Sure you meane
very wealthy, who could command ample ser- to sell them and bring mee a minte of money, or
vices for making and maintaining, and the poor, else the vanitie of others hath abated your pride
who would aim at little more than home-made, . . . Certainly we are much of a humour at this
handed-down or charity coverings, were im- time about our cloathes, for did you but see how
mune from these problems. I am patched upp with old frippery, you could

The Memoirs of the Verney Family, a match- not but admire it ; but I deferre all my bravery
less source of information on familv life in the tillyou come.' That there was no social stigma
main part of the seventeenth century, is no- in selling one's clothes secondhand and that
where more revealing than in the letters in shabbiness was no ignominy are facts that recur
which younger members of the familv appeal in records of this time. Thus in 1650 Sir Ralph's

for parental help over their wardrobes. The friend, Sir Henry Newton, writes from Paris
Yerneys were of some note, long-established about an old coat which Sir Ralph had asked
'landed gentry' with a history of public service him to sell for him: it is difficult to get a good
at times, but here they are private people with price for it as 'the moths have been very busie
everyday clothes problems that could be acute with it.'

and distressing; it is as ordinary people that Mun, as Edmund, another of Ralph's sons,
their chronicler, Lady Verney (who was Flor- was known, writes from The Hague for 150
ence Nightingale's elder sister), saw her fore- yards of black ribbon to trim a grey and black
bears. It was after her marriage to Sir Harrv cloth doublet to be worn with scarlet silk
Verney in 1858 that she started editing the vast stockings, which will make proper attire, or
collection of 30,000 letters which had lain black if his father prefers. He also needs some
forgotten in boxes in a gallery at the top of the Cordova gloves. Sir Ralph thinks 150 yards
family house, Claydon, in Buckinghamshire, excessive for bows; 'soe a suit be whole, cleane,
some of them going back to Henry VII's time, and fashionable I care not how plaine it bee'.
but extending to 1696. 'Most of the work of the Mun's brother John is, in contrast, careful
world is done by average men and women,' she over his wardrobe. He chooses with care: 'Mr
suggests. Denton the Taylour hath brought mee a sute of
The younger men of the familv, dependent closes of same Cloth that my Cloke is off; he
upon their parents, have many clothes prob- hath also brought mee a sote with a pair of
lems. Thus Tom Verney in 1638 writes to Sir upper stokings, and a pair of under reade
Ralph, his father, with many requests. He has stockings.' He has, however, a few smaller
'hardly any clothes left, neither bands, ruffs, wants: T doe lake some blackerubin for to make
shirts, boothose, boots, or anything else but is mee some cuffestrings and shoostrings against
upon my back'. He is rescued: subsequently a Christmas ... I doe allso take a hatt against
tailor 'charges for a grey cloth suit for Mr christmas, for my oulde hat which I have now is

Thomas Verney' and 'for a collar, and callyco to full of holes in the croune of it.'

lyne and stitch a tafety doublet'. Later Tom In 1662 John Verney, who has been appren-
asks for 'three small parcells of things, and then ticed to a textile trader in London (a significant
I will not trouble you noe more this three sign of changing social standards) is going
months - two paire of gloves, two paire of linen overseas for a 12-year post with a firm of textile
stockings, two paire of plaine boothose topps, exporters and his wardrobe is listed. He takes
two paire of woollen boothose and three hand- with him clothes which cost £50 in all, including
kerchiefs. A very small matter buys them.' 'Holland for caps, handkerchiefs, and doublets
About the middle of the seventeenth centurv £1.7.0, lace for the caps 4s gd, cloth for two pair

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of socks 3s od, six pair thread stirrup stockings main exports 'Cotton and Cotton Wools, Galls
losod, two pair white stockings £2, six pair of for Dyers, Aniseeds, Cordovants, Wax, Gros-

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Shoes and one pair Slippers £1.9. 10, seven pair gram, Yarns, Chamlets Mohairs and Raw
. . .

gloves gs od, Tailor's bill for £16. 10. o. Silks brought overland from Persia, and
His employers are stated to have as their Goatshair.' To offset this, 'the Company's ships
brought back in return the famous English
cloth from Suffolk, Essex and Gloucester; ker-
12 'A Merry New Song 'from Tempest 's Cries seys from Yorkshire and Hampshire
ofLondon (1688-1702). In 1685 Edmund's son, also Edmund, is 16
 ; ' ; .

EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

and going to Oxford. His father sends off his The Taylor gave his Love a Gowne,
trunk of clothes after him, including everything In love and kinde good will

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'except yr old Camelote coate, wch I Didd not The Usurer, with his money bags,
think you would need nor worth sending yr old ;
Her purse did often fill.
Hatt Didd not send neither, for it was soe
I

Badd that I was ashamed of it.' The happy simplicity of the country girl
The Verney ladies, like their menfolk, could comes in for frequent praise in the ballads, as in
at times feel shabby compared with other one in which she is the speaker:
women, and this was particularly galling when
Although I am a Country Lasse,
they were outshone by those of a lower rank.
A loftie mind I beare a,
Thus 'the silk gowns of the Miss Berts excited
I think my self as good as those,
the envy of the better-born and much worse-
That gay apparel weare a.
dressed Miss Verneys.' Again, Jack Verney, as
an apprentice, is staying with his employers, the My coate is made of comely Gray,
Roberts, and is visited by his aunt Penelope. Yet is my skin as soft a,
Says the memoir: 'If Mrs Gabriel Roberts and As those that with the chiefest Wines,
her daughters craned their necks out of the Do bathe their bodies oft a.

window to see the young apprentice's fashion-

able relations, they probably derived some Again, the girl voices her contentment with
feminine satisfactions in contrasting the her humble lot:

shabbiness of Aunt Penelope's attire with their

I care not to weare Gallant raggs,
own gowns and riding-hoods, for the
rich silk
And owe the Taylour for them,
worthy merchant was prospering greatly.
I care not for those vaunting brags,
There is also a Verney description of the
I ever did abhor them.
informal morning attire of women of the time I
:

'

found Mrs Mary in her morning dress, a white

Fortunately, she is wooed for her simplicity.
and blacke petty cote and wast coate, and all
Says the man who adores her:
cleane and fine linnen, so lovely proper and
briske I protest I knewe her not at first sight.' A country Lasse in russet gray,
With her I love to sport and play,

A Ballad View of Dress

O she will dance, and sweetly sing,
Much like the Nightingale in Spring.
A more cheerful view of dress is given in the
Roxburghe Ballards, that 'collection of Ancient
But another girl from Worcestershire is
Songs and Ballards, written on various sub-
tempted by London and its luxury, with gifts
jects, and printed between the years MDLX
from many admirers.
and MDCC. Such folk literature reveals much
about contemporary attitudes. One gives to me perfumed Gloves,
The tailor was clearly very much part of the The best that he can buy me . .

community, frequently mentioned. There is the If any new toyes I will have,
ballad which runs: I have them, cost they ne're so deare, -

There was a Lass had three Lovers, My fashions with the Moone I change,
The one of them a Taylor, As though were a Lady;
I

The second waas a monied man, All quaint conceits, both new and strange,
The third a Joviall Saylor He have as soon as may be.

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The present luxury of young men's lace and 13 Spinning out of doors, an illustration for the
compared with the good old days when
ruffles is Roxburghe Ballads.

Their fathers went in homely frees,

And good plain broad cloathes breeches,
Their stockings with the same agrees,
Sow'd on with good strong stitches.

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Moving with the Times

A Suit for All began to be fashionable wear too. A third

With the end of the Civil War the Restoration garment, a long waistcoat which might be seen
marked the start of a period of expansion and as an adaptation of some of the previous
development affecting every aspect of life and elaborate male garments, was added and the
every class of the populace, to an extent never trio, known as a 'suit', was worn by all classes.
seen before. Men sailed the m-u> as explorers and This name was not new. In The Male Image
merchant adventurers, spurred on by the twin Penelope Byrde records that 'in the fourteenth
excitements of new-found lands and new trade century the Great Wardrobe accounts of Ed-
markets which would bring power and wealth to ward III listed "suits of clothes" of three, four,
the country and to the individual. The great five or six garments each, and the term con-
sweep of science and invention, which was to tinued in use during the next three centuries.'
transform the world, found a springboard in the Samuel Pepys referred to his suits' both before
founding of the Royal Society in London in and after the period when the coat, waistcoat
1660, and in 1662 it received its Royal Charter and knee breeches came into fashion. On 3
and the active support of Charles II and Prince September 1665, the year of the Great Fire, he
Rupert, both of whom were keen amateur wrote: Up and put on my coloured silk suit,
scientists. The Bank of England was established verv fine.'

in 1690 and this gave business a boost. Both John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys have
Social changes were implicit in these events recorded how this change in men's dress to what
and men's dress, which still dominated the in numerous forms has been the basic outfit of
clothes scene, as it had done in the past, all classes ever since took place, and how it

reflected this because men's way of life was started off with a Royal accolade. Evelyn, for
changing. The former richness and extrava- once, steals some of the thunder from his more
gance of fashionable attire, the doublets and dress-conscious contemporary and claims to
trunk hose, the bombasted splendour, the great have had some share in contriving a style of
ruffs and feathers, the fanciful accoutrements of dress which is generallv believed to have been
Elizabethan times had no place in a world where introduced into Court circles by Charles II. He
activity and achievement involved all classes records that in October 1666 the doublet and
and where class barriers were breaking down. trunk hose then still in vogue in high society
The ordinarv man counted for much more - and were bringing their wearers into general dis-
there were more of him to count. What James repute because thev were a French mode.
Laver called 'a real revolution in male attire' England was at war with France. He claims
took place - and that meant in all male attire. that he suggested their replacement by 'a
By about 1620 all classes were wearing comely vest, after the Persian mode'. He con-
breeches similar to what ordinary men had been tinues with an invective against current fash-
wearing for centuries in most countries. Some ions for men. This attack he gave to the King to
kind of jacket, also evervdav dress for centuries, read. On 18 October he writes in his diarv: 'To

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EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

London to our office, and now I had on the vest possible by the wider use of woollen cloth by all
and surcoat or tunic as 'twas called, after His classes'. Such cloth could be shaped and

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Majesty had brought the whole Court to it. It handled with a precision not possible in the case
was a comely and manly habit, too good to of silksand velvets of widely variable textures
hold.' and weaves. The woollen suit had indeed come
Pepys mentions the King's new clothes on 13 to stay - from then until now. Long straight
October, when he says he visited the Duke of coats were the first choice in the last quarter of
York, the King's brother, later James II, and the seventeenth century. The 'vest' was the
'.
so I stood and saw him dress himself and try
. . later 'waistcoat' and at that time itwas usually
on his vest, which is the king's new fashion and as long as the coat or even longer. At first both
he will be in it for good and all on Monday next, were straight, but by the end of the century the
and the whole court; it is a fashion, the king
says, he will never change' Two days later on 1 .

14 The Little Man, at St Alban 's Abbey: a

October, he writes 'This day the King begins to
:

simple version of the seventeenth-century suit.

put on his vest, and I did see several persons of
the House of Lords and Commons too, great
courtiers who are in it ; being a long cassock
close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked
with white silke under it, and it, and
a coat over
the legs ruffled with black riband like a
pidgeon's leg, and upon the whole I wish the
King may keep it, for it is a very fine and
handsome garment.'
By November Pepys had followed the Royal
lead and he writes: 'My taylor's man brings my
vest home, and coat to wear with it ... I rose
and dressed myself, and like myself mightily in
it, and so do my wife ... it being very cold, to
Whitehall, and was mightily fearfull of an ague,
my vest being new and thin, and the coat cut
not to meet before, upon my vest.'
The man's suit, which is what the new outfit
amounted to, had come to stay. It could be
interpreted in ways appropriate to all classes
and needs. It also gave a great impetus to the
adoption of wool for men's dress, instead of the
silks, brocades and velvets which had pre-
viously been favoured by high fashion. Charles
is said to have been one of the first men of
fashion to show a strong preference for wool.
The suit would encourage this, being a big step
towards more practical dressing and capable of
adoption by all classes.
The suit also influenced the course of dress
because it encouraged the craft of the tailor. 'By
1680,' says Phillis Cunnington, 'experiments in
better cut and fit were being attempted, made

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
coat was in the more familiar, waisted, full- word which then and long afterwards normally
skirted style, often show the vest
worn open to meant an outer garment. That is what Pepys

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and shirt underneath. Breeches, worn for cen- meant when he spoke of buying his wife a
turies by working men in town and country, petticoat, and Jane Austen was still using the
were now worn generally in all classes until the word in the same sense. In the seventeenth
beginning of the nineteenth century. century it could be plain or highly decorative, as
For the student of dress there is an odd references by Pepys show.
footnote to this seventeenth-century move to- The top at that time was usually a waistcoat.
wards more democratic dress in the shape of a It was fitted to the waist and usually extended a

reference to the duffel coat. In 1683 William few inches below it. It was long-sleeved, but-
Byrde of Virginiagrumbled: 'The duffel is the toned up the front, with or without a collar, and
worst I ever saw colour too light, a darker
. . . was normally made by the tailor, who was still
blue pleases better.' In the next century Defoe almost the only maker of fitted clothing. Such
says that duffel, 'a coarse woollen stuff', was was the waistcoat referred to by Sarah Fell in
exported to the New World, but was also 'much her accounts.
worn here in winter'. A seventeenth-century description of a pet-
ticoat calls it 'the skirt of a gown without its
Restoration Women More at Ease
body worn either under a gown, or without
. . .

Women's dress followed a similar trend to that

it.' was in fact the outer garment worn by
It
of men as regards an underlying practicality, a
most women and it was chiefly made by the
general adoption of a style more capable of
wearer herself or by the sempstress, who was
being worn by ordinary people than was the
beginning to gain ground as a maker of women's
Elizabethan farthingale. The farthingale had
dress.
continued to be a fashion well into the early
It has already been said that up to the end of
years of the seventeenth century, even though
the seventeenth century men tailors made most
it was eminently for the leisured and extrava-
of women's outer garments, as well as those of
gant, impossible for those with any commit-
men, mainly because the elaborate shaping
ment to physical or other activities - or for
required for clothes up to then called for the
anyone's ordinary life.
skill of which only men who had served their
Though the farthingale is almost exclusively
apprenticeship in a long-established craft were
shown as the dress of Elizabethan women, there
capable. Even women of modest means and
was, and continued to be alongside future
tastes used such tailors, as witness Sarah Fell's
extreme fashions, an alternative already widely
many references to her local tailor.
worn, the mode known as 'undress'. It was
In spite of their expertise in needlework there
much less formal and consisted at this time of a women making
is little evidence of ordinary
long, full but unstiffened skirt and a separate
main garments for themselves and their
bodice, an almost timeless mode of attire worn
families, and to do so would have been an
by all women, though capable of a great range of
onerous addition to the large amount of general
variety in fabric and detail. The seventeenth-
sewing called for from the housewife. But after
century skirt was known as the 'petticoat', a
the seventeenth century women did emerge
who undertook sewing as a job, to make money
they needed by the exercise of the only skill

15 A seventeenth-century Old Clothes Man, from

many of them possessed. They took over more
Tempest's Cries of London, 1688-1702 ; a suit and more of the making of clothes for their own
similar to that in the previous, illustration, but sex.

showing more detail, flapping coat, baggy They were known as 'mantua-makers' until
breeches and a very long waistcoat. well into the nineteenth century; the mantua

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EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

was one of the 'undress' garments gaining in were unstiffened, unlike the rigid Elizabethan

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general popularity from the Restoration period. farthingales and bodices which were provided
It was a loose, one-piece gown, wrapped over in with their own built-in supporting frameworks
front, and therefore easily made by one woman of whalebone, metal or wood. Henceforth the
dressmaker. Materials ranged from rich silk for stays became a separate item of dress, usually a
the wealthy to the rough woollens of the labour- whaleboned rigid tube, extending probably
ing classes, with finer woollens in between for from under the armpits to below the waist
the busy middle class, steadily growing in Stays were almost always made by a male
numbers. staymaker from very early times to the seven-
The term 'nightgown', like 'petticoat', had in teenth and eighteenth centuries, though lat-
the seventeenth century and long afterwards a terly a few women also went into the business.
different meaning from that of later times. If The reason probably was that the craft of the
this was not so what could be made of the tailor was needed to shape the intricate 'cage' to
account by Lady Anne Clifford in her diarv of the >hape of the wearer's body or to effect an
1617 that she went to church in mv rich improvement on Nature in this respect at a time
nightgown and petticoat? It usually meant an when pattern-making was a matter of special
evening or other rather special gown and con- skill. It was, however, suggested by R. Camp-

tinued to do so for a long time. In 1784 bell in his Complete English Tradesman (1747)
Georgiana, the beautiful Duchess of Devon- that one reason for the continued male near-
shire, went to the Ball. I had an English monopoly was that fitting stays to the wearer
nightgown of muslin with small silver sprigs and was a feat of strength beyond the capacity of
all white'. When the actual nightgown, which the mantua-maker, the woman dressmaker who
started as a kirtle or shift, the basic daytime by then had taken over the greater part of the
item of underwear for all classes, attained its feminine wardrobe, except for the strictly tail-
own identity it was called a bedgown by both ored coat, cloak and riding habit - which to the
sexes. But even then a certain vagueness re- present day are often made by a male tailor.

mained, because that word was also at times About the middle of the seventeenth century
applied to what would later be called a dressing the dress of the ordinary woman was recorded
gown. for the first time with devoted care and meticu-
me item of underwear and a very important
( lous detail for its own sake. Hitherto such
one fell into a category of its own and was worn attention had rarely been given to anything
through most of history by most women who except the fashionable attire of royal and aristo-
considered their appearance, unless they were cratic ladies in portraits painted by leading
of the very poor. It was the corset. Though artists of the times. The innovation came from
predominantly a woman's garment, versions of the Czech engraver, Wenccslas Hollar, best
it were also to some considerable extent worn known for his detailed recording of London
by men at various periods, mainly those of scenes and London buildings of the years before
elaborate dress, such as Elizabethan days and the Great Fire, but also the first to depict
to some degree a significant part of the seven- contemporary women with equal precision and
teenth century, when the first suits were very superb skill in several series of engravings which
elaborate affairs indeed. continued to be reprinted for many years after
The was known as the 'stays' until the
corset they first appeared. The subjects included the
nineteenth century. It was important to high-born and the obscure, Court ladies, towns-
women's dress at most periods and never more women and countrywomen. The engravings
so than in the later seventeenth century. Dress were the precursors of fashion plates, but in
then might be more relaxed, with separate themselves not fashion plates. In some respects
bodices or waistcoats and petticoats, but these they are more, because of the meticulous atten-

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
tion given to every detail of the dress and
accessories and because of the realistic style,

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free from the topical exaggerations of the pure
fashion drawing. a Scot h If ,''/i

Hollar, born in Prague in 1607, came to

London in the late 1630s, having already made
his name as an etcher and illustrator of repute in
Germany, after fleeing there from the Thirty
Years War in his native country. His Ornatus
Muliebris Anglicanus of 1640, his first English
publication, showed 26 pictures of English-
women and carried the sub-title, 'The Several
Habits of English Women from the Nobility to
the Countrywoman as They are in these Times'.
They are small prints, about six inches high.
Next came Theatrum Mulierum in 1643, 36
prints of the women of Europe, later expanded
to 100 prints under the Aula Veneris
title

and are believed

(1650). All these too are small
to be portraits of real women. The larger
engravings, known as The Four Seasons, exist in
two forms showing three-quarter-length and
full-length figures of four women, their dress
shown with great intricacy. The full-length
series was published in 1643, after the other, but
both continued to be reprinted for many years.
They show well-dressed ladies but are realistic
enough to be of general value as representing
dress of the time. From then onwards more
attention came to be given to the portrayal of
dress for its own sake, though later in life Hollar
did not return to it as a subject and he had no
immediate successors.
Various other sources contribute to knowl-
edge of ordinary clothes of the late seventeenth
century. Inventories are given in wills pre-
served in different parts of the country and can
be revealing. Typical probably is that of a
humble woman who left gowns, five
three
petticoats, skirts, a 'safeguard' (an apron or
overall), a cloak, three hats, three waistcoats
and 'wearing linen' (presumably underwear)
with some accessories. Women, according to
wills, usually left larger wardrobes than men of
the same class. Men of the humbler sort seem
usually to have had a doublet or vest, a hat, 16 A Scottish woman by Hollar, from Ornatus
leather and woollen breeches, a jerkin (informal Muliebris Anglicanus, 1640.

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jacket), two or three shirts, several 'bands' for the ribbons which Restoration men as well as
the neck, and two pairs of shoes. women delighted in decking their clothes with

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While the clothing of the poor was largely at every pointfrom head to toe. A stroll along
rudimentary and static from Restoration times, one of the popular shopping centres, like the
that of the rising middle classes was becoming New Exchange in the Strand, was a happy
more varied and more fully recorded. It centred diversion and a popular one.
upon London, which was very much on the up Probably the greatest perennial attraction of
and up. The population grew from half-a- Samuel Pepys is that he is the first literary man
million to between three-quarters and a million with whom we feel that we chat, compare notes
in the second half of the seventeenth century. and are on easy, neighbourly, gossipy terms as
Shops abounded and increased; country people he goes about his daily affairs. He is the
as well as Londoners used them on visits or by ordinary middle-class man. With him we share
sending for goods to be conveyed to them by the everyday enjoyments and irritations, pleas-
coach or through visiting friends. The shops ures and frustrations that make the passing
remained small - usually the ground floor of a day. Especially this is so when we go shopping
house was turned into a shop by means of a with him, stand at his elbow as he organizes
window let down to show an array of the some item of his own wardrobe or that of his
growing variety of goods on offer. But they Elizabeth. The former takes priority on many
boasted displays and variety as no other town occasions; not only is he the son of a tailor, but
did. Glass windows also began to appear. The his position as Clerk of the Acts at the Navy
shopkeeper, his wife and family would all help in Office requires, as he points out, that he shall be
the shop, but could also move upstairs and lived well dressed.
under the same roof. This continued through Thus he goes shopping and orders clothes
the eighteenth century and was probably the from his tailor, attending carefully to every-
origin of the living-in system for shop em- thing and usually enjoying doing so: the mod-
ployees in the nineteenth. London as a place for ern man. In detail he records: 'And so to Sir W.
acquiring clothes was far ahead of anywhere Turner's, and there bought my cloth, coloured,
else, even though accounts vary. John Evelyn for a suit and cloake, to line with plush the
complains of the dirt, especially of the 'horrid cloakes, which will cost me money. But I find I
smoke from coal which foules our clothes',
. . . must go handsomely, what ever it cost mc, and
and of the stenches made by breweries, soap the charge will be made up in the fruit it brings.
boilers and dyers. But Pepys decked himself out He makes a joint purchase when, in 1668, he
in a summer suit of coloured camelot, with a 'laid out four pounds in lace, for her and me.' On

flowered tabby vest and gold lace sleeves, and 15 April, 1661 he records that he went 'with my
were
his clothes in general, like those of his wife, wife, by coach, to the New Exchange, to buy her
colourful and gay. London shops sold a host of some things, where we saw some new fashion
small items which could tempt shoppers of pety-coats of sarcenett [a kind of silk] with a
many types, which meant almost all who could broad lace printed round the bottom and
afford to make any purchases. Goods ranged before, very handsome, and my wife has a mind
from scarves, shawls, gloves, stockings, caps, to some of them'. On 22 June 1661, he tells that
hats and lace to trimmings galore and above all 'the day before, my wife put on her slashed
waistcoate, which is very pretty'. On 29 June of
the same year: 'To church with my wife, who

17 Seventeenth-century simplicity in a dark this day put on her green petticoate of flowered

dressand hood, with white collar, cuffs and satten, with fine white and black gimp lace of
apron, by Richard Gaywood, after Hollar's her own putting on, which is very pretty. On 25 '

' Autumne' from The Four Seasons; 1656. June there is another note: 'She by my Lady's

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advice desires a new petticoat of the new silk Governor of the Tower sends for his 'nightgown
striped stuff very pretty. So went to Pater
I of silk, only to make a show to use'.

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Noster Row presently, and bought her a very
fine rich one - the best I did see there, and much Wigs for Men
better than she desires or expects.' There was a Changes in the man's suit continued to be made,
grand occasion in 1664 when: 'She has put on mainly in the direction of simplification and
her new best gown, which indeed is very fine eliminating the first cumbersome and elaborate
now with the lace, and this morning her taylor Restoration versions, but the three-piece -
brought home her other new laced silk gown jacket or coat, waistcoat or vest and breeches,
with a smaller lace, and new petticoat I bought later trousers - remained the basis of male dress
the other day: both very pretty.' from then until the present day. Only the very
A year or two later there is another new poor, who could not afford the suit, failed to
outfit : 'My wife having dressed herself in a silky wear it some form. In town and country, from
in
dress of a blue petticoat uppermost, and white landed gentry and men of business or affairs
satin waistcoat and white hood, though I think to shopkeepers and farm workers there was
she did it because her gown is gone to the no substitute for the suit, though, of course,
tailor's, did, together with me being hungry, the materials as well as the styling varied
which always makes me peevish, make me immensely. Fine broadcloths were for the pros-
angry.' perous. Working 'men, and countrymen in
More trouble over a petticoat when T to bed, : particular, usually had rougher versions of
and left my wife to do something to a waistband breeches - of leather or coarse woollens - and
and a petticoat she is to wear tomorrow.' In less shapely jerkins for everyday wear.
contrast in May 1669 he records: 'My wife In the face of this simplification, which was
extraordinary fine with her flowered tabby appropriate to forward-looking attitudes and a
gown.' Tabby was watered silk, fashionable at loosening of class distinction, it is difficult to
that time. account for a startling innovation in dress
Pepys shares the current trend towards the which swept through all classes of men at
wearing of woollen cloth, rather than silks and almost the same time as the introduction of the
velvets. Thus in 1679 he records, 'that I did suit. This was the wig, or to be exact, the
resolve of putting me into a better garbe; and periwig. It was not a passing fashion, because
among other things, to have a good velvet the wig was worn in various forms by all classes
cloak, that is, of cloth lined with velvet.' for more than a century. It seemed to contradict
Even he is not above making a purchase of a any theory that men's dress was becoming more
secondhand garment. On one occasion in 1662, rational. It baffled James Laver, who described
T walked to my brother Tome to see a velvet it as 'Perhaps the most extraordinary event

cloake, which I buy of Mr Moore it will cost me ; that has ever happened in the history of male
8/- 10s but it is worth my money.' costume'. It was not, as later, a substitute for
He describes an occasion when he feels par- natural hair, nor an accessory, but an article of
ticularly well-turned out: 'This morning I put dress in its own right.
on my best black-cloth suit trimmed with The reason for the adoption of the wig has
Scarlet ribbon, very neat, with my cloak lined never been satisfactorily explained. During the
with Velvet and a new Beaver, which altogether seventeenth century men's hair had been worn
is very noble, with my black silk canons I longer and longer among the fashionable, elab-
bought a month ago.' He refers to a nightgown orately arranged and waved and curled. This
and night cap more than once, but, as would be must have been a laborious and continuous
expected, does not use the word in today's sense operation, because few of the effects were
- one such mention occurs when the Deputy natural, and for those men with poor hair or

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18.-1 Big-Wig to the fore in a cartoon 0/1752, wig. He states in his diary on 3 November 1663
showing a crowd outside Whitehall Chapel, sold that the Duke of York has said that he intends
as a print by a Ludgate Hill shop. Other wigs in to wear a periwig and that the king, his brother,
various styles can also be seen. is rumoured to plan likewise. Prior to that,
however, Pepys had already referred in some
bald heads there must have been much embar- detail to the wearing of the periwig and to his
rassment. At the same time ordinary men's own resistance to the idea of adopting it,

natural hair was cut to various lengths in a although many men were beginning to do so. It
conventional way. appeared to him that it would raise as many
One widespread belief is that the wearing of problems as it would solve.
periwigs started with Louis XIII of France, said On 9 May 1663 he put the case for and against
to have worn a wig when he went bald because wigs: 'At Mr Jarvas's my old barber, I did try
he felt that his prestige and dignity as king at two or three borders and periwigs, meaning to
the head of a nation already famed as a fashion wear one, and yet I have no stomach for it, but
leader were threatened. But that was in 1624, that the pains of keeping my hair clean is so
and travellers in France had seen perruques great. He trimmed me, and at last I parted, but
(translated as 'periwigs'), some time before my mind was almost altered from my first

that. purpose, from the trouble that I foresee will be

In England Pepys records the adoption of the in wearing them also.' In August he discusses

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the problem with his brother Tom, who works barber to be cared for was a tempting acquisi-
with their father, the tailor, and succumbs to tion. It may also be that men felt a desire to coun-

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fashion. 'We did resolve of putting me into a teract the new, much simpler fashion of a suit
better garbe and a perruque.' On 30 August,
. . . by doing something about their crowning glory.
smartened up by a new velvet cloak which he The wig at first followed the natural lines of
had ordered ('that is, lined with velvet, a good the hair, and was made in natural hair colour-
cloth the outside'), he took his wife to his ings, from blond to black. But by about 1680 as
periwig maker's to see the new periwig, 'which a fashion it had become huge and elaborate,
she said she liked.' He bought two, along with a described as 'full-bottomed', and had a mass of
variety of other clothing, and that night added curls and waves, intricately arranged and some-
up the bills recording that one had cost £3, the times sweeping over the shoulders and down the
other £2. back as far as the waist. Prices could be very
With royalty confirming his decision on 2 high, as much as fifty guineas. Originally hu-
November Pepys saw his periwig-maker on the man hair was used, but as the demand soared
next day and without more ado went up and
I and all classes took to wearing wigs, horse hair
there he cut offmy haire, which went a little to and goat hair and even wool were used for
my heart at present to part with it, but, it being cheaper versions. Pepys recorded an alarming
over, and my periwig on, paid him £3 for it,
I rumour that during the Plague Year of 1665 the
and away went he, with my own haire, to make hair of people who had died of the disease was
up another of. He felt some embarrassment at being used to make wigs, with a resulting spread
appearing wig before his friends, but the
in his of the infection.
wearing of wigs spread rapidly to all classes and
lasted for more than a century. 19 Wigs of many styles featured in a London
A wig which went off to the periwig-maker or print of 1773.

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By the beginning of the eighteenth century 20 A barber's shop, 1771, showing: a. barber at
many variations in wig styles were being worn, work; b. arranging a wig; c. heating curling
including shorter, tied-back ones for travel, tongs : d. customer wiping powder offface.
sport and for working men. These were very
widely worn by ordinary people. Agricultural The wig solved the problems of hair-washing,
labourers are recorded as wearing them. Prices not too frequently done according to the habits
therefore had to cover all levels. They had of the time. But the wig did not deal with the
various names, including the bob, the ramillie, problem of hair care; it needed constant pro-
the pig-tail, the cadogan, the campaigne and fessional attention to keep it in trim, and that

the bag-wig. For years wigs were the chief point cost money. No doubt when worn by the 'poorer
of interest in masculine dress, to a large extent classes, as it very generally was, it was not
replacing hats as decorative items of attire. immaculate, and it was often among the items
The powdered wig was introduced about offered in secondhand shops.
1710, thepowder being either grey or white. It Dr Johnson, whose neglect of his appearance
became popular. The powder closet was intro- was the concern of many of his friends, had
duced in honour of the wig, because the powder- particular trouble with his wig. After meeting
ing process could create an alarming amount of the Thrales through a mutual friend, Arthur
dust from the starch or flour usually employed. Murphy, he was invited to dinner with them

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and was soon dining there on Thursdays and the end of the eighteenth century only the Court
then even more frequently. He was not the and the army used powder.

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perfect guest; he seldom changed his linen, or Though men's wigs were such a dramatic
washed himself, would use a book as a plate at feature of their dress women's hair styles
meals and his wig, Boswell says, was a disaster: showed no tendency to follow suit. Simple curls
'The great bushy wig, which throughout his life and ringlets were the prevalent style among
he affected to wear, by that closeness of texture women till the end of the seventeenth century,

which it had contracted and been suffered to sometimes with ribbon bows or strings of pearls
retain, was ever nearly as impenetrable by a as adornment for the fashionable, while ordi-
comb as a quickset hedge and little of the dust
; nary women usually wore fairly plain caps or
that had once settled on his outer garments was bonnets over hair that was no more than pinned
ever known to have been disturbed by the up. At the beginning of the eighteenth century
brush.' there was a fashion for a high headdress of lawn
When Dr Johnson moved to Streatham, or lace attached to the front of the cap, with the
where he practically lived with the Thrales for hair coiled up below it. This was called the
16 years, they took charge of his appearance. 'fontange' after a French duchess who wore it,

Henry Thrale saw to it that Johnson's clothes or a 'commode' or 'tower'. But it never became
were clean and of sober good quality with silver general wear. The built-up, fabulous head-
buttons, that he wore silver buckles in his shoes dresses of late-eighteenth-century court ladies
. . . and changed his shirt at seemly intervals. used artificial hair as well as wire, feathers,
When there were visitors to dinner it was the ribbons, flowers, even stuffed birds for their
task of a servant to stand outside the dining- freakish effects, but had no practical links either
room ready to provide Johnson with a company with the omnipresent wigs of men or with the
wig instead of the everyday one his poor sight very simple hairdressing of ordinary women,
had caused him to frizzle in the candle'. who were more interested in the choice of caps
There is also an illuminating paragraph in and hats, to which they were greatly addicted,
Sophie von la Roche's account of crossing the than in elaborate hair styles.
Channel to visit England in 1786. In the morn-
ing, before disembarking, all the men sat in a
row wearing night caps while their barbers put
their wigs in trim; while they wore slippers,
their shoes were cleaned for them. Parson
YVoodforde was embarrassed at being 'caught
on the hop, busy in my garden, and dressed in
my cotton morning gown, old wigg and Hat' by
an unexpected visitor.
Though more a ploy of the fashionable than
of ordinary people, powder was widely enough
used for it to be worth while for William Pitt, as
Prime Minister, to introduce a tax on hair
powder in 1798. It so enraged his political
opponents that, rallied together by the Duke of
Beaufort, they resolved to stop powdering their
wigs, with such effect that the use of hair
powder soon came to be limited to the elderly or
old-fashioned. Natural hair returned to favour
as the complete answer to the problem. From

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Eighteenth Century\feriety

Boom in the Wool Trade This was the scene which Daniel Defoe depic-
What ordinary people can wear at any period ted in his A Tour Through Whole Island of
the
depends largely on what is available and how Great Britain (1724-26), which is probably the

accessible and affordable it is. The earlier part of most illuminating contemporary study of the
the eighteenth century is somewhat difficult to subject. A brilliant and perceptive working
assess today in these terms, mainly because we journalist and a wide-ranging writer who had
think of it as the end of an era, overshadowed by also had practical experience of trade, he found
the on-coming sweep of the Industrial Revol- a dominating theme in the ebullience and rising
ution, of machines and inventions that would prosperity of the woollen trade and its in-
transform the whole pattern of life and dress for satiable demand for the textiles which were still
most people. However, by those living then the the mainstay of the home and export trade,
period was regarded as the very peak of achieve- indeed of the nation's prosperity. He found the
ment, the consummation of the past, a proud cloth-weaving area around Halifax so riveting
moment in history, especially for ordinarv that he made three visits to it and wrote of it
people. Travel and transport were improving with an intensity of enthusiasm that defied
dramatically, unifying the country and its wind and weather, snow and an ugly country-
people, knocking days off the time it took to get
from one part of the country to another. Trade 21 Traditional spinning out-of-doors in an
at home and overseas was booming. eighteenth-century village.

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side, all uphill and downhill, and sent him into 22 Eighteenth-century cottage spinning. Two
raptures. women use Saxony wheels, the third has the kind
As he neared Halifax he found 'the houses of warp reel invented by Arkwright for winding
thicker,and the villages greater in every bot- hanks into measured lengths.

tom, and not only so, but the sides of the hills,
which were very steep every wav, were spread England and,
; I believe, the like is not to be seen
with houses, and that very thick'. As regards so contrived in anv part of the world, I mean
the houses 'though we saw no people stirring coals and running water upon the tops of the
without doors, yet they were all full within; . . . highest hills. This seems to have been directed
those people all full of business; not a beggar, by the wise hand of Providence.'
not an idle person to be seen, except here and He observes: 'At almost even house there was 1

there an alms-house, where people antient, a tenter, and almost on every tenter a piece of
decrepit, and past labor, might perhaps be cloth, or kersey, or shalloon from which the
. . .

found.' sun shining to us ... I thought it was the most

As the explanation he continues: 'The busi- agreeable sight that I ever saw.'
ness is the clothing trade, for the convenience of There is a brisk popular market for the
which the houses are thus scattered and spread finished fabrics. 'You see ten or twenty
upon the sides of the hills . . . the reason is this; thousands value in cloth, and sometimes much
such has been the bounty of nature to this more, bought and sold in little more than an
otherwise frightful country, that two things hour.' In addition, for the ordinary people
essential to the business, as well as to the ease of 'there are ... a set of travelling merchants in
the people are found here, and that is a situation Leeds, who go all over England and to all the . . .

which I never saw the like of in any part of fairs and market towns over the whole island'.

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23 The Cloth Hall, Leeds, which so greatly Devon, Somerset and Cornwall also, Defoe
impressed Defoe. Here seen later, in the early finds, are all notable for a great variety of
nineteenth century woollens, including 'serges, druggets, &c and
several other kinds of stuffs', including, in
Somerset towns, 'fine medley, or mix'd cloths,
Other buyers send their cloth to London, to such as are usually worn in England by the
shopkeepers and wholesalers, and also 'for ex- better sort of people; and, also, exported in
portation to the English colonies in America . . . great quantities to Holland, Hamburgh,
as also to the Russia merchants'. Finally mer- Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy &c'.
chants sell to other merchants in Holland and Moving on to Scotland, Defoe has a descrip-
many parts of Germany, 'and even to Vienna tion of Glasgow textiles which is interesting
and Ausburgh, in the farthest provinces of because of the date: 'Here is a manufacture of
Germany'. plaiding, a stuff cross-strip'd with yellow and
In Norwich, too, Defoe finds the wool trade red,and other mixtures for the plaids or vails,
the outstanding source of activity and pros- which the ladies in Scotland wear, and which is
perity. There 'an eminent weaver' calculated a habit peculiar to the country. Here is a
for him that 'there were 120,000 people em- manufacture of muslins; and, perhaps the only
ployed in the woollen and silk manufactures of manufacture of its kind in Britain, if not in
that city only'. Europe; and they make them so good and so
Stourbridge's famous market, he declares, is fine, that great quantities of them are sent into
'not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in England, and sold there at a good price.
the world . . . The shops are placed in rows like Defoe has more to say for wool, in The
streets ... and here are all sorts of trades.' Complete English Tradesman (1727). 'We are the

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24 Cloth traders in the West Riding of Coat be of Woollen Cloth, he has that
If his
Yorkshire, iSij. from Yorkshire.
The Lining is Shalloon, from Berkshire.
The Waistcoat is of Callamancoe from
greatest trading country in the world', he Norwich.
declares roundly, and again :The manufactures The Breeches of a strong Drugget from
of England, particularly of Wool (Cotton-Wool Devizes, Wiltshire.
included) and of Silk, are the greatest, and The Stockings being of Yarn from
amount to the greatest value of any single Westmoreland.
manufacture in Europe.' The Hat is a felt from Leicester.
From he goes on to give details of the
this The Gloves of Leather from Somersetshire.
great number of different woollens and to point The Shoes from Northampton.
out that 'tho' all our manufactures are used and The Buttons from Macclesfield in Cheshire;
called for by almost all the people . . . yet they or, if they are of Metal, they come from
are made and wrought in several distinct and Birmingham, or Warwickshire.
respective Counties in Britain . . . hardly any His Garters from Manchester.
two manufactures being made in one place'. His Shirt of home-made Linen of Lancashire,
Most usefully of all, for posterity, he analyses or Scotland.
the sources of the items in 'one ordinary suit of
cloaths' for a man of any class: This applies regardless of where the family lives.

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'for that all these manufactures must be found that there was more communication between
in all the remotest towns and counties in people of types and classes. For
different

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England'. example, artists show more interest in depicting
Just as illuminating is Defoe's inventory of scenes of everyday life - and clothes. Hogarth
the wardrobe of the man's wife, who 'being a (1697-1764) was a pioneer here. He turned from
good honest townsman's daughter, is not portraiture to painting small groups and con-
dressed over yet she must have something
fine, versation pieces, the most successful of them
decent, being new married'. The husband at this being several versions from The Beggar 's Opera ;

stage has been defined as 'a middling Trades- he concentrated on this type of painting and
man, that is going to live in some market-town, T
after a few years of further success, turned . . .

and to open his shop there; suppose him not to my thoughts to a still more novel mode, viz,
deal in the manufacture, but in Grocery'. He painting and engraving modern moral subjects,
will be dressed as above, but his suit 'a little a field not broken up in any country or any age.
finer . . . and so his comes out of Wiltshire, and These were to be treated dramatically, like his
his Stockings are, it may be, of Worsted [wool], stage drawings. His success lay in selling en-
not of Yarn [any material], and so they come gravings from them, depicting ordinary people.
from Nottingham, not Westmoreland'. As Hogarth wrote: T therefore wished to
His wife is 'to have a silk gown, with all the compose pictures on canvas, similar to rep-
necessaries belonging to a middling tolerable resentations on the stage, ... I have en-
appearance', and that means: deavoured to treat my subjects as a dramatic
writer, my pictures as my stage, and men and
Her Gown, a plain English Mantua-silk,
women my players.' The first of these was the
manufactur'd in Spittlefields . .

Harlot's Progress, showing the downfall of a

Her Under-petticoat, a piece of black
country girl at the hands of the wicked Lon-
Callamanca, made at Norwich quilted at ;

doners, several of whom could be recognized.

home, if she be a good housewife but the ;

This proje-ct was highly successful, mainly

quilting of Cotton from Manchester. . . .

due to the sale of engravings made from the

Her Under-Petticoat, Flannel and Swanskin,
paintings almost as they appeared in 1731-32.
from Salisbury and Wales.
So great was the demand for copies that they
Her Stockings from Tewkesbury, if
were pirated, and this led to Hogarth's getting a
ordinary; from Leicester, if woven . .

copyright act passed in 1733. This move was a

Her Wrapper, or Morning-gown, a piece of
great encouragement to popular art, depicting
Irish Linen, printed at London . .

ordinary people for display in their own homes.

Hogarth continued with the series, which in-
The ordinary middle-class woman was well
cluded the Rake's Progress and Marriage a la
turned out, as was her husband. Pre-industrial
Mode. These English scenes remained his
Britain was flourishing.
greatest successes, recording for the first time
the everyday life of his time and the everyday
Details in Dress appearance of the people involved in it.

Defoe's are the most detailed descriptions yet One of the most complete descriptions of the
given of the clothes of ordinary people of that - dress of the village girl of the earlier eighteenth
or any previous - time, and particularly to be century is given in Richardson's Pamela (1740).
treasured because of the changes coming later in When this most entertaining of his young
the century. heroines decides to return to her native village
The dress of everyday life in the eighteenth and is anxious not to create suspicions of the
century was becoming better recorded, partly gay life she has been leading as a smart ladies'
because the improvement in transport meant maid in town, she details the simple traditional

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25 A London street scene depicted by Hogarth

Beer Street, iy 51.
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26 Popular art took a big step forward with

Hogarth's scenes from everyday life. Here is one
of the series The Rake's Progress.
 .

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i m
-¥ |fet
«£**? <i,P
t—
m Jgmim
^ifjm V
^f
v
.-.-

**^m
^J5 . -..-—_ _j»^-r-.-.-.-j.-. .,

;:

Wis- .

27 Cloth weaving shown in another of Hogarth 's coat, two pair of stockings I bought of the
scenes of ordinary life - two apprentices at their pedlar, .and here are four other shifts, one the
. .

looms, representing industry and idleness, 1747. fellow to that I have on, another pretty good
one, and the other two old fine ones, that will
servant maid's clothes she will again assume, serve me to turn and wind with at home and . . .

including the countrywoman's russet gown, the here are two pair of shoes. I have taken the lace
homespun woollen dress of grey or brown, off, which I will burn, and may-be will fetch me

symbol of rustic simplicity. Accordingly: 'I . . some little matter at a pinch, with an old silver
put on my round-eared ordinary cap my
. . . buckle or two here's a cotton handkerchief
. . .

home-spun gown and petticoat and plain bought of a pedlar and here are my new-. . .

leather shoes . and my ordinary hose ... A

. . bought mittens; this is my new flannel coat, the
plain muslin tucker I put on, and my black silk fellow to that I have on; and in the parcel
necklace, instead of the French necklace my pinned together are several pieces of printed
lady gave me, and put my earrings out of my remnants of silk and such like - would
calico,
ears. When I was quite equipped I took my serve for robings and facings and such-like
straw hat in my hand, with its two blue strings, uses.'
and looked in the glass, as proud as anything.' Such were the subterfuges by which the poor
She adds a bundle of appropriately simple managed to clothe themselves. But as soon as
clothing, including 'a calico nightgown, that I she married 'Mr B.' Pamela resumed her former
used to wear o'mornings ... a quilted calimanco fine attire: 'Fine linen, silk shoes, and fine white

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:

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hi

28 .4 touch of the macabre in the idle 'prentice women over a long period, until well into the
discovered by his master, again from Hogarth's nineteenth century, though their origin goes
series. much further back to the fairy tale of Red
Riding Hood. The red cloak became the almost
cotton stockings, a fine quilted coat, a delicate universal party cloak of small girls by the first
green Mantua silk gown, and a French necklace, quarter of the present century. Anne Buck, who
a laced cambric handkerchief, and clean gloves, has investigated the story of the red cloak,
and taking my fan, I, proud little hussy,
like a concluded that it 'is of all garments the one
looked in the glass, and thought myself a which from its widespread use and long survival
gentlewoman once more.' Class distinctions in might be seen as a traditional garment of the
dress there were, but they could by now be English countryside.' But a cloak was the usual
broken through, in the beginning of a long outdoor garment of all women of the eighteenth
process which was to continue. century, in various guises. Because it was so
Some eighteenth-century garments had, protective the hooded style came to be called
however, a definite class connotation. One of the 'riding hood'. Cloaks, however, were made
the most important was the red cloak. Contem- in almost all variations of style, hooded and
porary writings by travellers, paintings of the hoodless, long and short, usually full-skirted,
time and actual garments preserved in the hood often large enough to go over a scarf or
museums as relics of rural life show that such hat. Red was a favourite colour, but not univer-
cloaks were very widely worn by country- sal; blue and grey also appeared at times and

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29 Match Girl, 1823, from a series of hand- 30 A fuller, longer red cloak is worn bv Market
coloured engravings entitled England, published Woman, in the same collection as the previous
in 181 j by Murray. She has a blue skirt, white illustration.
apron and the red cloak so frequently worn.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
plaid in Scotland. The red hooded cloak seems, a miscellaneous and most substantial covering
however, to have remained almost wholly a of thick petticoats, gown, aprons, shawls and

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rather humble country garment until those . . . cloaks'. Again, a party of gypsies met on a walk
Victorian and Edwardian little girls of the includes 'an old crone, in a tattered red cloak
middle classes made it part of their party and black bonnet'. A fortune teller wears a
outfits. 'stained, tattered cloak', also red.
The red cloak perhaps steps up a little socially The smock, generally thought of as almost
when described by Mary Russell Mitford in Our the working uniform of the traditional English
Village in the 1820s. When children flock out on countryman or 'rustic' from time immemorial,
a frosty winter day to slide on a frozen pond the has in fact a much shorter history and belongs
crowd includes 'girls in red cloaks'. The writer mainly to the period from the mid-eighteenth
tells the story of Red Riding Hood to a visiting century to towards the end of the nineteenth.
little girl as a bedtime story. At the other Before that, rough loose overall-like garments
extreme of age is her Mrs Sally Mearing, a were worn for work with horses and for farm
venerable 'farmeress', also 'that good relique of and other chores which called for protection for
the olden time . . . with the hood of her red cloak the clothes, but the recognizable 'round smock'
pulled over her close black bonnet, of that silk
which once (it may be presumed) was fashion- 31 Dorsetshire peasants, wearing smocks, a
able and her whole stout figure huddled up in
. . . long-lasting style of dress.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
was a later use of a word which had in early days assuming one of that light blue Waterloo, such
been used for the basic undergarment of men as butchers wear'.

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and also, often, of women. But other wearers of the garment are legion,
The smock, indeed, needed the advent of says Miss Mitford: 'If woman
be a mutable
cheap, readily available material to become a creature, man is not. The wearers of smock-
practical garment, and that dates its rise to that frocks, in spite of the sameness of the uniform,
of cotton in the latter part of the eighteenth arc almost as easily distinguished ... as a flock
century. It however, spread widely and
did, of sheep by a shepherd . . . they are in nothing
became the general wear of the rural worker. new-fangled.' Joel appears again, recognizable
In George Eliot's Adam Bede (1859) the because 'all the world knew that he wore some
villagers are all dressed in their best for church. frocks and jackets'.
'Alick, the shepherd, in his new smock-frock, Women did not have any working garment
taking an uneasy siesta' in the farmyard is quite comparable to the man's smock as an all-

noted. occasion cover-up, but throughout dress history

Sometimes smocks were coloured, worn over they have worn aprons of every kind on many
the ordinary clothes, slipped over the head, occasions, and have almost made the apron an
with a neck opening, full front and back and full additional item of dress. Aprons were worn for
sleeves.The nature of the work influenced the every kind of work in town and country. They
material and colour. Some references comment were made of all kinds of materials, from heavy
admiringly on the spotless white smock frocks, sackcloth and flannels for rough work to cottons
but they could also be of brown, blue or other galore, and spotless white cotton or linen for
colours. The famous 'smocking' and similar dairy work, cooking or elsewhere in the home.
embroidery belonged mainly to the garment When women servants went into uniforms in
when, in the nineteenth century, it became the nineteenth century aprons were a promi-
more general countrymen's wear, with special nent item. Fancy aprons even appeared on
ones for church on Sundays. These could be social occasions, worn by hostesses at tea
made of very fine linen. The wearing of the parties.
smock began in the south of England and For heavy farm work in the eighteenth cen-
spread from there; eventually thev were worn tury and later, women would wear an apron
all over the country. Straw hats could accom- over the usual bedgown, but on occasion in the
pany them. heat they would appear in the fields wearing
Miss Mitford's Our Village, which is a com- only a petticoat with visible stays and shift
pendium of lore about all things rural, has showing above the waist. The bedgown is shown
several references to smock frocks. In a detailed frequently in eighteenth-century paintings of
description of Joel Brent, 'the finest young man farm scenes, notably many of those by George
in our village' and 'a very picturesque person, Stubbs (1724-1806).
just such a one as a painter would select for the The bedgown, already mentioned as being
background of some English landscape, where unsuitably named, features frequently in
nature is shown in all her loveliness', she decries eighteenth-century rural scenes - a loose, cross-
all idea of his wearing 'that wretched piece of over one-piece garment, of flannel or wool, or,

deformity a coat, or that still wretcheder apol- from the later eighteenth century, of cotton. It
ogy for a coat, a dock-tailed jacket'. He nor- could be short or full-length and continued to
mally wears as upper garment, 'that prettier be worn in the nineteenth century with little
jacket without skirts - call it for the more grace change. A detailed description of a country-
a doublet', - of dark velveteen.
But 'sometimes woman is given by George Eliot in Adam Bede.
weather he throws over all a smock-frock
in cold Though published in 1859, book deals with
this
and last winter brought up a fashion ... by the turn of the nineteenth century and is a

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32 'The Enraged Musician : a great scene by wearing 'a pure linen cap with a black band
Hogarth. One of his own engravings, published by round it. The broad chest is covered with a buff
himself, 1741. neckerchief, and below this you see a short bed-
gown made of blue-checkered linen, tied round
country story, full of details about the country- the waist and descending to the hips, from
side and the lives of simple, working people. whence there is a considerable length of linsey-
Adam Bede's mother Lisbeth is described as wolsey petticoat'. The age of wool was passing,

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33 Hogarth 's portrait of his servants, showing dark-striped linen gown, a red kerchief, and a
the under -the-chin caps then favoured by many linen cap'.
women. Other detailed descriptions of country dress
are given in Adam Bede. They are particularly
but this was still the traditional dress of the interesting because the book, as Adam points
working woman and as she awaits Adam 'she out, is set in a village that looks 'at the canals,
stands knitting rapidly and unconsciously with an' th' aquaducts, an' th' coal-pit engines, and
her work-hardened hands'. In another descrip- Arkwright's mills there at Cromford'. The dress
tion, meticulous, like all those of the people in is the dress of the people and the time. Adam is

the novel, Lisbeth is 'a clean old woman, in a 'a stalwart workman in paper cap, leather

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
breeches and dark-blue worsted stockings', the labourers, . . . chilled her as to its bearing.'
which, incidentally, his mother is described as He explains: 'The smockfrock, which I saw

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busily knitting as she awaits his return home at hanging for sale as I came along, was an after-
night. Hetty, a pretty girl, is dressed for butter- thought, that I mightn't be noticed.'
making and 'stands on little pattens', wears 'a
pink and white handkerchief tucked into her The London Shops
low, plum-coloured stuff bodice' and has a linen The busy, bustling London shopping scene,
butter-making apron with its bib, brown stock- English dress and the London crowds of the
ings and thick soled buckled shoes'. But on later eighteenth century fascinated a much-
Sunday, dressed for church, she is 'in her travelled German woman visitor who spent a
Sunday hat and frock. For her hat was trimmed few crowded weeks there in 1786. She was
with pink, and her frock had pink roses Sophie von la Roche, author and educationalist,
sprinkled on a white ground'. It is evidently who kept a detailed diary for her family at
made of the newer cotton. For the squire's party home. She explained indefatigably and missed
she is again in pink and white. The squire is in nothing.
bright blue frock-coat, the highest mode. Once landed at Harwich Sophie started re-
An older man, Mr Poyser, at church, 'was in cording her observations. At first sight she is
his Sunday suit of drab, with a red and green Englishwomen: 'Nor do I care for the
critical of
watch-ribbon, having a large cornelian seal Englishwomen here as yet, caps, hats and
attached, pendant like a plumb-line from that clothes look as though an eternal wind-storm
promontory, where watch-pocket was
his raged along this coast, allowing no single gar-
situated; a silk handkerchief of a yellow tone ment to remain in place.'
round his and excellent gray-ribbed
neck, Transport to London was excellent and Col-
stockings, knitted by Mrs Poyser's own hand, chester enchanted her: 'As we drove past,
setting off the proportions of his leg.' The little enjoyed the fine shops jut out at both sides of
boys, nine and eleven, wear 'little fustian tailed the front doors like big, broad oriels, having fine
coats and knee-breeches'. large window-panes, behind which wares were
How country dress could remain unchanged displayed, so that these shops look far more
for long periods and, conversely, how change elegant than those in Paris.'
did at times come, is illustrated later by two London exceeded all her expectations: 'It is

passages in Hardy's novel, Tess of the almost impossible to express how well every-
D'Urbervilles. When Tess is reduced to tramp- thing is organized in London. Every article is

ing the country in search of work as a farm made more attractive to the eye than in Paris or

labourer, she is described as 'a figure which is in any other town.' Dress fabrics attract her
part of the landscape; a fieldwoman pure and attention in the shops: 'We especially noticed a
simple, in winter guise; a gray serge cape, a red cunning device for showing women's materials.
woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered by a Whether they are silks, chintzes or muslins,
whitey-brown rough wrapper, and buff-leather they hang down in folds behind the fine high
gloves.' This garb could belong to any period, windows so that the effect of that material, as it
any place. would be in the ordinary folds of a woman's
Later on in the book, when Alec D'Urberville dress,can be studied.'
is trying desperately to break down her evasion She is surprised that English women wear
of him and renew contact with her, he appears hats on all occasions, and when settled in
near her in her native village in a disguise which lodgings her first need is that a friend's 'eldest
has become outdated: 'The grotesqueness of his daughter is getting me a cap and hat, as women
appearance in a gathered smockfrock, such as here may not go out without a hat ... I am very
was now worn only by the most old-fashioned of glad that women of my age wear caps under

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34 A ckermann 's Repository in i8og records worsted] petticoats, rather stiff and heavily

how luxury lias come to London 's shops. stitched and over these long English calico or
linen frocks . . . here they are sensibly fashioned
their hats, and that I shall not have much to the figure. Further,they mostly wear white
trouble or expense with my coiffure'. aprons, though the servants and working-
At the inn where she stays in London 'within women often appear in striped linen gowns. The
the hour my eyes had grown fully acquainted caps reallv resemble those seen on English
with the costume worn by the maids, women of engravings, and simple black taffeta hats
middle-class and the children. The former besides with black ribbons fitting right down on
almost all wear black tammy [a coarse twilled to the head.'

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— - **s

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Caught in rain after a theatre and unable to century milliner 's shop : a
find a conveyance she laments that 'my black
hat with the embroidered crape was ruined, and
I had to get a new one'. Hats continue to be a accompanied her to church at Windsor Castle.'
topic. Visiting a friend, Madame La Fite, at But Oxford Street and its crowds remain her
Windsor, where she met Fanny Burney at a great love: 'We strolled up and down lovely
ladies' literary tea party and the guests were Oxford Street this evening, for some goods look
busy with 'fancy work sewing bands of fine more attractive by artificial light. Just imagine,
muslin', she continues: 'Next day Madam La dear children, a street taking half an hour to
Fite gave me one of her hats to wear, and I cover from end to end, with double rows of

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
brightly shining lamps . . . and the pavement, two pair of stairs, for the dining-room, Mr
'

inlaid with flag-stones, can stand six people Branghton told us, was let.

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deep and allows one to gaze at the splendidly lit Taken to her lodgings in Holborn Evelina
shops in comfort Up to eleven o'clock at
. . . finds: 'Our rooms are large and not inconven-
night there are as many people along this street ient ; our landlord is a hosier . . . mv present
as at Frankfurt during the fair.' position every respect, very unenviable.'
is, in
Finally, before leaving London, this after- She continues: Yesterday morning, we re-
noon I took a walk up and down that lovely ceived an invitation to dine and spend the dav
Oxford Street, so as to take a good look at all the at Mr Branghton s.' His two daughters are not
houses and the numerous shops ... I found dressed when the visitors arrive, so Evelina is
another shop here like the one in Paris, contain- taken up the two flights of stairs to see them.
ing every possible make of woman's shoe But . . . The sisters are reproved by their father: 'Here's
the linen-shops are the loveliest; every kind of your aunt and cousin, and M. Du Bois, all
white wear. . . . and anv species of linen, can be waiting, and ne'er a room to take them in. ' Miss
had. Nightcaps for ladies and children, trimmed Polly says: 'Can't they stay in the shop till we're
with muslin or various kinds of Brussels lace, dressed?' So stools were procured in the shop.
more exquisitely stitched than any I ever saw They stay there till dinner is readv, when we
before.' again mounted up two pair of stairs', for a
She Warren Hastings and his German
visits terrible dinner, with things being fetched from
wife at Windsor and during the visit 'Mrs downstairs. After dinner Polly says: Don't you
Hastings tied a shawl round me before going out think, Mi>>, it's very dull sitting upstairs here- 1

in the garden and I thought it a delightful trick We'd better go down to shop, and then we shall
of fortune to have placed me beside the Gover- see the people go by.' There are arguments, then
nor of East India, wrapped in an East Indian
. . . the elder sister declares: I'll sure you, Cousin,
material more costly than silk, much lighter and we have some very genteel people pass by our
also much warmer than the latter'. shop sometimes: Polly and I always go and sit
A very different view of London shops had there, when we've cleaned ourselves.' Y -
been given a few years earlier by another writer. Mis>,' cries the brother, they do nothing else all
though this time not from far. Nor was she any day long, when father don't scold them.' So -it
stranger to London. She was Fanny Burney was at length decided that they should go to the
and, looking at the shopping scene from the shop.
other side of the counter, she does not find much If it is permissible to move on a few years and

improvement on the old days to keep pace with have another look at shops, probably a more
the greater availability of goods which de- balanced view is that given by Jane Austen,
lighted Sophie. In some respects the old pattern who several times mentions shopping as a
of the shop on the ground floor and the family pleasant occupation, and one enjoved by her
living above seems to have persisted. kind of ordinary people, admittedly a slightly
Fanny Burney in her first publication Evelina privileged country group living near attractive
lepictssuch arrangements as very unsat- towns of not too large a size.
isfactory when Evelina is taken to London by Though London and Bath had special attrac-
her disagreeable grandmother Madame Duval tions, Jane refers to local drapers' shops more in
to see and be under the wing of a relation. Mr her letters to her sister Cassandra than in the
Branghton, a silversmith, and his family at his novels, but Emma, in the novel of that name
shop at Snow Hill. The Branghton>' house is (1816) goes shopping twice at Ford's, in High-
small and inconvenient,' she writes, 'though the home at Hartfield, not far from
bury, near her
shop, which takes in all the ground floor, is large London. The main visit described is the one
and commodious. . . . We were conducted up made by Emma with Frank Churchill, a

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36 A men 's work in his shop, his staff
tailor at
him as he measures a
sitting cross-legged beside
customer. From Diderot's Encyclopedic

favourite visitor, who, as they approach Ford's,

exclaims: 'Ha! this must be the very shop that
everybody attends every day of their lives, as
my father informs me. He comes to Highbury
himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and
has always business at Ford's. If it be not
inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I

may prove myself to belong to the place; to be a

true citizen of Highbury I must buy something
at Ford's ... I daresay they sell gloves.' To
which Emma replies: 'Oh! yes, gloves and
everything,' and in they go to make the pur-
chase from 'the sleek, of
well-tied parcels
"Men's Beavers" and "York Tan'" brought
down for their inspection, these being favoured
styles of leather glove at the time.

37 The Tailo -from The Book of English

Trades, 1803.

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5

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Beginnings of the Industrial
Revolution
New Inventions and the Cotton Industry look first at the main established activities and
Just when the industrial revolution began is of these textile production remained first and
almost infinitely arguable, but in the present foremost, as well as the oldest. The greatest
context two points are essential to the story and obstacle to growth there was a shortage of spun
are beyond any doubt. Britain was the world yarns. YYavs of speeding up the spinning and
leader in this new movement that was to weaving were needed and of these
of cloth
transform the world and in Britain cotton spinning was the more urgent, because weavers
fabrics were the first major product to be made were more and more being held up by lack of
by the new processes. Cotton was to transform varn prepared for them by the hand-spinners -
ordinary women's dress the only kind of spinners then known. It toolc
The quickening of science and invention had ten of them to keep one weaver fully supplied
by the middle of the eighteenth century reached with his needs.
a point at which increased national production It was therefore in that direction that inven-
and manufacture of goods, for both home and
overseas trade, with the aim of increasing
wealth for the nation and its people, was the 38 Spinning in 1808: moving towards
dominant purpose. For growth it was natural to mechanization.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
tiveness was mainly The first success-
directed. and stronger thread and also capable of being
ful was the 'jenny' (a collo-
'spinning machine' used at home as well as in a factory. In fact it

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quialism from 'engine') of James Hargreaves, a was for many years used only in cottages. It was
poor weaver in the cotton trade in Blackburn. difficult to make and factory production of
In 1764 he invented the 'jenny', devised to spin machines proceeded slowly because of the scarc-
eight threads at once. It had eight vertical new breed, the good mechanic. The
ity of that
spindles operating on the great wheel principle, machine brought prosperity to Crompton's
with eight bands controlling eight
driving home town, but he died in poverty in 1827.
threads. In 1766 was improved to take 16, and
it Various other inventions from this time failed
it was patented in 1770. It was violently at- to make an immediate impact, among them a
tacked by angry hand-spinners who, fearing the power loom invented in 1785 by a clergyman,
loss of their livelihood, destroyed some of the Dr Edmund Cartwright. It was large and
machines. Hargreaves was forced out and was clumsy, difficult to make and operate, and when
driven to Nottingham, where he adapted his 400 were installed in a Manchester factory in
invention to provide cotton yarn for the hosiery 1792 the building was burnt down by angry
trade. But 20,000 'jennies' were in use, mainly workers. Hand-weavers as a result of this hos-
in Lancashire, by the turn of the century. It had tility to machines had a bonanza for a time,

the great advantage that it could be used in any workers earning large wages, especially for
cottage, and eventually could work 80 spindles. making fine woollens. The power loom did not
Hargreaves, however, drew no benefit from it come into substantial use until after 1850.
and died a poor man. The development of weaving was mainlv
The weakness of the 'jenny' was that its dependent on the improvement in spinning
threads were not strong enough for warping. machinery, to speed up yarn supplies, so chiefly
This problem was solved by Sir Richard for that reason there was no immediate suc-
Arkwright's water frame or roller-spinning ma- cessor to one of the first inventions of all in

chine of 1768. was so heavy that it could not

It textiles, the 'flying shuttle' of John Kay, of
be controlled manually but had to be powered, 1733. Its purpose was to speed up weaving by
originally by horse power and then by a water carrying the weft threads automatically across
wheel, so it was limited to factory use. Unlike the warp by means of hammers on a string or
Hargreaves, however, Arkwright prospered wire which the weaver could operate with one
after some set-backs, got his first factory in 1771 hand. Cloth could thereby be wider than the
at Cromford, in Derbyshire, was knighted and limits of the weaver's arm-stretch. It again
died in 1792 with a fortune of half-a-million caused fury among hand-weavers who saw it as
pounds. He had lived to see the first steam a threat to their livelihood and Kay died in
engine supplying power for his invention, which poverty.
had multiplied output and provided the finer The new developments were much more
yet stronger thread as required. He had started easily adaptable to cotton than to wool, the
life as a barber travelling round Lancashire fibres of which were difficult to handle mechan-
buying the long hair of country girls to make ically. Certain processes in the preparation of
into wigs. Carlyle said of him : 'What a historical wool were also a source of problems for spinning
phenomenon is that bag-cheeked, pot-bellied, machines at first. These were eventually
much-enduring much-inventing barber.' overcome, and in 1787 there was one long-fibred
Third of the early textile pioneer inventors worsted wool already being machine-spun in a
was Samuel Crompton, a Bolton weaver, who in Yorkshire mill. Linen was even slower to re-
1779 produced a machine called the spinning spond to the new system. Neither could com-
mule because it was a cross between the inven- pete with cotton in price, so on all counts cotton
tions of his two predecessors, producing finer was the immediate winner.

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39 Mechanization speeds up cloth production.
Left, A rkwright
Water Frame ( 176Q) ; below,
s
Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny (1756) ; bottom,
Crompton 's Mule (1755).
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
\*»m.

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-

'',

"|W " i

40 Above; interior of mule-spinning factory, 18J5. 41 Below; power-loom weaving, 1835.

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I

•J"—^

The general effect of the machines was there- 42 Factory scene, iSjg, with women and
fore greatly to increase the output of cotton children, and managers in the background.
materials, to improve their range immensely,
especially in the production of fine muslins, and
also, for the first time in history, to make dress A Dress Revolution for Ordinary People
fabrics cheap. This was a revolution for ordi- These cottons made history in several ways.
nary people. Hitherto all materials had been Cottons were cheap, attractive and production
expensive. Now there were fabrics that were of them was capable of almost limitless expan-
available in great variety, often beautifully sion to meet the need. They were unlike wool or
coloured or attractively patterned, costing the linen materials, which were limited by the size
public a fraction of what had previously been of flocks of sheep and of areas of Britain suited
paid. to growing flax. But because of this there grew

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up not only success and new possibilities for 44 Innovations in dress materials. The calico-

ordinary dress but also one of the blots on the printer, as shown in The Book of English

clothing industry - of which many

Trades, 1823.

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were to
follow. This was the nefarious 'three-way' or
Triangular trade, by which British merchants,
mainly from Bristol but later also from Liver-
pool, sailed to Africa withmanufactured goods.
These they exchanged there for negroes, to be
taken by them as slave-labour to the West
Indies and the American colonies of North
America. There the human cargo was ex-
changed for supplies of cotton, brought home to
Britain to be manufactured into much-needed
dress and household textiles. This was done in
factories where working conditions were often
so appalling that they constituted something
like another kind of slave labour, a parallel not
generally seen at the time.

43 Carding, drawing and roving in a cotton

factory in the 1840s.

A V-

% \
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
fashionable and popular taste coincided. The
French Revolution, the 'back to nature' cult of
Rousseau, and the vogue for 'Grecian' modes all

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gave immense scope to every kind of cotton,
from plain or printed fabrics of modest price
and simple style to delicate muslins, em-
broidered or lace-trimmed, sought after by the
fashionable woman.
There was another more practical and even
more important result of the cotton revolution,
though it was probably not the aim of the
inventors. Cotton, unlike woollens, silks,

brocades and other previously fashionable

be easily and successfully washed.
fabrics, could
England, for the first time, took an immense
pride in cleanliness and freshly laundered, light-
coloured cottons became much sought after and
admired.
More important than the visible freshness of
clothes was the effect on health. English people
came to be observed by visiting foreigners for
their cleanliness; a visitor from France com-
mented: 'English women and men are very
clean not a day passes by without their wash-
:

ing their hands, arms, faces, necks and throats

in cold water, and that in winter as well as
summer.' The effect of clean clothes on health
was important. Dorothy George says in her
England in Transition: 'The new washable
cottons, which were universally worn by
women, replaced such things as linsey-woolsey
petticoats padded with horsehair or cotton-
wool, and leather stays, worn till they dropped
to pieces from dirt.'
Although men did not wear cotton to the
45 Cotton conies to the fore elegance in a
:
same extent as women, the years 1794-1816
summer dinner dress in printed cotton, with lace were the heyday of Beau Brummell, whose
frill at hem, 182J-25. leadership in men's fashions was based on a
passion for an immaculate cleanliness in simple,
In the home market the opportunity of beautifully cut clothes - for spotless linen,
buying cheap, attractive fabrics for making up shining white cravats and personal hygiene.
into clothes was little less than a miracle for Coincidentally medicine, and especially
ordinary people. Records such as Parson Wood- popular medicine, was improving. Five new
forde's Diary (1758-1802) will show what full hospitals were founded during the first half of
advantage was quickly taken of this. In a very the century. Midwifery was being improved
short time cotton dresses were the general wear extensively. Dispensaries were being set up
of women of all classes; for the first time where the poor could go for medicines and

62
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
by the introduction of synthetic fibres in the
twentieth century. Cotton is one of the oldest of
yarns, and had been grown in about 60 coun-

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tries mainly in Egypt, India,
for centuries,
China, parts of America and Russia, but it
needed a warm climate and could not be grown
in Western Europe.
It can be traced back to 3000 bc in Indian
tombs and it was from that country that
painted cottons were imported into Europe
from the seventeenth century and, being attrac-
tive, novel, scarce and costly, had a certain
prestigious vogue among the wealthy and
fashionable in England, especially in very fine
muslins imported from India and coveted by
elegant ladies.
England's first importer of cotton varns was
the East India Company, founded in 1612,
which also brought in 'calicoe' from Calcutta
and fine muslins from Mosul, all costly fabrics in
short supply. Defoe early in the eighteenth
century mentioned a vogue for these, especiallv
in printed fabrics. When the East India
Company's monopoly of trade with India ended
in 1813 the West Indies began to supply a lot of
raw cotton, but the growth of Britain's use of
cotton yarn had developed considerably by
then - supplies had been brought back from the
southern plantations of North America by
explorers. As their discoveries extended thev
found further supplies in Mexico and Peru. By
1800 the cotton industry had overtaken the
woollen one in Britain.
So rapid had been the growth of cotton
46 Purple silk pelisse and flower-printed cotton imports that in 1791 Britain transported 38,000
dress of about 1828. negroes from Africa to the cotton plantations of
America, which was more than half the total
advice. Paving and lighting for streets, water European slave trade for that year.
supplies, draining and the demolition of slums Though machine-woven and machine-spun
were being put in hand, not only in London but cloths came into existence in the latter part of
also in other main towns, where growth of trade the eighteenth century, the craft of hand-
and industry was drawing in workers from rural weaving declined only slowly, and indeed lin-
areas. gered on, both in its humbler guises and in the
Cotton, of course, was by no means new, even prestige production of luxury woollens, some of
in England, when it created the eighteenth- which persist to this day. A picture of an aspect
century revolution in everyday dressing - a of the craft which looked back was recorded in
revolution as great in many ways as that caused George Eliot's story of a hand weaver, Silas

63
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47 Printed dresses in cotton of 1830-40 by

Harrods, with billowing skirts and full sleeves.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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48 Purple and beige striped cotton dress, about
1843-45.

49 Simpler dress for men in ijgi : a natural

look, almost country-like ; coat turned back
forming tails and casually half-buttoned ; easy
neckline, ribbed stockings and plain shoes.

50 Undress - that is, informal dressing, for

ijgg, in simple cotton dresses, one with

contrasting dark tippet.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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Marner, published in 1861, but set in the early 51 A country scene: The Splenetic Traveller by
years of the nineteenth century, in the last Thomas Bewick (1758-1828).
lingering of 'the days when the spinning-wheels
hummed busily in the farmhouses and even
beyond countless days of weaving . the live-
. .

great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had

long day he sat at his loom, his ear filled with its
their toy spinning wheels of polished oak*.
monotony, his eyes bent down on the slow
Some of the last hand-weavers were linen-
growth of sameness in the brownish web'. A
weavers, often, like Silas Marner, voluntary
humble man, collecting and delivering as well as
exiles from towns, so that there were 'in dis-
weaving, he was the old-time weaver, working
tricts far away among the lanes, or deep in the
for humble people.
bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized
men, who, by the side of the brawn}' country- Shopping for a Country Parsonage
folk, looked remains of a disinherited
like the An almost day-to-day diary kept from 1758 to
race'. They were linen-weavers, emigrants from 1802 with no thought of posterity, completely
towns, regarded as aliens. With a 'bent tread- unknown until 1924 and with its five volumes
mill attitude, at work, Silas Marner would go appearing between then and 1931, is a rich trove
across the fields 'to fetch and carry home his of information about the dress and habits of
work'. ordinary people of
7
its time in a secluded but

It paid better to be self-employed in the typical Norfolk village. Parson Woodforde's

country than to work for a dealer in a town. Diary of a Country Parson records his life at
Silas earned his five guineas a week, 'five bright Weston Longeville and all the people who
guineas put into his hand', but he 'saw no vision shared it - his niece Nancy who kept house for

66
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
him, his two maid servants, his man and boy -
all living comfortably on his income of £400 a

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year. It also includes visits to Bath and London,
and shopping wherever he goes.
Why, is it so very well
after nearly 200 years,
worth while following Parson Woodforde on his
clothes-buying expeditions? For one thing,
because, more than anyone except Pepys, he
has a rare faculty of taking the reader with him
wherever he goes. On his shopping trips every-
thing is as real and immediate as if it were
happening to us today. So is the day-to-day life
of his household. But more practically, most of
his purchases of fabrics and his general dress
details are dated in the 1790s and give a first-
hand account of how fully the new inexpensive
cottons had captured the everyday market of
master, mistress and servants, even in the
remote country. All the details are there in his
words.
It is immediately evident that daily life in the
country has moved fast since the diaries of the
seventeenth century. Immense strides have
been made in travel and communications. Nor-
wich, only a few miles from the parsonage, is an
impressive shopping centre, where nearly
everything can be bought with ease and com-
fort, and it is regularly visited.
On
one occasion Parson Woodforde records
that 'Nancy bought a new black beaver hat
with purple Cockade and band. She gave for it
1.3.0. She bought it of one Caley in the Market
Place. I also bought a new hat of him, pd him for
it 1.1.0. Whilst my niece was at Barths, Stay

and Habit Maker, I walked to Bacons and paid

him for Knox's Sermons ... To 11 Dozen of
Buttons Coat and Waistcoat, some Italian,
some Clay's Paper ones, all black at Bakers . .

Called at my Mercers, Smiths, and bespoke a

Coat, Waistcoat and Breeches of him. Then
went to my Taylors Forsetter, and told him to
make a Suit of Livery for Briton' (his man). No
shopping problems here. 52 The countryman of the early nineteenth
Again at Norwich: T walked out with Nancy century. The drover, in white coat, yellow
to Miss Brownes to see the Fashions. Gave waistcoat, red and white spotted handkerchief,
Nancy handsome Sash &c. paid for the
a very blue and white striped stockings, and badge on left

same, 0.18.0 ... I walked about by myself & pd arm.

67
 '

EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

more Bills. To Smith, Mercer, pd 8.4.0. To
Frank, Barber, for a Wigg, pd 1.1.0. To Mrs

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Brewster, Haberdasher, pd 3.10.6. ... Nancy
bought her a pretty Hat suitable to the Sash.'
Next day at Norwich: 'At Graham's Shop for
a pr of black Silk Stockings and changing
another pair that I bought there last Year
which did not fit me, pd o. 16.0. To four pair of
white worsted Gauze Do. pd 0. 7. 4.
A considerable number of purchases are made
from men who call at the house with their
still

offerings. Thus: 'To a Man who comes from

Windham and carries about stuffs for Gowns
&c, for 27 yards and half at gd per yard 1.0.6.
Gave both my Maids a Gown apiece of it and of
the same Colour, something of the Pea Green.
Gave Nancy also, to make a Skirt for her of a
light blue six yds.'
A regular caller is 'one Aldridge who called
here this Morning with a Cart with things, for £
yard of canbrick pd 0.5.0. Of ditto for corded
Muslin j Yard for the Maids 0.3.6. and which I

gave between them for Caps'. There is a bigger

order for Aldridge on another occasion.
Purchases from Aldridge recur and show that
cotton has taken over: 'To 7 Yards of Cotton a
mixed Colour of black, purple and Green, for a
morning Gown for myself, this Morning of
Aldridge at 2s/2d per Yrd. pd o. 15. 2. Of Ditto
for 7 Yrds of white Cotton for a lining to the
above at is/od per Yrd pd 0.7.0.'
Again: 'To 4 Yards and 3 Quarters of Cam-
brick for Handkerchiefs for myself, at 6 Shil-
lings a Yard, paid Aldridge 1.8.6. which will
make me five good Handkerchiefs. And a small
one for Nancy besides.'
Finally, a big order for inexpensive cottons
from Aldridge. 'Aldridge who goes abt. with
Cottons &c called here ... To Aldridge for 14
Yards of Cotton, at 2s/3d. pd 1.11.6 which I
gave to my two Maids, a Gown each. To
Aldridge also, for 8 Yrds. of Cotton at 2/6, 1 o. o. .

which I gave to Miss Woodforde. Also for 7

Yards of Cotton for a Gown for myself, at 2s/2d.
pd 0.15.0. Pd him likewise for a Marcella-
53 A postman 0/1813, wearing a red coat with Waistcoat Piece Yellow Ground J yrd square,
blue facings and a yellow waistcoat. for Ben 0.8.0. To Aldridge also, for 2 Silk
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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54 The pedlar played a large part in life at the
Rectory.

Handkerchiefs from Spital Fields, Chocolate

Ground & Yellow Spots, pd 1 1 o. One of which I
.

gave to Ben and the other to Boy, Tim. Paid

Aldridgein the whole 2.'
4. 5.
Long summer visits to his own county of
Somerset are undertaken every two or three
summers by Parson Woodforde and Nancy, and
a stop is usually made at Bath, which provides
new scope for shopping for clothes and other
personal requirements.
At Bath T walked about Bath with my Sister
Pounsett & Daughter and Nancy a shopping. At
Percival's Shop in Milsom Street for three
Pieces of Muslin ten Yards each Piece and one
Yard & half wide - very great bargain, I paid
3.15.0 which was only twenty five Shillings
apiece.I gave one Piece to my sister Pounsett,

another to my Niece Pounsett and the other

Nancy had.'
A few days in London could also usually be
encompassed in these cross-country journeys,
now possible because of the great improvements 55 Country life at the beginning of the nineteenth
being made in the speed and efficiency and century. A gardener, from a print of 1804.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
After another visit, he 'gave my two Maids a
Cotton Gown apiece that I bought for them in

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London cost me 1.8.0. Gave my Servant Man
Ben a Waistcoat Piece 0.6.0. Gave my Servant
Lad John, in Cash 0.2.6.'
He went 'to Reeves Hosiery Warehouse in the
Strand early this Morning for a pair of Boot
Stockings, pd 0.4.6. For brown travelling Cap
pd 0. 4. 0. for a cotton and worsted shaving Cap,
pd 0.2.3. F° r a Silk Purse at the same Shop, pd
0.2.0.' Finally, 'Soon after Breakfast I walked
with Nancy to her Mantua Maker Miss Ryder,
Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane.'
The terms on which the Maids are engaged do
not seem to have included clothes, but gifts of
cotton for dresses are frequently made to them,
of the same material in each case, though
uniform was not at the time worn by women
servants. In the case of a boy, newly engaged,
the arrangement about clothes was different: T
am to give him per Annum for Wages. 1.1.0. A
Coat and Waist coat and Hat when wanted, to
allow him something for being washed out and
mended - and his Friends to find him in

Stockings and Shoes &.'

Nancy does some sewing, but not by any
means all. She is described as occupying herself
56 Fishing for whiting at Margate, 1834. Note
'netting her Apron' while her uncle read a
now very widely worn.
the top hat,
Historv of England to her. On another occasion
comfort of coaches. London was still the he gives her 'some Muslin to make a shawl.
country's leading shopping centre, a great at- Nancy completely finished this new spotted
traction with opportunities not possible Apron - and verv pretty it looks'.
elsewhere. When Nancy is in Somerset, on one occasion
On one London visit: 'After breakfast we she 'had a brown Silk gown trimmed with Burr
took a Coach and went to Charlesworth, Haber- brought home this Evening by Cary from her
dasher in Great Russel Street, Covent Garden Mantua maker, Miss Bell. It was a very good
and there Nancy bought divers things - I lent rich silk that gave her which formerly be-
I

her the same 1.1.0. From thence we walked to longed to mypoor Aunt Parr, whose effects
Southampton Street very near the last Place, came to me'. Handing on clothes was a usual
and there at a very good Linen-Drapers Shop procedure. A visiting cousin is given 'a Pr of
kept by a Mr Jeremy, a very civil Man, bought Shoes, a Pr of Stockings, a Pr of Breeches and
some Table Linnen, ... a piece of Holland, Shirt and Stock, and an old Coat and Waist-
Cravats &c. paid there 13.6.0.' coat'.Nancy does an occasional repair for her
In London he also 'walked to a Milleners Shop uncle 'Gave Nancy this Morning for well Mend-
:

and bought 3 dressed Caps for Nancy, for my

I ing a Pair of Velveret Breeches for me is 0.'
Sister Pounsett and her little girl, with about 10 Even washing-day problems engage Parson
Yards of Ribband besides pd there 1.11.6.' Woodforde's attention. He tells how his maid,

70
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Betty, 'went to Norwich to buy my two old
washer-women Mary Heavers and Nan Gooch a

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new Gown apiece which I intend giving them'.
On another occasion he again thinks of the
washer-women. There is an entry in the diary
for Coloured Handkerchiefs for my two
'2

washer-women, Dawning & Richmond.'

The New Simplicity

From about 1790 a sudden simplicity revol-
utionized women's dress and greatly modified
men's, lasting with few basic changes for nearly
30 years. It affected ordinary people as well as
the fashionable. It is generally attributed to
changing social, political and artistic changes,
but it is still even more difficult wholly to
explain than are most of fashion's variations.
It was not in fact quite so drastic as would

seem at first sight. In the case of women the

immense panniers featured so lavishly in sur-
viving fashionable clothes and recorded in cos-
tume histories were a minority fashion, like the
earlier farthingale wearable onlv bv the few and
for special occasions. General wear for women of
all classes during the eighteenth century was

usually, as previously, a fitted or loose bodice

and a full skirt, the latter sometimes open-
fronted, showing a decorative petticoat, which
had not yet become an undergarment. Such a
dress was within the means of the middle-class
woman and suitable to her needs. It could be
enhanced or simplified to suit everybody. The
mantua, already described, was worn on many
occasions, also by all classes. It was still usually
a one-piece gown, simpler, looser and more
casual. The even more loose-fitting bedgown, so
unsuitably named, continued to be working
gear well into the nineteenth century.
But now ordinary and fashionable women
took to dresses of almost child-like simplicity
57 Simplicity in women 's dress spread to all
in fact they had started as the wear of little girls
classes from the end of the eighteenth century, and
in the 1770s. Petticoatswere minimal, corsets
only gradually disappeared. Here, are, Regency
sometimes abandoned. Full advantage was Belles of 1803-5, 00 ^n iM slim, high-waisted
taken of the recently available inexpensive dresses. On the right, cream silk on twill ground
cottons and muslins, eminently suited to such by-passing every curve. On the left, a shawl is

dresses; these fabrics undoubtedly helped to added, and an outsize poke-bonnet conceals tin-

make the new fashion widespread, but it cannot face too.

7i
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
be seen solely as an offshoot of the large-scale 1801 after the Peace of Amiens, and, as a
manufacture of cotton. biographer records: 'First came the business,

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In general the formality of the Augustan age always faintly amusing to Fanny, of revising a
was outgrown and a reaction to informality was rustic wardrobe to suit Parisian fashion. She
natural. It was seen in poetry, in a love of speaks of "the exclamations which followed the
Nature, in the doctrines of Rousseau, but these examination of my attire. This won't do! That
influences were mainly for the educated classes. you can never wear !Three petticoats, no one
. . .

In a wider sense the French Revolution (1789) wears more than one! Stays? Everyone has left
was a great social leveller, and its mood affected off even corsets! Shift sleeves? Not a soul now

England, though more slowly than France.

There the full impact of the new fashions was 58 The old-style formal dress for men was
quickly felt. Fanny Burney, middle class and no caricatured by Rowlandson in Men of Fashion
follower or respecter of fashion, went to Paris in (c.1790).

!'•

y?
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dresses for outsize cravat : as shown in the magazine Le

59 Morning and evening ladies '

1807, the latter with a shawl; the fashionable Beau Monde.

gentleman is wearing evening dress with an
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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60 Back to nature : Sir Walk N
U s daughters 61 A model, in the V Albert Museum,
in peasant dress, by Sir David Wilkie, i8ij. of a u ell-dressed businessman of the early
nineteenth century. Thomas Coutts, founder of
the bank bearing his name, wears a black cloth
coat, uaistcoat and breeches, with a beaver hat.
Coutts died in 1822.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
wears even a chemise!" Fanny solved the prob- both the tailed morning coat and the evening
lem characteristically by wearing what she had coat, both still worn at times.

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always worn, regardless of the mode. The other new arrival was the man's 'frock'
The dress of men also became simpler from coat, based on an artisan's coat and giving away
about 1790, for the same reasons - a changing its origins by being at first called, like the latter,
social climate and a more relaxed view of life. In the 'frock'. With a collar but no lapels,
it was

general men's fashion was less formal, more worn widely from the mid-eighteenth century
natural, and this was mainly seen in a liking for for all but formal occasions. One variation
country clothes, often based on what was worn became a riding coat. Later, as Phillis Cunning-
by ordinary men and lower-class dress. This ton says, the frock coat became 'the hall-mark
reversal of the usual rule, of fashion coming of the 19th century' much worn by the middle
from the top, was very evident in the wearing of class in a new guise, waisted, single-breasted,
the riding coat and easy breeches, more casual with a roll or stand-up collar, buttons to the
neckwear and a general modification of existing waist. From 1825 it had lapels. By 1840 there
fashionable dress. was a shorter variation, worn for sporting
There were, by the end of the eighteenth occasions.
century, two main versions of the man's coat, Trousers first began to replace breeches about
both of which set the stamp on future male dress 1803, and were becoming general by about
of the ordinary middle classes and which were 1807, to the surprise of most people. Breeches
increasingly copied by the upper classes, in- after that were mainly worn for sporting oc-
stead of vice-versa. This was partly because casions, principally riding, but also, in a formal
men of fashion were now conforming to the new
pattern of a busy city life instead of permanent 62 The evolution of men 's dress a satirist 's view
:

leisure in country pursuits. Based on the earlier 0/1820 in Bond Street Loungers by R. Dighton,
long coat, both new coats at first had the fronts who surveys two dukes, two earls and a notability
turned back to form tails. The more formal of the time in the variations presented by
version was close-fitting and from it evolved contemporary modes - but always with top hats.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
style, for some evening wear of a ceremonial The Bosom Friend was a kind of tippet to
kind, such as Court dress and the traditional protect the bare throat and chest, and its

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dress of judges, high churchmen and others. mention here in 1799 antedates the reference in
The frock coat remained the usual wear for the New Oxford Dictionary by two years. The
men throughout the nineteenth century in reference to the spencer does the same by four
business, trade, the professions and, in general, years.
for all above the working class level in the new, Another Woodforde diary date of interest
ever-growing industrial world. The top hat was here is that of a visit to Norwich in 1790 on

also normally worn. Not till the end of the which Nancy and her uncle see 'Lord Orford's
nineteenth century did the lounge jacket, an droll-dressed Militia Men in Norwich, red Cloth
up-market version of the almost timeless jacket Slops and loose white Trousers'. Men's trousers,
or jerkin (a rougher jacket, often of leather) of whose origins are ascribed to peasant, sailors'
the working man, become round-the-clock wear and army wear, were thus in evidence before
for men in general, as part of the 'bespoke' town they were adopted by civilians early in the next
suit and as the blazer, sports jacket, 'smoking century, with, it is said, the encouragement of
jacket', and after World War II as a dinner George IV.
jacket practically ousting the evening 'tail suit'

or 'tails' for all but very formal events. Most of The Shawl
these varieties of jacket could be single- or When in 1786 Sophie von la Roche expressed
double-breasted, according to choice or minor her delight at being presented with an East
fashion changes from time to time. Indian shawl 'more costly than silk, much
Meantime, like men, women did not leave lighterand also much warmer than the latter'
their new-found fashions unchanged. Cotton in bv the Governor of East India on her visit to
the English climate was not always warm him and his wife at Windsor, she was appropri-
enough for general wear, but various solutions ately grateful for what was then a rare and
for this were devised. Parson Woodforde de- coveted acquisition anywhere in Western
scribes a visit from Mrs Custance: 'Though Europe.
June, it was very cold indeed again today, so At that time such shawls, though they would
cold that Mrs Custance came walking in her be copied in Britain later and have a long-lasting
Spencer with a Bosom-Friend.' vogue among all classes of women, with many
The spencer, originally a short coat worn by and price, had to be imported
variations of style
men from the start of the nineteenth century, from the East, were laboriously hand-woven
took its name from Earl Spencer (1758-1834) of the finest cashmere in traditional designs,
and a version was adopted by women. It has and therefore were very costly and highly
been worn ever since. At first it was waist- prized. The genuine ones remained so. In Mrs
length, long-sleeved, with revers and collar, and Gaskell's North and South, published in 1855,
in this form was worn from the 1790s till about their prestige remains strong among the pros-
1825, with the slim dresses. Then it became perous middle-class people depicted. A bride's
more casual, sometimes knitted, sometimes mother says: T have spared no expense in her
sleeveless, and at times worn under the dress, trousseau. She has all the beautiful Indian
from the later nineteenth century into the shawls and scarfs the General gave to me, but
twentieth. Though the name is now rarely used, which I shall never wear again.' 'She is a lucky
something similar is still often worn among girl,' replies another mother 'Helen had set
. . .

today's variety of 'layered' garments. Probably her heart upon an Indian shawl, but really when
the spencer could be regarded as the prototype I found what an extravagant price was asked, I

of the ubiquitous cardigan, worn by both men was obliged, to refuse her What kinds are
. . .

and women. they? Delhi? with the lovely little borders?'

76
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
The bride's cousin, Margaret, has to show the
shawls. 'So Margaret went down laden with

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shawls, and snuffing up their spicy Eastern
smell . . . Her aunt asked her to stand as a sort of
lay figure on which to display them . . .

Margaret's tall, finely made figure ... set off the

long beautiful folds of the gorgeous shawls . .

She touched the shawls gently as they hung

around her and took a pleasure in their soft feel
and their brilliant colours.'
Edith later comments: 'But really Indian
shawls are very perfect things of their kind.' A
masculine comment is: 'Their prices are very
perfect, too. Nothing wanting.'
Although it is recorded thus at a middle-class
level, the shawl was probably the most classless,
widely worn and generally approved item of
wear among women from the late eighteenth
century for nearly a hundred years. Since then
ithas continued to be worn, in some form, for
some purpose, without a break, by innumerable
kinds of women.
The shawl was the perfect accompaniment of
the new light, simple cotton and muslin dresses
worn by all classes of women during the last
part of the eighteenth century. Often with short
sleeves and low-cut necks, and with a dimin-
ished underpinning of corset and petticoats,
these dresses called an extra layer for
for
warmth on most A shawl was ideal,
occasions.
wearable in many ways, easily picked up or
discarded, with no problems of size or fit. That
the eastern, costly imported versions should be
63 Paisley shawl of the early nineteenth century,
copied was obvious. This was particularly when the vogue was at its height.
tempting because the shawl was technically the
ideal cross between the old hand-weaving and established in popular favour from then to
the new machine processes being developed in today. From the early nineteenth century the
Britain, many of which were bringing new skills 'Paisley shawl' has been the universal name for

to the manufacture of fine, gossamer-like the item, 'Paisley pattern' the universal name
fabrics. for the types of design based on the original
Production of cashmere shawls with patterns versions imported from the East.
copied from the Indian ones began at Norwich, There were good reasons for this. Paisley had
notable for its fine woollens, at the end of the a long tradition of skill in weaving and, being in

eighteenth century. Then it started up in a damp, flax-growing area, was used to making
Edinburgh. But very soon it moved to the town fine linens. The shawls were usually made of fine

which was to become world-famous for its wool and silk, or of wool or silk, and, from about
shawls and to give its own name to the types it 1845, of cotton. Patterns were traditionally

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woven into them, but cotton ones, printed with tinued to be so called and to be fashionable and
the patterns, were also 'Paisleys', and these popular till today. In fine silks, in particular,

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were the most popular versions. The Paisley they have been in great favour, and Paisley has
shawl, therefore, became an article adaptable to remained a noted source of silk weaving from
all pockets. This was in key with the times, the time of her shawls.
because although there was much class- In addition to the special Paisley type other
consciousness there was also a considerable versions of the shawl appeared.It was made in

degree of levelling, as the middle classes grew heavy wool for warmth, in bright plaids for
and flourished in the industrial world. variety; Queen Victoria had a particular liking
The Paisley shawl was a favourite wedding for a shawl in tartan. In Scotland wearing of
present. It was treasured by families if it was a shawls practically amounted to a feminine
good one. It was worn from infancy to old age. adoption of the plaid. Long before Victoria's
With the advent of the crinoline in the mid- time Elizabeth Grant in her Memoirs of a
1850s shawls became almost the only practical Highland Lady, describing a congregation in
wrap that could be worn over the voluminous Duthie Church in 1812 or 1813, concludes her
skirts that were generally worn and Paisley account of the men's dress with 'The plaid as a
:

shawls were firm favourites. wrap, the plaid as a drapery, with kilt to match
From the 1870s the Paisley shawl gradually on some, trews on others, blue jackets on all.
ceased to be so universally worn, suffering the The women were plaided too and looked
. . .

fate of many fashions by becoming associated

with the elderly and therefore not favoured by 64 The Shawl Shop of Farmer and Rogers in
the voung. Fabrics however, continued to be Regent Street, London - an 1866 advertisement
made in the Paisley pattern, and have con- shows how the shawl kept its popularity
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
among women of the lower classes as their main
protection against the elements. In the early

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days of the present century these wearers were
known to the rest of the populace of at any rate
the industrial towns of Scotland as 'shawlie

65 A tailor measures a lady customer in his

workroom, IJ20.

picturesquely matronly in their very high white

caps. A bonnet was not to be seen, no Highland
girl ever covered her head. The girls wore their
hair neatly braided in front, plaited up in
Grecian fashion behind . . . The wives were all in
homespun, home-dyed linsey-woolsey [a linen
and wool fabric] gowns, covered to the chin by
the modest kerchief worn outside. The girls who
could afford it had a Sabbath Day's gown of like
manufacture and very bright colour some . . .

had to be content with the best blue flannel

petticoat and a clean white jacket, their ordi-
nary and most becoming dress, and few of those
had either shoes or stockings, but they all wore
the plaid, and they folded it round them very
gracefully.'
In the lowlands and in England the plaid was
called the shawl, and it had an extended life

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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Doing the Sewing

The Role of Women at Home Second-hand markets for clothing existed

When at the end of the seventeenth century throughout history, and the rich as well as the
Gregory King, one of the fathers of statistical poor resorted to them. Clothes were also handed
study, picked out 'a weaver, a shoemaker and a down from wearer to wearer, bequeathed in
tailor' as among the most fortunate and fully wills. In particular the personal servants of
occupied of the 'handicraft labourer' class that people of the richer classes were given the
'hath a good trade', he touched on something clothes of their masters and mistresses as a
very relevant to his time. Such craftsmen were valued 'perk', either for their own use or that of
irreplaceable until the machine age, which their relatives, or to sell for profit.
could not be anticipated in his day. -The hand The system in general meant that the dis-
weaver's long reign over the loom and therefore carded clothes of the rich and fashionable
over the production of all clothing textiles came tended to be highly valued. They were preser-
under threat from the introduction of the first ved for posterity and are the mainstay of nearly
weaving machines just after the middle of the all collections and exhibitions of period dress up
eighteenth century, when the future mass- to the last century. Ordinary garments, worn by
production of materials could be visualized and the middle and lower classes, rarely survived.
the protests and attacks of weavers could do They were so much re-made, adapted, brought
nothing to stem the march of progress. The up to date, that actual examples are almost
tailor, in fact, kept his monopoly unchallenged non-existent. Court dress and formal attire for
for nearly another century, as no practical great occasions were given a quite dis-
sewing machine came on the market till then, so proportionate amount of attention and are too
that all stitching had to be done by hand. The often thought of as the general style in vogue at
sewing machine was to represent the greatest a particular time and place.
revolution in the whole history of dress. However busily and later dress-
tailors,

today to visualize a world of

It is difficult makers too, worked making clothes, a large
at
clothing where every stitch of every single amount of clothing worn by all classes did not
garment or accessory had to be sewn by hand. come into their range of activity. That the
Clothes were precious, costly even to the women of the family and the female servants
wealthy, the result of much time and labour should be in charge of the making and mainten-
being expended on every garment. So every- ance of the personal and household linen of all
thing had to last, especially among ordinary the members was a tradition built into the story
people. Garments would be altered, refur- of centuries of everyday life in England and
bished, added to, re-trimmed, even adapted to other western countries. From their earliest
new uses, eventually perhaps cut down to be days girls of all classes but the lowest were
worn by a child. A suit could cost as much as a taught fine sewing and usually also embroidery
considerable piece of furniture. It was also a and other kinds of similar handicrafts as part of
valuable investment. their upbringing, whether or not other general

80
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
and academic learning was also involved in
their education. Such skills were normally

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exercised throughout life. From infants and
children to adults, from homekeeping sons or
those setting off for apprenticeships, univer-
sities or careers to daughters preparing for
marriage, all looked to the home for shirts,
shifts, petticoats, night clothes, handkerchiefs,
neckwear, caps, cravats and a host of other
accessories. It was a long time before such items
became readily available in shops and markets
or from travelling salesmen in quantities that
bore any comparison with the vast amount
produced in the home.
In a world where all sewing had to be done by
hand, as was the only possible way until the
middle of the nineteenth century, it seems to
have been generally accepted that this moun-
tain of sewing should be undertaken at all social
levels. The Verney ladies sewed industriously,
stitching shirts for their sons. Nancy Wood-
forde made her uncle's shirts and mended a pair
of breeches. Jane Austen's characters plied
their needles industriously when sitting to-
gether sociably. She herself was a notably fine
sempstress and wrote happily about this activ-
time when she and her sister
ity, especially at a

Cassandra were busily engaged in making shirts

for their brother Charles. As she wrote to
Cassandra, who was away on a visit 'When you :

66 The mantua-maker , or ladies dressmaker,

'

come home you will have some shirts to make

emerged in the later seventeenth century and soon
up for Charles. Mrs Davies frightened him into
took over the major part of the making of women 's
buying a piece of Irish linen when we were in dress. Here a fitting is shown in The Book of
Basingstoke.' The next year she talks of dis- English Trades, 1823.
patching the shirts 'by half dozens as they are
finished'. R. Campbell's Complete London Tradesman
When family needs had been met it was quite (1747) devotes a section to the Milliner, who
usual for those who could afford it to make 'though no Male Trade, has a just Claim to a
various similar items of underwear for the poor. Place on this Occasion, as the Fair Sex, who are
Mrs Delany (1700-88), of whom it is recalled generallybound to this Business, may have as
that 'one of her greatest masterpieces was her much Curiosity to know the Nature of their
own court dress, which she designed and worked Employment ... as the Youth of our own Sex'.
in black silk' (an achievement so unusual as to He explains: 'The Milliner is concerned in
be worth recording), also says of a typical making and providing the Ladies with Linen of
ordinary day at one stage of her life, '. and . .
all sorts, fit for Wearing Apparel, from the

I make shirts and shifts for the poor

after supper Holland Smock to the Tippet and Commode [a
naked wretches in the neighbourhood. kind of wired head-dress] ... let it suffice in

81
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
general that the Milliner furnished them with
Holland, Cambrick, Lawn, and Lace of all sorts,

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and makes these Materials into Smocks,
Aprons, Tippits, Handkerchiefs, Neckties,
Ruffles, Mobs, Caps, Dressed-Heads, with as
many Etceteras aswould reach from Charing
Cross to the Royal Exchange.'
He details much more, stresses that the
milliner is a professional, and can have Paris
fashion links, but adds that the milliners 'give
but poor, mean Wages to every Person thev
employ under them' and drive their employees
to debauchery and vice - in fact the first
recorded cases of the sweated labour of women
which was to blacken the dress trade long
afterwards.
In general, not much is heard of the milliner
by name in this sense after this, but the home
needlewoman was supplemented considerably
by women sewing for their living. In general
these professionals, mainly described as
mantua-makers till well into the nineteenth
century, took over nearly all women's clothes-
making from the man tailor, except for the
seventeenth-century waistcoat, described by
Sarah Fell but shortly to disappear, the riding
habit and some heavy coats and wraps, which
men continued to make.
The man's suit, introduced in the later seven-
67 A lady 's riding habit in red woollen cloth,
teenth century, did more than achieve perma-
c.iyyo.
nent domination of the male wardrobe. It also

enjoyed a notable feminine influence. It was them for women in any point whatever, which
from the sixties of the seventeenth century that was an odde sight, and a sight which did not
women began to wear what we call a riding please me.' In spite of that, women have
habit - an imitation of the wide-skirted riding continued to wear such habits ever since, for a
coat then worn by men, with a similar cravat at time not only for riding but for many other
the neck, a periwig and cocked hat on the head occasions and at many levels of society, high
but, of course, full skirts and usually many and low.
petticoats in the current fashion. Pepys, always In Parson Woodforde's diary Mrs Custance
on the scene, first saw it on June 1666: n walked over to the Parsonage in 1781 for a
'Walking in the galleries at White Hall, I find morning visit wearing a riding habit, and soon
the Ladies of honour dressed in their riding afterwards Nancy was given a riding habit of
garbs, with coats and doublets with deep skirts, broadcloth by her uncle, having it made at
just, for all the world, like mine, and buttoned Garths of Norwich, with a fitting on one of their
their doublets up the breast, with periwigs and visits there. This too was worn for walking and
hats, so that only for a long petticoat dragging travelling. Nancy had another habit in 1793,
under their men's coats, nobody could take also made at Barths, Stay and Habit Maker, of

82
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Norwich. Nancy seems to have worn her habits
for the long journeys toSomerset as well as

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locally for walking and when she drove herself
around in what her uncle called her 'little cart'.
Two unexpected regular feminine wearers of
riding habits occur in J. T. Smith's assembly of
reminiscences Book for a Rainy Day, which
though not published until 1885, is sub-titled
'Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-
1833', that is, the author's entire lifetime. His
reference to the subject occurs in a description
of what is to be seen around Bloomsbury and
Marylebone. He describes how: 'The ground
behind the north-west end of Russell Street was
occupied by a farm occupied by two old maiden
sisters of the name of Capper. They wore riding-
habits and men's hats; one rode an old grey
mare, and it was her spiteful delight to ride with
a large pair of shears after boys who were flying
their kites, purposely to cut their strings; the
other sister's business was to seize the clothes of
the lads who trespassed on their premises to
bathe.'
The other territory left to the man tailor in
the woman's world was that of corsetry. It was
said by Campbell that these garments were
made by men because the strict and tight
shaping, the severe boning required to give the
correct figure, called for the strength as well as
the skill of the trained man tailor. The eight- 68 Even in the nineteenth century the corset

eenth and nineteenth centuries saw women could be a daunting garment. Here a popular
style is advertised in the magazine Le Follet in
encased in these fearsome garments in the cause
March, 1885, as being 'admirably calculated to
of elegance, but later, easier fashion lines and
prevent the very disagreeable occurrence of Split
the great developments in elasticized and other
Seams ~ presumably
' in the dress.
stretch fabrics won back this territory for the
woman corset designer, even in fashionable The mantua-maker, however, varied as much
circles. Manufacture was almost wholly a as the tailor, catering for all classes. J. T. Smith,
female occupation in corset factories. in his Nollekens and his Times (1828), tells an
anecdote of 'one ofmy great-aunts, the late Mrs
From the Mantua-maker to Making Do Hussey who
. . was a fashionable sacque and
. . . .

The dressmaker was generally called the mantua-maker, and lived in the Strand.' Field-
mantua-maker in the 1700s and until well into ing introduced her into Tom Jones, in which he
the nineteenth century, the mantua being a had promised to include all his friends, as
looser and more casual type of dress which did Sophia Western, 'a celebrated mantua-maker in
not call for the strict cut and shaping which had the Strand, famous for setting off the shapes of
hitherto prevailed in both men's and women's women'. That was the top end of a trade which
attire of any quality. catered for all classes and was mainly respon-

83
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
sible for dressing women until the age of the a daily or weekly arrangement, renewing the
factory and mass-production took care of the wardrobes of the women and children for the

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majority - which was not fully achieved until coming season, altering and adapting, and
the present century. cutting down adult garments for voung people.
When Admiral Croft in Jane Austen's Per- Whatever the period, it was usual for the
suasion (1816) is trying to arrange for Anne customer to buy the actual materials, trim-
Elliot to visit his wife he assures her that the mings and dress accessories. That is probably
latter is nobody but her mantua-maker
'alone, why so often in memoirs and literature in
with her, and they have been shut up together general the constant references to buying a
this half-hour, so it must be over soon'. A gown meant in fact buying the material with
different kind of mantua-maker visited Nancy which it should be made up. Purchases could be
Woodforde. On 19 June 1797 her uncle records: made in shops, from general drapers, mercers,
'A Mantua-Maker from Mattishall Burgh by and haberdashers, all of whom had been a
name Burroughs came here early this Morning. feature of London and some larger towns for
and she breakfasted, dined and stayed the more than two centuries, offering various de-
Afternoon at Weston Parsonage.' grees of choice ranging from woollen materials
The mantua-maker could have her business to specialized varieties of silks, muslins and
premises, or work in her own home, with linens. In villages purchases would probably be
customers calling on her, or she could go to her made from travelling salesmen, as Parson
customer and either work there or call for Woodforde by the salesman either
records,
discussions on style and subsequent fittings. calling at the door or setting himself up at local
One of her best-known roles was that of the market days or fairs where he would be plying
'daily dressmaker', especially the choice of
families of modest means in the nineteenth 69 Simpler styles of dress for a time, a series of
century, when she would work in their homes by designs drawn in 182 j.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
his trade. As towns grew from the later eight- called A ckermann 's Repository of Fashion, was a
eenth century village shops became more wide- high-style arts publication and dealt with high

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spread and their range of goods extended to fashion, not with what the majority of people
textiles in some cases. There was also a lot of wore. The 450 fashion plates included in it were
purchasing done by people visiting London or elaborate and luxurious.
the big towns and buying for friends at home. Changing days and ways did not unduly
As paper patterns did not become generally disturb all women. Sometimes such problems

available to the public until well into the could be set aside, even if money were short and
nineteenth century the cutting out of garments fashion an interesting topic. This was what
according to the customer's wishes or from an happened to the ladies of Cranford, the early
existinggarment also fell largely on the Victorian small town immortalized by Mrs
mantua-maker or dressmaker. In the days Gaskell in her story of 1851. Their appearance
before factory production existed she could was indeed important to them, but clothes were
develop quite a considerable business, employ- not much talked of because 'none of us spoke of
ing staff, training apprentices and becoming a money, because the subject savoured of com-
considerable force in the dress of women at merce and trade, and though some might be
many levels of society. poor, we were all aristocratic'. That is, they
Although magazines became one of the most were not in 'trade' - a long-standing social
popular ways of spreading news about dress distinction which persisted to some extent into
among ordinary women, this was not evident the present century.
when they began to appear in England,
first Bonnets were the main item to receive atten-
about 1750. They were originally aimed at the tion in Cranford - they were more affordable
woman, not the fashionable few or
intellectual than larger For a funeral 'Miss
articles of wear.
would-be-fashionable multitude. Not until the Jenkyns sent out for a yard of black crape, and
very end of the eighteenth century did employed herself busily in trimming the little
Heideloff 's Gallery of Fashion, which appeared black bonnet' previously mentioned. When the
from 1794 to 1803, give the reader a publication accepted visiting hour of noon arrives the ladies
devoted entirely to fashion. Even so, it was an did not change dresses, but bonnets. When an
expensively produced monthly, the first to have unduly early visitor arrives, 'Miss Matty had
coloured illustrations, which consisted of two not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that
plates each month, with full descriptions of the had been Miss Jenkyns' best and which Miss
models shown. The plates were, of course, hand- Matty was now wearing out in private, putting
coloured, as colour printing was a remote on the one made in imitation of Mrs Jamieson's
dream, with metallic paints for the parts of the at all times when she expected to be seen'. She
attire which were of gold, silver or other metals. slipped away to change it, but in a fluster put
The writings of the time show that ordinary the new cap on top of the old and reappeared all
country women were still acquiring their knowl- unconscious of doing so and 'looked at us with
edge of dress from hearsay, from visitors to bland satisfaction'. On another occasion an
London or Bath, or by copying each other. Jane early visitor provoked the same wish 'to change
Austen shows this in her novels. caps and collars'.
Fashion magazines became more numerous Caps were important at Cranford. Two sis-
throughout the nineteenth century, but they ters, ex-ladies' maids, set up as milliners with
tended to concentrate on high fashion. Thus their savings, were patronizedby local ladies
Ackermann's elaborately named Repository of and scored a business success there: 'Lady
Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Arley, for instance, would occasionally give
Fashion and Politics, which appeared monthly Miss Barkers the pattern of an old cap of hers,
from 1809 to 1828 and in its last year, 1829, was which they immediately copied and circulated

85
 .

EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

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*v«i>.

70 How the ordinary man dressed in the A further enhancement of the cap was the
seventeenth century.An auction sale at wearing over it of a calash, that is 'a covering
Garraways Coffee House in 1671. worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened
on old-fashioned gigs This kind of headgear
. . .

always made an awful impression on the chil-

dren in Cranford'. For a special party a new cap
among the elite of Cranford. I say the elite, for would be brought out or even bought, as when
Miss Barkers had caught the trick of the place, Miss Pole 'lectured dear Miss Matty' and 'absol-
and piqued themselves upon their aristocratic utely ended by assuring her it was her duty . .

connection. They would not sell their caps and to buy a new cap and go to the party'. For
ribbons to anyone without a pedigree.' Far- another party Miss Matty explains that 'she
mers' wives and such like were turned away and was, perhaps, too old to care about dress, but a
had to resort to 'the universal shop, where the new cap she must have; and, having heard
profits of brown soap and moist sugar enabled that turbans were worn', she wants guidance on
the proprietor to go straight to . . . London that too.
where, as he often told his customers, Queen A fashion show at Cranford, held by the local
Adelaide had appeared only the very week shopkeeper, is a big event, to which Miss Matty
showed
before in a cap exactly like the one he goes eagerly 'to see exactly how my new silk
them .and had been complimented by King
. . gown must be made', 'anticipating the sight of
William on the becoming nature of her head- the glossy fold' of silk on the counter 'with as
dress'. much delight as if the five sovereigns set apart

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
for the purchase could buy all the silks in the many women an agreeable occupation, whether
shop'. Owing to a sad turn of events, it was the or not they needed to do it. The lighter kind of

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dress that never was, and thus the fashion show stitching and embroidery was an accompani-
is not described in the detail one would have ment of social life, and remained so to some
enjoyed. extent after the sewing machine appeared.
There is not much mention
of knitting and Often, however, it was tedious and oppress-
sewing in though there are indi-
Cranford, ive. Not all women enjoy sewing. A bright
cations that these were not neglected. The window is opened into the early nineteenth
narrator of the book records that there was in century by the chance preservation and publi-
that quiet life 'all the more time for me to hear cation of some of the diaries kept by an obscure
old-world stories from Miss Pole while she sat North Country woman, Ellen Weeton. Miss
knitting, and I making my father's shirts. I Weeton's Journal of a Governess deals with
always took a quantity of plain sewing to ordinary dress from various points of view.
Cranford, for, as we did not read or walk much, I There is her own outfit when she goes moun-
found it a capital time to get through my work'. taineering alone in the Isle of Man in 1812: 'A
New knitting stitches 'help to set up a kind of lonely female ... for I had on a small slouch
intimacy' between two Cranford ladies. Miss straw hat, a grey stuff jacket, and petticoat
Matty is also described as 'sitting . . . much as [still an outer garment], a white net bag in one

usual, she in the blue chintz easy chair, with her hand, and a parasol in the other.' Later '2

back to the and her knitting in her hand'.

light gowns, a black and a grey sarsenet [a silk
One main problem of women of the time material], a muff and tippet, and a marone
occurs on one occasion, when the possible need velvet, were left to me by my aunt'. Still later,
to earn money arises. The victim of a sudden unhappily married: 'Cloaths I could not pro-
loss of income considers 'her qualifications for cure, unless I got them on credit.' But most
earning money. "I can sew neatly," said she, interesting is her commentary on the
"and I like nursing. I think, too, I could manage housewife's traditional role of endless mending
a house, anyone would try me as housekeeper,
if and patching and her own revolt against sewing
or I would go into a shop as saleswoman, if they when she was separated from her husband.
would have patience with me at first.'" When Thus in Wales, she meditates: T have, for some
Miss Matty is faced with this problem, 'the years, entirely given up all kinds of needlework
education common to ladies fifty years ago' which has no real utility to recommend it. I do
rules out teaching and leaves little but 'making not say anything in condemnation of orna-
candle-lighters, or "spills" (as she preferred mental needlework, although I could say much,
calling them) . . . and knitting garters in a and I think justly When I sew it is to make
. . .

variety of dainty stitches', and there was little necessary clothing, and to keep it in repair ... It
scope there. is so little of an amusement to me, that were I

rich enough, I should employ others to do it, for

The Reaction Against Home Sewing I think it is a duty in the affluent female to let

The amount of sewing done at home by a large others live. I do not look upon it as a merit for
proportion of women
through the centuries all any young person to make her own dresses,
before the sewing machine became a practical bonnets, shoes, or lace, if she be rich. I do
invention was generally unavoidable. Where consider it a merit that she should be able to
the family's means were limited it was the make them, for no one so affluent but may suffer
practical, economical way of providing under- a reverse, and every female should know how to
wear, accessories, household linen, often some earn a living.'
outer garments too. Patching and mending That home sewing by those who did not need
likewise were necessary. Sewing was also to to do it for economic reasons was not a virtue

87
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
but on the contrary a disservice to those of their needle-uork that great staple
, commoditv which
sex who needed sew to make a living was a
to is alone appropriated to the self supporting part

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point that does not seem to have occurred or at of our sex.'
least to have been voiced publicly until the 'Home sewing,' she continues, 'should be
nineteenth century. It was made strongly by assessed as part of the family income' and 'it

Mary Lamb in her only known writing for might be a laudable scruple of conscience, and
grown-up people, an article which appeared in no bad test to herself of her own motive, if a lady
the April 1815 issue of the British Lady's who had no absolute need were to give the
Magazine, a short-lived monthly publication money so saved to poor needle-women belong-
which aimed at taking a more serious view of ing to those branches of emplovment from
women's activities than was usual at the time. which she has borrowed these shares of pleasur-
She treats the subject of sewing and all kinds of able labour.'
needlework 'not as an art, but as a factor in When she wrote thus Mary could not know-
social life', as her biographer Anne Gilchrist that from mid-century factory production and,
says, continuing: 'She pleads both for the sake above all, the introduction of the sewing ma-
of the bodily welfare of the many thousands of chine, were to bring to an end this era of endless
women who have to earn their bread by it. and home sewing. Ordinary people were the first to
of the mental well-being of those who have not feel the change, for inexpensive machine-made
so to do, that it should be regarded, like any shirts and underwear were among the first parts
other mechanical art, as a thing to be done for of the w ardrobe to feel the effects, good and bad,
hire; and that what a woman does work at of the change.
should be real work, something, that is, which Unfortunately, however, what looked like
yields a return either of mental or of pecuniary being an age of plenty, of abundant inexpensive
profit.' clothing, turned out to be an age too of sweated
what is a sagacious forecast of the future
In labour, of underpaid, overworked factory con-
course of women's employment problems Mary ditions which pressed most heavily on the
Lamb points out that she speaks from personal women who formed the main part of the cloth-
experience: 'In early life I passed eleven years in ing industry's workers.
the exercise of my needle for a livelihood.' Now Nor was Mary Lamb to know that the
S that women been rapidly
have, of late, nineteenth-century social conscience, stirred as
advancing in intellectual improvement', but never before by overwork and underpayment.
there is one great obstacle in the way. 'Needle- and by the plight of the poor who had to accept
work and improvement are nat-
intellectual such oppression, would be centred time and
and
urally in a state of warfare,' she urges, I again upon the sufferings of girls and women
affirm that I know not a single familv where toiling at sewing, making clothes for the rich
there is not some essential drawback to its and heedless.
comfort which may be traced to needle-work Girls like dressmaker Mary
are depicted,
done at home, as the phrase is for all needle-work Barton Mrs Gaskell's novel of that title
in
performed in a familv by some of its own (1848), toiling over making mourning 'for Mrs
members, and for which no remuneration in Ogden as keeps the greengrocer's shop in
money is received or expected.' The woman who Oxford Road'. She overworks because of the
does such sewing and does not need to is robbing urgency of mourning clothes, still hand-sewn,
needy women and should have 'contributed her because that was 1848. In the same author's
part to the slender means of the corset-maker, Ruth (1853), late at night 'more than a dozen
the milliner, the dressmaker, the plain worker, girls still sat in the room . . . stitching away as if

the embroidress and all the numerous classifi- for very life . . . not daring to gape or show any
cations of females supporting themselves by manifestation of sleepiness . . . They knew th.u.

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
stay up as late as they might, the work-hours of
the next day must begin at eight, and their

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young limbs were very weary.' Ruth, a new
apprentice, meditates: 'Oh! how shall I ever get
through five years of these terrible nights in the
close room and in that oppressive stillness
which lets every sound of the thread be heard as
itgoes eternally backwards and forwards.' That
was making dresses for a ball in the Assembly
Rooms.
Most famous of all, Hood's The Song of the
Shirt, encapsulates every imaginable soul-
destroying misery of the impoverished, over-
worked seamstress, hand-sewing in 1843, when
it first appeared in the Christmas number of
Punch. The same miseries continued too for the
children toiling in mines and factories, whose
7 1 Dressmaking to earn a living : a grim cartoon victimization was the subject of attention and
by Leech, i84g, as the result of a case in the vehement protest on the part of both writers
Metropolitan Police Court which revealed that and general public alike.
women were being paid one-and-a-half pence for
making a complete shirt. A companion picture -
Pin Money- showed the wealthy woman sewing
as a hobby. 72 Sweated labour: a homeworker of the 1850s.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Secondhand Clothing
Secondhand - by which we also mean third-,

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fourth-, fifth- and in fact anv-hand - clothing,
from the very earliest times to the rise of mass-
manufacture in the present century played a
major part in the dress scene, and not only for
poor people. Its roots were in the barter system,
the earliest trading of all, then followed pedlars
and then the whole gamut of shops and markets
of all kinds.
By the seventeenth century, the start of the
period now being considered, the secondhand
market was important, and used by most
classes. Clothes were both expensive and verv
laborious to produce, so they were not lightly
discarded. Ben Jonson advised young men
-cd of some land and coming to London to
seek their fortune that 'twere good you turned
'

four or five acres of your best land into two or

three trunks of apparel,' because appearance
counted for much. Good clothes could also, he
pointed out, be a very marketable and profit- 73 Doing business in Rosemary Lane,
able commodity. The well-born Yernevs sold prominent in the secondhand trade. An
and bought in the secondhand market. It was illustration from May hew London
's Labour and
customary for the well-off to give discarded the London Poor, 1851.
clothes to valued servants, to leave their clothes
to suchemployees in their wills. Sarah, Duchess The secondhand clothier, known as a clothes
of Marlborough, left half her wardrobe to her broker, was a respectable tradesman, included
personal maid, the rest to two other women in Campbell's Complete London Tradesman as
servants. Such servants often wanted to sell being skilled in tailoring, taking apprentices
their bequests, not wear them like and needing capital to set up in business. The
Richardson's Pamela, who had risen too suc- pawnbroker came into a different category, but
i essfully in life to want them for herself. always, as even now, a necessary one.
This trade was well-established in London. It The giving of personal clothes to their ser-
grew still more in the eighteenth century. vants by the better off was a practice which
Specific areas concentrated on it, as on other continued up to the present century, and was a
categories of dress. The immediate vicinity of recognized part of domestic life. Such clothes,
Houndsditch, on the east side of the City, was disposed of to the clothes broker, became a
one such area. Another favourite district was quite important means by which a fairly
round Seven Dials, with Monmouth Street the humble man could present a well-dressed ap-
most famous name, recorded by Dickens. Here pearance at a cost within his means. When
the honours were shared between secondhand Samuel and Sarah Adams wrote their The
shops and pawnshops. Nearby was the develop- Complete Servant (1825), one of the earliest
ing shopping area of Covent Garden, part of the books on the subject, stating that they had been
westward trend of fashion in London. Rose- for '50 years servants in different families', they
mary Lane was popularly known as Rag Fair, included among the 'perks' of butler and valet
and was, on the contrary, near the Tower. the master's cast-off clothes. That women ser-

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
vants should fare likewise is voiced in advice to
the employer in one of the many eighteenth-

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century 'guides to right living', which were
popular reading at the time: 'Your care must
not stop at your Children, let it reach your

menial Servants; though you are their Master,

you are also their Father.'
In the early part of the nineteenth centurv
the secondhand clothes trade grew by leaps and
bounds. The population was increasing, mainlv
due to improvements in health and sanitation.
As industry grew people moved to the new
factory areas and to London from rural districts
where the old cottage industries and domestic
pattern of work were going into eclipse. Though
spinning and weaving could now be carried out
mechanically, there was until the mid-i850s no
satisfactory sewing machine, so all clothing still
had to be made by hand. The poor no longer had
time to contrive clothes, gifts from local gentry
did not exist in towns, and the value of second-
hand clothing was therefore high. Nor was it
only the poor who sought it out.
A vivid and detailed account of the second- 74 A poor woman, shown in Mayhew.
hand clothes trade of the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury is given by that generous philanthropist,
journalist and pioneer sociologist, Henry May- of poverty and privation as well as massive
hew, London Labour and the London Poor,
in his Victorian wealth and prosperity. To his par-
first published in 1851 and, though reissued in ticular area Mayhew brings qualities which lead
the early 1860s with many additions, unduly Peter Quennell to compare him with Defoe for
neglected in more recent times. Dramatist, grasp of fact and detail, observation and a kind
novelist, biographer, travel writer and joint- of poetic insight into humanity, though 'it
editor of Punch in its first days, May hew, in his would be presumptuous, no doubt, to call him
study of the working poor of London, produced the nineteenth century Defoe'.
a new genre of literature. The twenty-odd pages First then, for some of Mayhew's facts. 'The
devoted to the secondhand clothes trades show great mart of second-hand apparel was, in the
at their best his sharp observation, vivid de- last centurv, in Monmouth-street now ... ;

scriptive talents, intense humanity and mas- termed Dudley-street, Seven Dials Now . . .

tery of every kind of detail. Monmouth-street, for its new name is hardly
The size of the secondhand clothes market legitimised, has no finery. Its second-hand
which Mayhew surveys is astonishing - but it wares are almost whollv confined to old boots
was called for in a Greater London which had and shoes ... A little business is carried on in
increased its population from 865,000 to second-hand apparel . but it is insignificant.
. .

1,500,000 between 1800 and 1830 and added on The head-quarters of this second-hand trade are
another million people from then until 1850, as now in and Rosemary lanes, es-
Petticoat
Peter Quennell records in his edition of May- and the traffic there
peciallv in Petticoat lane,
hew. In those millions were included all degrees carried on mav be called enormous But the . . .

9i
 .

EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

business in Petticoat and Rosemary lanes is The retail markets nearby are patronized by
mostly of a retail character.' 'anyone - shop-keeper, artisan, clerk, coster-

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This is because of a new phenomenon the monger, or gentleman'. Mayhew pauses to re-
Old Clothes Exchange dealing with the whole- flecton the story behind the clothes; 'in what
sale side, 'and it is rather remarkable that a scenes of gaiety or gravity, in the opera house,
business occupying so many persons, and re- or the senate, had the perhaps departed wearers
quiring such facilities examination and
for of some of that heap of old clothes figured -
arrangement, should not until the year 1843 through how many possessors, and again
have had its regulated proceedings'. This, May- through what new scenes of middle-class or
hew suggests, coincides with an increase in artisan comfort had these dresses passed.'
business in secondhand clothing which cannot Some, on the other hand, are 'garments
be equalled by any other trade. The Clothes originally made for the labouring classes. These
Exchange operates in a honeycomb of streets in are made up of every description of colour and
the old clothes area of East London and carries materials - cloth, corduroy, woollen cords,
on also large-scale business in exports, mainly fustian, moleskin, flannel, velveteen, plaids . .

to Ireland, Holland and Belgium. In them are to be seen coats, great-coats,

jackets, trousers, and breeches, but no other
habiliments.'The trade of the central market is
75 A nother London type, from May hew. Note
authoritatively said to be £1,500 a week all the
worn by all classes.
the top hat,
year round.
In Petticoat Lane the goods offered include
'decent, frowsy, half-rotton, or smart and good
habiliments'. All have passed through the Ex-
change or central market and 'been made ready
for use'. Although there are some other traders
in and around Petticoat Lane, it 'is essentially
the old-clothes district, and there is perhaps
. . .

between two and three miles of old clothes',

presenting 'a vista of many coloured garments,
alike on the sides and on the ground', solid with
clothes: 'Dress coats, frock coats, great coats,
livery and game-keepers' coats, paletots,
tunics, trousers, knee-breeches, waistcoats,
capes, pilot coats, working jackets, plaids, hats,
dressing gowns, shirts, Guernsey frocks, are all

displayed .mixed with the hues of the

. .

women's garments, spotted and striped.' Plus

boots, handkerchiefs, lace and muslins, hats,
'while, incessantly threading their way through
all this intricacy, is a mass of people, some of
whose dresses speak of recent purchases in the
lane'.
Rosemary Lane is similar, but only three-
quarters of a mile long, without the 'strongly
marked peculiarities' of Petticoat Lane, but
surrounded by similar streets, round Dockland
and the Minories. It is a jam-packed hotch-

92
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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f

i !
i

um |

76 feature of London streets was the coffee

^4

again shown by Mayhew in London

stall,

Labour and the London Poor.

93
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
potch of goods, from old boots to new lace and mates that there were from 5,000 to 6,ooo such
muslin, plus old metal and glass, furniture, toys, old-clothes men in London in his time.

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ornaments. A street seller of men's clothes says The jumble sales are one of the
fact that
that frock coats are best sellers, bob-tailed coats regular minor events of daily life today is

(dress coats) unpopular. 'Some buyers are poor, evidence that the gravity with which second-
but genteel people buys such things as fancy hand clothing was regarded for centuries has
weskits O, there's ladies comes here for a
. . . passed away. Mass production of clothing, of all
bargain, can tell you, and gentlemen too.'
I types, the various amenities of the welfare
There is a wealth of detail about this trade, state, social security and the social services
and some reflections too, on the very poor have all contributed to a changed attitude to
customers: Whether the state of things in dress.
which an industrious widow, or a lot of industri- The first record of jumble sales is given as
ous persons, can spare only id for a child's 1898 in the Oxford English Dictionary. They
clothing (and nothing, perhaps, for their own) is flourished from then and speedily became an
to be lauded in a Christian country, is another accepted part of town and country life alike.

question, fraught with grave political and social They were and are an important means of fund-
considerations.' raising for all kinds of charities, widely adver-
The coming age of mass-produced factory tised in local papers and shop windows, and for
clothes could not yet be foreseen, but it would the middle classes they are a main means of
not solve these problems, at least for many disposing of clothes not worn out but outmoded
years to come. But as that future trade was or for some reason no longer wanted. 'Nearly
largely built up by Jewish immigrants who New' and charity shops have added to the story
came to Britain in great numbers in the 1880s of clothes disposal - and acquirement.
because of pogroms in Eastern Europe, it is The last old clothes dealer in London's Rag
perhaps worth noting that before that time Fair closed down in 1874 owing to lack of
Henrv Mavhew had devoted special attention business. But paradoxically certain second-
to Jewish street-buyers, pointing out that 'dur- hand clothes can today fetch huge prices, up to
ing the eighteenth century, the popular feeling hundreds and even thousands of pounds, at
ran very high against the Jews, although to the London's main auction rooms, where they have
masses they were almost strangers, except as become valuable 'antiques'. They are competed
men employed in the not-very-formidablc for by museums and at times worn proudly by
occupation of collecting and vending second- adventurous leaders of fashion.
hand clothes. The old feeling against them
seems to have lingered among the English
people, and their own greed in many instances
engendered further dislike. By Mayhew's time
the Jews had diversified into many occupations,
many of them in imports, from watches and
jewellery to fruit and tobacco, but Mayhew
assigns them a place
in Petticoat Lane and
prominence Houndsditch and Minories
in the
areas as shopkeepers, warehousemen and
manufacturers. There were still many of them
working as secondhand clothes men, buying old
clothes door-to-door or in the streets, or barter-
ing them for other secondhand goods, and
selling them in Petticoat Lane. Mayhew esti-

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
7

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Cleaning and Dyeing

Washing Day stones or sand, and spreading them out to dry

For centuries 'washing day' hung like a dark on rocks or bushes in the sunshine and wind -
cloud over most households. To the majority of was only a and very optimistic solution.
partial
today's younger generation the very term is To the majority of people by the seventeenth
probably meaningless, but it took the auto- century the process would have to be carried
matic washing machine to oust it and for most out in the family kitchen or backyard. Water
ordinary people in Britain that peerless inven- would have to be fetched by hand from well or
tion did not come into everyday life until the standpipe, heated in cauldrons on a fire, prob-
1960s. Although pioneered in a crude form in ably of wood, on a brick base. The water would
the USA in the first decade of this century, it did have to be transferred to tubs, the process often
not appear even there in anything like its involving many repetitions. More water would
modern form until the late 1920s. A trickle of be needed for rinsing. Space for drying could be
US machines then began to come into Britain at a problem, especially in bad weather.
a high price, but the first steps towards bringing All this meant a considerable family up-
the automatic washing machine into general use heaval. Sarah Fell notes in her accounts the
date from the 1950s. employing and paying of two extra people for
Until then Black Monday figured strongly in washing days every few months. Not even
the household calendar, but the idea of washing Samuel Pepys could take the matter philosophi-
day as a weekly ritual was a nineteenth-century cally in his London home. He found the business
one. Prior to that washing day had been much very distasteful, as he described it on 11
less frequent, in the seventeenth century often January 1661. It started with his being 'waked
coming only four or five times a year and in the this morning at 4 o'clock by my wife to call the
eighteenth century usually at intervals of five or maids to their wash'. Though he escaped to his
six weeks. office during the day he came home at night to

This is odd and very natural. With

at once find the house foul with the washing and quite
and laborious to make it
clothes costly, precious out of order against tomorrow's dinner'.
would seem sensible to take care of them by Parson Woodforde is less perturbed, but
seeing that they were kept as clean as possible. notes with relief on 7 March 1791: 'Washing
But many more garments than now were made week at our House, and a fine day.' He gives a
of materialswhich could not be washed, includ- detailed account of how the process went in that
ing coveted and costly silks, satins, velvets and house, a normal, middle-class one of the day.
brocades. Moreover, the process of washing was Thus on 10 June 1799, he says: 'Washing Week
extremely complicated and difficult, and to with us this Week. We wash every five weeks.
some extent presented problems until the pre- Our present Washerwomen are Anne Downing
sent century. and Anne Richmond. Washing and Ironing
The elementary way of washing clothes - in generally take us Four Days. The Washer-
the nearest river, rubbing them clean against women breakfast and dine the Monday and

95
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
old-style washing day is given in Lark Rise to

Candleford, Flora Thompson's absorbing saga

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of humble village life in the 1880s at Juniper
Hill, the Oxfordshire village of her childhood:
'Monday was washing-day, and then the place
fairly hummed with activity. "What d'ye think
of the weather?" "Shall we get 'em dry?" were
the questions shouted across gardens, or asked
as the women met going to and from the well for
water. There was no gossiping at corners that
morning. It was before the days of patent soaps
and washing powders, and much hard rubbing
was involved. There were no washing coppers,
and the clothes had to be boiled in the big
cooking pots over the fire. Often these inad-
equate vessels would boil over and fill the house
with steam tempers grew short and nerves
. . .

frayed long before the clothes, well blued, were

hung on the lines or spread on the hedges. In wet
weather they had to be dried indoors, and no-
one who has not experienced it can imagine the
misery of living for several days with a firma-
ment of drying clothes or lines overhead.'
Washing day could spill over into the rest of
77 The problems offetching water for washing the week. Hardy's Tess of the
Tess, in
clothes in early days could be very acute. From D'Urbervilles, comes home one evening to find
Tempest 's Cries of London ( 1666-IJ02). 'her mother amid the group of children, as Tess
had left her, hanging over the Monday washing-
tub, which had now, as always, lingered on to
Tuesday and have each one Shilling on their the end of the week'.
going away in the evening of Tuesday.' In The chief washing-day problem of the past
accordance with his habits, he is quick to show was one which to people of today, old and young
his appreciation of their work by making them a in this case, seems an unlikely one, surrounded
present of a gaily coloured handkerchief apiece. as we are with every imaginable kind of soap
He is not unduly disturbed by the event, and detergent. It was simply that of what to
receives visitors, dines at home. Other washing clean the clothes with.
days are merely noted. Ironing appears to be Various cleaning agents were devised from
undertaken by the household, with the two very early times. One of the most usual, em-
servant maids in charge, but on 1 June 1800 he ployed in classical times in countries round the
notes: 'Nancy, very busy most of the Morning, Mediterranean, was fuller's earth dissolved with
in Ironing her Clothes in our Kitchen.' Weather an alkaline solution, such as water poured
and ironing also were important to Sara Hut- through wood or with urine added to it. This
chinson who, in a letter of autumn 1810 says: was known as lye and it provided the basis of
'This has been an ironing day. We thought the earliest soaps, the invention of which is
ourselves lucky to get the clothes dried in this usually ascribed to the Phoenicians and be-
broken weather.' lieved to have been passed on to the Gauls and
Surprisingly, one of the fullest accounts of the thereby to other parts of Western Europe. The

96
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
addition of animal or vegetable fats or oils to a turies to be the general practice of ordinary
lye produced a solid or semi-solid substance people because British commercial production

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after being boiledand left to cool and thicken, was mainly for commercial users and because
resulting in a manageable substance which heavy taxation was imposed on imported soap
would absorb dirt and grease. from European countries. Rendered-down
This process continued, with variations in the animal fats and home-made lye with wood-ash
kinds of oils and alkalis employed, through were still used and the laborious nature of the
most of recorded history. A soap factory has process and the unattractive, unpleasant-
been excavated at Pompeii. In luxurious smelling results probably helped to account for
societiesperfumes were added to enhance the the rarity of washing days and perhaps also for
attractions of soap for toilet use. It remained an the general dislike of washing and bathing.
expensive luxury when manufactured commer- It was not until the end of the eighteenth

cially, and most everyday households con- century that substantial progress towards the
tinued to make their own into the early part of production of commercially made soaps of an
the last century. attractive kind for the ordinary household, for
How little soap-making changed is illustrated personal use as well as for the family washing
by the detailed account of it given by R. day, was made as a result of the researches of
Campbell in his Complete London Tradesman, chemists into the constituents of oils and fats.

published in 1747. Surveying more than 300 Two Frenchmen were pioneers in this, Nicholas
trades then practised in eighteenth-century Leblanc (1742-1806) and Michel Eugene Chev-
London, it gives very much the traditional reul (1786-1889). The large-scale use of manu-
'composition of Soap'. It says: 'Soap is com- factured soaps in the home and the abandon-
posed of Lime, Salt of Vegetables and the Fat of ment of domestic soap-making were, however,
Animals; a Lee or Lixivium is made of Kelp, nineteenth-century achievements.
that is, the salt of Sea Weed obtained by The great leap forward in soap-making and
burning, or of the White Ashes of other Veget- the development of washing agents in Britain
ables, into which is added a Quantity of Lime- were the achievements of William Hesketh
water. When the Lee has stood long enough in Lever, later Lord Leverhulme (1851-1925).
the Fatts to extract the Salts from the Ashes,
all Until well through the nineteenth century
it is then drained and put into a Boiler, with
off soap was still being shredded and mixed with
a Proportion of Tallow, (if for hard Soap) or of soda at home to produce soap flakes suitable for
Oil (if for soft Soap), where it is allowed to boil household clothes washing. A soap powder
until the Tallow, or Oil is sufficiently incorpo- came on the market in the 1860s. Lux soap
rated with the strong Lee, and is become of one flakes were introduced in 1900 and other soap
thick Consistence; it is then taken out with powders followed upon that. It was, how-
fast
Ladles and poured into Chests, before it is cool ever, not until the Second World War that the
they pour over it some Blue, which penetrates synthetic or soapless detergent now generally
through the Mass when taken out
it is cold, it is used was produced on a large scale. The short-
of the Chests, and cut into Lengths with a Wire, age of animal fats and oils gave a stimulus to
and laid up to dry; it is a laborious nasty research into cleaning agents based on oil or by-
Business, but abundantly profitable and re- products of coal. These were in fact superior in
quires no great Share of Ingenuity ; if the Master cleansing power to ordinary soaps, because
and one Man in the House understands the their molecular structure reduced the surface
Business, the whole Work may be performed by tension of the water and increased its potency as
Labourers.' a cleaner. Biological detergents, developed in
The home manufacture of soap continued the 1960s, have an additional potency as stain
through the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- removers which is a great asset in laundering.

97
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
A CHEERFUL OLD SOUL.

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ill

TT is woman with increasing years to continue to do laundry

possible for a
•^ Thousands who would have been laid aside under the old system
work.
of washing have proved what "SUNLIGHT SOAP" can do in reducing
labour. The cleansing properties of "SUNLIGHT SOAP" save years
of arduous toil. Reader, prove "SUNLIGHT SOAP" for yourself, as by
giving the best article a trial you will do yourself a real service.

SUNLIGHT SOAP monthly COMPETITION

PRIZES VALUE OVER £600.
FOR YOUNG FOLKS ONLY. Competitors not to be over 17 years of age last birthday.
The first of these Monthly Competitions commenced on August 31. and will be followed by others until further notice.
Tli. re i- no element of chanc< in tin -« < lompi titions, tin winning of a prize depending entirely on the perseverance and trouble taken to
collect Uie wrappers. The Competitions ore laid every month, so failure in one doe> not discourage but stimulates to a fresh effort

PRIZES VALUE OVER £600. 60 Silver Keyless Lever Watches, value £4 4s. each.
100 Silver Keyless Watches, value 30s. each. 8 Tricycles and 8 Safety Bicycles
EXTRA FRIZES. — Unsuccessful competitors who haw sent in not less than 24 "Coupons" will receive, free of cost and
postage paid, a facsimile reproduction size Its', in lie.- by 11} inches ot the painting by W. 1'. Frith, R.A., exhibited in the Royal
Academy, 1889, and named by us " .So Clean." The, bii.l.j Telegraph, July 11. 1889, says of it— "A charming little picture-." When
this picture is out ot print others will take its place.
Names of Winners of each month's Competition will be advertised in " Tit Uits " and " Answers" the fourth week of the mouth following.
©• Send full Name and Address on Postcard for Rules to LEVER BROS., Ltd , Port Sunlight, near Birkenhead.
Purchasers, see that you get a Sunlight Soap Wrapper with each Tablet.

78 One of Lord Leverhalme's major

contributions to easing the burden of washing
day : an advertisement of i8go.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Gadgets to help the housewife with the sheer which it got its usual name), set in a brick or
toil of clothes washing were developed only stone outer case, with space for a fire under-

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slowly, and were usually either very basic or else neath. This became popular in the middle and
expensive and available only to the wealthy. later nineteenth century and early twentieth
For ordinary people various kinds of dolly century in middle-class homes. Various early
sticks helped to save some of the toil. Their washing machines, manually operated, were
purpose was to aerate the washing in the tub by introduced, but were usually costly and bulky
pounding it up and down in the soapy solution. and had only a limited appeal.
They were used widely in the nineteenth cen- Ordinary kitchens from the past rarely sur-
tury. The other gadget most commonly seen in vive any more than do ordinary clothes, but one
the ordinary home was a washing board, a in the Georgian House in Bristol (c.1790) con-
wooden board with a corrugated zinc surface on tains a number of contemporary washing aids
which the clothes were rubbed to remove dirt. which, though beyond the means of the mass of
Another practical aid which won wide popu- people, are realistic enough to illustrate the
larity among ordinary people was the hand- kind of ideas available at a price not wholly
wringer, attached to a table or washtub with prohibitive. The spacious laundry of the coun-
clamps and adjusted so as to drive excess water try house of Errdig, in Clwyd, is obviously that
out of washed items. The large mangle, orig- of a family of wealth and status, but it is an
inally meant to press such items as sheets, was absorbing subject for study. Constructed in
also used as this kind of dryer, but needed more
space, such as the cellar of a suburban or quite
79 A ids to washing in the nineteenth century
modest country house. When there was no wooden dolly sticks to aerate the washing and
space for a separate washroom or scullery there wooden washing-board with zinc corrugated
was often a wash-boiler consisting of a cauldron, rubbing surface, all from Dawlish Museum
at first of cast-iron, but later of copper (from Society.

OQO

99
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Bradfords "VOWEL E6 and O
Washing Wringing, and Mangling Machines. advises Tuesday, not Monday, as washing day,
because Monday tends to be extra busy after

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the weekend. But on Monday the clothes are to
be looked over, sorted and soaked, the copper
filled, the copper fire lighted in readiness. She

recommends a small washing machine, which

she says should cost £2 or £3 and which suitably
'would be Harper's Twelvetrees "Villa" Inven-
The washing agent should be 'that well
tion'.
known now almost all over the world as Extract
of Soap, or rather, to give it its full title,

"concentrated extract of soap" '.

In her 'simple and easily followed directions'

she devotes ten pages to 'The Whole Art of
Washing', with details about the handling of
every imaginable problem, from stains and
scorching to children's striped socks and black
lace. There are twelve more pages on ironing,
dyeing, renovating feathers and mending a
variety of items. Washing was still a formidable
undertaking.
Early clothing fabrics were not fine enough to
call for ironing and it was not until the seven-
'Vowel' E6 Capacity i i shuts. 27m. l>y 6in.

Brass Capped Rollers £22 teenth century that domestic irons were first

•HATED made in Britain, The

usually of iron or steel.
tailor's 'goose'was much older, but clothes of
80 A successful early washing-machine:
his workmanship would not normally be
Thomas Bradford's rotary washing-machine,
introduced in the 1850s ; a circular dram rotates
washed at home - or anywhere else in most
inside the octagonal outer case and is turned by cases. There were two main types of household

hand bv means of a handle on the smaller wheel. iron. The box iron was a hollow container into

The large wheel wrings and mangles the wash and which was inserted a unit heated in the fire or on
75 shirts can be dealt with at a time. the stove. This was called a slug and there were
normally two, one being heated or re-heated
1770 and maintained with all its original fea- while the other was being used. The other type
tures and equipment, it consists of a wet of iron was a solid one, usually made of cast
iron
laundry and a dry laundry, enabling the pro- and called the flat-iron or, oddly, the sad iron -
cesses to be kept apart. It was recently featured 'sad' here being a synonym for solid or heavy. In
in a book The Servants Hall, a domestic history
' this case the whole iron was heated on fire or
of that house. stove, and again two were normally in use for an
Mr? Beeton, still regarded as the doyenne of ironing. Both types of iron were alike in design,
advisors on how home should be run, gives a
a pointed in front and widening to a flat back. The
detailed account of how to deal with the sizes varied, and the flat iron was the longest to
laundry of a small household, consisting only of
parents and one baby, in the latter part of the 81 Not till the igzos did the electric washing-
nineteenth century in the Housewife's Treasury machine begin to come within the means of many
of Domestic Information. It was for long in households, when such smiling advertisements as
popular demand, like her other works. She this began to appear.

100
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
c
Washin&day

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HOW way
this
often have you been inconvenienced in
?
You have probably prepared your whole week's washing,
got the water in the copper boiling, baths ready, and every-
thing waiting for the arrival of the washerwoman, when you
get the above message
— "Mother cannot come to-day."
There is no need for a washerwoman if you use a Western
Electric guaranteed clothes washer and wringer. The whole
of your week's washing can be done by electricity in much
less time and with greater efficiency at a cost of approxi-
mately one penny per hour.
The wringer works by electricity too, so that there is no
hard work left for you to do.
Ask your dealer for particulars, or write direct to us. Demon-
strations given daily in our Modern Kitchen at Connaught
House, Aldwych, W.C.

Western Electric
WASHING MACHINE.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
remain in use, being easier to heat on a gas ring
as late as last century and even, in some cases,

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surviving well into the present century for use
if,for example, the electric iron failed. There
were many special irons also in use, the most
famous being the goffering iron, made in many
forms and particularly popular for dealing with
the elaborate frills and pleating of women's
nineteenth-century underwear.
The gas iron appeared about the middle of the
82 The £2 or£3 washing machine recommended nineteenth century, and continued to be used
by Beeton 's Household Treasury. until the 1930s, as did various irons fuelled with
oil, parafhn, and other means. The
petrol

83 Nineteenth-century irons: below, iron box electric iron existed in the USA from the end of
iron with wood handle, in the North of England the last century, but was slow to be adopted in
()pe>i Air Museum, Beamish Hall: bottom, cast- Britain because of the slowness of electricity to
iron flat iron of 1 goo, widely used for many years come into the home. The modern tvpe
of steam
before and after that. iron, like other innovations in thewashing and
care of clothes, was a latecomer, not becoming
widely popular until the 1950s.

Dyeing and Colour Problems

Dyeing has been practised since prehistory and,
like the crafts of spinning and weaving, con-
tinued with few fundamental changes over
many centuries. The aims were always the same
- to colour the whole fabric and not just

decorate its surface, as a painter might or as

early man had done when adorning his own
make the colour impervious to
body, but also to
rain,sun and washing. These qualities were not
attained with any confidence until the eight-
eenth and nineteenth centuries.
The original and for long the main dyes used
were obtained from natural sources, such as
berries, flowers, fruit, leaves, lichens, seaweed
and wood. The chosen substance was at first
mixed with a liquid to form a paste which was
pressed into the material. By a process of trial
and error, various methods were found to secure
some degree of performance, non-fading and
washability. Iron, earths, lime, gypsum, clay,
coal and soot were found to be fast to light.
Blood, saliva, wax and glue worked as binding
agents. Later civilizations found that water-
soluble substances were best, among them li-
chens, but permanence was elusive until science

102
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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84 Seventeenth-century dyeing shown in a

contemporary engraving.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
began to develop in the seventeenth century
and led in that and the following century to the

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discovery that an additional substance was
needed as a fixative. These varied according to
the source of the dye and were called mordants,
from the present participle of the French verb
mordre, 'to bite'.

Early civilizations achieved considerable

skill in dyeing by various means. The earliest

extant dyed textiles were found in the tombs of

ancient Egypt. Purple, obtained from mollusc
shells,was among the colours most prized bj'
the ancient Greeks and Romans, the latter
designating it the royal colour and setting a
tradition which lasts to the present time.
Medieval paintings and illuminated manu-
scripts provide dazzling evidence of the wealth
and variety of colour achieved in the Western
European countries; Florence, as well as being a
great centre for painters, was also the leading
centre for dyeing and the main source of devel-
opments which were as important to the history
were the textiles themselves.
of dress as
Many endeavours were made to evolve syn-
thetic dves which would add to the choice of
colours available, but success here was not
achieved until 1856, when Sir William Henry
Pcrkin (1838-1907) produced the first aniline
dye. The chemical base so named had been
distilledfrom indigo with caustic potash in 1841
bv another chemist, the term 'aniline' being
derived from the Sanskrit name for the indigo
plant. Since then, however, aniline has mainly
been made from coal-tar. Perkin called his first
dve mauvine and after him various scientists
produced a number of other dyes, the best
known being magenta.
These were brilliantly coloured, but the prob-
lem of making them fast to washing, cleaning,
sunlight and wear-and-tear took further time to
solve and success was not fully achieved until
the middle of the present century, by which
time new synthetic fabrics had brought in
further colour problems.

104
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
8

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Gradual Revolution in the
Nineteenth Century
The Sewing Machine As with other great advances in clothes manu-
Though spinning and weaving were mechanized facture in the following century, war was the
in the eighteenth century and cotton mills were main inspirer. Uniforms were needed for armies
turning out vast quantities of fabrics before and making them was a heavy tax on time and
1800, the greatest of all obstacles to the energy. Another need was that of American
speedier, simpler production of clothes re- whale fishermen, who needed particularlv
mained. Interminable hand sewing was the only tough, warm garments to protect them while
way of putting garments together, and this pursuing their trade.
continued for another half-century before a It was, however, an Englishman who first

solution to the problem was found in an effi- produced a machine to do though

stitching,
cient, acceptable sewing machine. It was a final success eluded him. Thomas Saint was in
mighty instrument of change in clothing. 'The 1790 granted a patent for a machine for sewing
sewing machine', say the authors of The Needle leather and his drawings show a number of
is Threaded, 'would have led to a revolution in features essential to the modern sewing ma-
tailoring as inevitably as the electric telegraph chine. He seems, however, not to have put his
revolutionized communications and the steam idea to practical use.
engine travel.' The first man and put it to
to obtain a patent
The revolution was needed most of all in the use was a poor French Barthelemy
tailor,

newly growing industrial areas, among the Thimmonier, who by 1831 had 80 of his ma-
work-people there, who had neither time nor chines making uniforms for the French army.
money for the traditional bespoke tailor or These machines were destroyed by angry mobs
dressmaker, nor the home manu-
facilities for who thought their jobs in tailoring were being
facture of clothing which had supplied many threatened. Thimmonier, however, persisted
needs more domestic settings of the past.
in the and took out patents in England in 1843 and in
Now women and children as well as men were the USA in 1850, for machines which could deal
being drawn into the ever-demanding mills. It with anything from muslin to leather, but he
was to the working classes of all grades that the was overtaken by other inventors.
first machine-made clothing was directed. The The first practical sewing machine to capture
rich and fashionable were too deeply attached the market and hold a main part of it from then
to the bespoke tailor or private dressmaker to till today was Isaac Merrit Singer's, patented in

be tempted to the ready-made trade for many America in 185 1, when the firm that bore his
years to come. name was founded. His machine was seen in
It would be highly satisfactory to be able to America in 1855 by Robert Symington, a
record that it was to rescue women from their member of the Market Harborough corset-
thraldom to the perpetual routine of hand- manufacturing company, who in the next year
sewing that the sewing machine was invented, brought three Singers to the cottage workrooms
but unfortunately it did not happen that way. of the family business, presided over by his

105
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
REQUISITE SUPPLIED FOR THt; UP-TO-DATE FACTORY
r Shafting. Belting, Shaft Mansers, Belt Shifters, Drivers,
Pulleys, Floor Stands, Stools, Foot Motors, Electric A\otors,

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etc. Factor] Tables ol everj description.

J>Ol Hl.l IkOMiH I'llW l:K m:\cn SECTIONAI

n m iridtb

I itlmatea for Factor\ Re-organisation Work Free.

85 A bove : industrial sewing soon after the end of 86 Below : these early sewing machines were
the nineteenth century : Singer's Double Trough steam-driven, operated by standing workers: a
Power Bench, designed to carry two machines to busy workroom of the 1850s.
each section, and
to be extended to any length.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
mother. There in 1856 the sewing machine was Mass-production for Men
used for one of its most necessary purposes, A small amount of ready-made clothing had

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stitching the innumerable bones into the for- existed before the advent of the sewing ma-
midable corsets worn by women of that time. chine, consisting, in the men's clothing area,
Despite some protests from work-people on the mainly of roughly made underwear and shirts,
usual grounds of their jobs' being threatened, he crude outerwear generally called 'slop' clothes,
succeeded in getting them used. Women, the and some heavy coats and cloaks, the last made
greatest users of the domestic sewing machine, by tailors when normal business was slack. But
can therefore claim that it was first used in their substantial developments in ready-to-wear
service. could be made only with the sewing machine,
To the benefit of women was also the fact that and they were quick to begin. The first ready-
one of the first things Singer did on becoming made clothing factory was that of John Barran,
established in Britainwas to open retail shops, which in 1856 at its factory in Leeds acquired
devoted entirely to selling his machines. The between 20 and 30 Singer machines. Two years
first opened in Glasgow in 1856 and others later they introduced another innovation - a
followed rapidly. By the 1870s there were over band-knife which could cut through two dozen
160 Singer shops throughout Britain, and there double thicknesses of heavy cloth at a time,
are Singer shops today. It is likely was
that this thus immensely speeding up the cutting of
the start of multiple shop trading, which was to was based on a band-saw originally
clothes. It
become an important feature of the ready-made used for cutting furniture veneers, but was
clothing trade. widely adopted by the clothing trade. At first
Other manufacturers quickly followed Singer sewing machines were operated manually, but
into the sewing machine market, which became in 1879, when the oscillating shuttle was intro-
big business, with machines for factories, work- duced, they could be worked on power instead
shops and private homes. of treadle - first with a steam or gas engine, later
by electricity or petrol.
87 A n early hand sewing-machine rouses Once sewing became mechanical, production
interest. increased rapidly. There were seven or eight

107
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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88 Early nineteenth-century dress for men, At the same time Co-operative Societies
women and boys. Panoramic views from the joined the ever-growing ranks of manufacturing
Cyclopaedia of British Costume, 1833. clothiers and the combination of their efforts
with those of the multiples and small-scale
retail men's outfitters meant that in the last
by 1891
clothing factories in Leeds in 1881, but quarter of the nineteenth century there was a
there were 54. With this expansion came an- great increase in the production and distri-
other innovation - the establishment and bution of men's factory-made clothing to the
growth of men's and boys' speciality shops, working classes. These clothes were now more
selling factory-made clothing. From these grew usually made of woollen materials, which were
in turn multiple shop groups. By 1900 there progressively replacing the cotton corduroy,
were at with over 50 branches
least 22 of these, leather and moleskin (which meant a kind of
each. The chief ones were Hepworths, G. A. cotton fustian with a smooth surface) jackets,
Dunn and Bradleys of Chester. trousers and sometimes suits of the mid-

108
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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nineteenth century workman, now increasingly 89 A Lancashire working man and his family at
was possible because wool-
a city-dweller. This home in 1861 He wears the new loosely cut, short
.

len fabrics had become less costly with the jacket suit. From a painting of the time.
general change-over to machine spinning and
weaving, in which wool had lagged behind Wool rags were fed into it and shredded as the
cotton, mainly because of technical difficulties. drum revolved. The resultant pulp would then
In addition a big stimulus had been given to be spun, along with some new wool, into a less
the reduction of prices by the introduction of costly material suitable for the cheap suits in
shoddy. 'Shoddy' was originally not a term used demand for working men. A rather better-
to describe any inferior fabric, as it is today; it quality blend was called 'mungo'. Shoddy com-
meant a particular material made by the use of manded an extensive market by the later
a rag-tearing machine called a 'devil'. This was nineteenth century. It was, however, ousted by
a drum-shaped machine with teeth and was first the introduction of many new types of fabric
introduced in 1801 but greatly improved later. during the present century.

iog
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90 A Punch view of the ordinary Victorian cap is unconventional. His wife's full skirt is
household, 1845. The husband wears the checked moving towards the crinoline often years later,
trousers which were becoming popular, and his
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Taken together, these events mean that since 1881 2,148 men but 2,740 women and by the
the arrival of the sewing machine there had turn of the century less than 6,000 men and over

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been something approaching a revolution in the 14,000 women.
making and materials of much of the ordinary When factory-made men's clothing was de-
man's dress, especially among the growing veloped after the advent of the sewing machine,
number of small tradesmen, skilled factory the most interesting point is exactly what was
workers and office workers. These had hitherto made. It is impossible to think of the factories of
tended to seek out the cheaper bespoke tailors, that time being able to produce the tailored
an approach which was laborious and not frock coat or tail coat then worn by middle- and
always very successful. Census figures of the upper-class men, from the rich to the quite
second half of the last century show a massive modest city worker. But as the populace was
change-over in employment from the tra- drawn increasingly into towns, to the factories
ditional tailor to the clothing factory tailoring
worker. Thus in 185 1 there were only 935 men 91 More checked trousers and varying styles of
and 29 women tailors employed in Leeds. By coat in two items from an Edinburgh series
1871 there were 1,523 men and 413 women, in Modern Athenians, of the 1840s.

in
 .

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which as steam power developed had to be built
near coal fields and therefore away from the

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traditional rural areas of population, the long-
established short coat of the working man,
sometimes known as a sack, underwent a
change.
At the beginning of this vogue, in the 1850s,
the short coat was loose and shapeless, made of
tweed or serge, but became finer, neater and
it

better fitting and was worn with trousers,

usually in a contrasting dark material, checked,
plaid or striped. By the 1860s the outfit was
widely accepted as informal wear by a consider-
able range of ordinary men. By the 1870s a
waistcoat was added and became, and was
it

called, a suit. This type of suit, though a

generally accepted mode of dress, was for a time

92 The short-jacket suit is worn bv the bus

conductor in this 1S60 Punch cartoon on the
recurrent theme of the absurdity and
inconvenience of the crinoline in everyday life.

'9
•|
_^_ t"i

regarded by gentlemen as appropriate only for

morning, country or sport. But by the last years
of the century, as the lounge suit, it was making
solid inroads into the domination of the frock
coat for business and general wear.
The top hat, which was the accompaniment
of the dress of the Victorian man of any
substance, was, surprisingly to many of us,
worn by all classes. The first policemen wore top
hats and swallow-tail coats, records Agnes Allen
in The Story of Clothes, and she also notes that in
summer white trousers completed this outfit.
Top hats were also worn by many other groups
of working men and were kept on at work.
The most usual top hat was black, fitting in
with the dark colours worn by Victorian men on
most occasions. Sometimes, however, the top
hat was grey or white, the grey version surviv-

112
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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ing today as correct wear for formal occasions, 93 T op hats for all a family group of the
along with the morning suit, now also a special- 1860s.
event garment. The frock coat disappeared
early in the present century.
With the short jacket suit, which was in- also known as a billycock and, in America, as a
formal in style, top hats were clearly unsuitable derby. soft felt hat, even less formal,
The
and from the 1850s there existed the round, low- appeared in the 1880s and, for summer, the hard
crowned bowler, so named from William Bow- straw hat or 'boater' and the soft Panama.
ler, who first manufactured it. It was made in Caps, which probably derived from traditional
grey, brown and black, with various small unfashionable but practical wear of country-
differences in the shape of the brim, from curly men, became popular as sports clothes became a
to straight, but the black version finally pre- feature of men's dress towards the end of the
vailed.Contrary to the top hat, which de- nineteenth century. Tweed and wool hats also
scended from the gentleman to policemen and came in, the former's most famous early wearer
workmen, the bowler rose in status. From being being Sherlock Holmes.
casual wear came to be, like the short jacket
it In recent years the hat has disappeared from
suit, generally worn on everyday occasions by many masculine wardrobes, so far as everyday
nearly all men by the turn of the century. It was dress is concerned.

"3
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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T*T A

94 Winter fashions 0/1834 show top hats

universal among men.
 ISA
m
•;>i;

EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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&£ c
; -

95 A (op hat nas even worn for gardening, as 96 More top hats as a feature of men 's dress in
Loudon 's Gardener's Magazine,
seen in f. C. 1858 ; here are also shown the popular frock coat,
1832, which recommends mowing in an an overcoat and the long jacket which was to
advertisement as 'an ideal recreation for a become the short lounge-suit jacket.
Gentleman '.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Slow Reform for Women
By the twenties of the nineteenth century

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women's dress was changing from the spare,
classic up-and-down simplicity which had pre-
vailed since the last years of the previous
century. It was gradually becoming fuller-

skirted, with puff sleeves reappearing and in-

creasing in size, corsets becoming once again
formidable figure-controllers, waists nearing
their natural place. This soon led to the notori-
ous tight-lacing which became widespread and
was not limited to the wholly leisured and
fashionable, but spread to women of all classes;
a small waist was a special vanity.
Colours became stronger at the same time,
with magenta, purple, bright green and blue
among the favourites, supplanting the previous
pastels. Fabrics ofheavy types were also to the
fore, among them heavy woollen
plush, velvet,
and silk and brocade. Trimmings and embroid-
eries, beading, fringes and all kinds of elabor-
ation were in favour again. Buckram stiffened
skirts and and petticoats became
sleeves
heavier, wider and more numerous. The osten-
tation of the Victorian woman was on its way
and was an effect much sought after by the
middle classes. The poor could not compete - as
they had been able to do to some degree in the
time of simple cottons.
This trend continued, and when the sewing
machine became a reality in the 1850s its arrival
was declared by many to be providential never :

had there been so many yards of petticoats and

skirts to be hemmed by the tired fingers of
dressmakers and their apprentices. The popu-
lation was rising, prosperity was increasing, so
the toil of hand-sewing became heavier.
The use of the sewing machine for making
clothes for women was, however, very different
and more complicated than for men. For one
thing, women's clothing manufacture did not go
into factories as did men's. Partly this was

97 Nineteenth-century fashion changes: a dress,

tippet and bonnet of 1815-20 are, apart from the
high bonnet, simple and figure-clinging.

117
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
i

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98 By i8jo a transformation had taken place:

an extreme example of fashion, not for the
ordinary woman.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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99 By 1836, however, fullness was all, with the old, infirm or thosewith young children - could
weekly Belle Assemblee showing this at a time pursue their work at home. Singer's chain of
when keeping up with fashion was influencing shops selling his machines and similar arrange-
many more women. ments made by other sewing machine manufac-
turers made it easy for the family woman also to
because the kind of uniformity expressed in the buy amachine and pursue her traditional
early men's clothing from factories had no sewing for her household by speedier and more
attraction for women. But in addition the only effective methods. The visiting dressmaker, the
equipment needed for a worker on women's source of many families' stocks of clothing, was
dressmaking was the treadle or hand sewing also able to operate more effectively in this way
machine, and employers found that it was easier and continued to be an important source of the
and more profitable for dressmaking to be done middle-class woman's wardrobe.
by outworkers, who bought, hired or were To help such women, especially the ordinary
supplied with such machines and worked at ones who were not affluent, the paper-pattern
home. This meant that many women who could business boomed. In August 1850, The World of
not go out to do a day's work in the factory - the Fashion, a monthly periodical, began to include

IK)
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1 00 Full skirts were general by the early 1850s. exotic one called High Life, both dated before the
This picture Low Life shows a seamstress sewing-machine was introduced.
dressing for the evening and is companion to an
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
a collection of paper patterns. It promised a described variously as part-made and un-made
great variety of patterns for garments for every and consisting mainly of dresses of which some-

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possible occasionand this was a big circulation times the skirt was completely made up, the
booster. Other magazines followed and in i860 bodice only partly stitched, but so designed
The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, that it could be adjusted to fit various sizes and
Samuel and Isabella Beeton's very popular shapes of women. Sometimes the material and
production, arranged a pattern service. In 1873 trimmings only were supplied for the bodice,
Butterick's famous American pattern service but Jay's mourning service offered a 'self-
set up England in a big way, with
in business in expanding bodice' to suit all 'at a moment's
Regent Street premises where they employed notice'.
between 30 and 40 assistants by the 1880s and A few manufacturers also came into existence
with a factory at Chalk Farm. Paper patterns for ladies'wear when the sewing machine ar-
became available everywhere and though the rived. The most notable of them was Selincourt
various kinds and degrees of dressmaker re- and Colman, who opened in the City of London
mained the chief makers of women's clothes at in 1857, making costumes and children's clothes
all social levels, a revolution in dress was none as well as coats, waterproofs and shawls and
the less on its way. selling from the start. As
to leading stores
The first steps in ready-made clothing for Selincourt, they still exist today with the same
women had, in fact, been made by the mid- high reputation and many of the same
1850s, even before the sewing machine came on customers.
the scene. Many of the larger draper's shops had
acquired their own workrooms and dress-
101 A wholesale pioneer in good-quality ready-
making staff, coinciding with the great growth
to-wear ladies dress was Selincourt, originally
'

of shopping among middle-class women in Vic- Selincourt &

Colman. Here in a centenary
torian England. At quiet times of the year they brochure issued in IQ57, they reproduced some of
would make stock capes, mantles and other the waterproof cloaks of their first year. Included
garments which did not need individual fitting. in the booklet are illustrated Rules of
There also came into existence a curious item Measurement of chest, neck, sleeve and length.

HF "Sh

(PLAIN IN TWEED ONLY)

(BRAIDED SHOULLER, LlhQTk SU Ins)

BLUE TICKET QUALITY

JV° 3/'lengths 52 wcJles fidOuss 111 18/-

32 56 188 19/6 JV8I Blue Ticket Quality w/e

ORANGE TICKET QUALITY . 181 Orange Ticket Quality 22/9

JV 131 length 52 inches fullness 111 21/6

132 .56 . ... 188 23/6

L£ Jj t
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Multiples did not enter the women's market clothes as they really looked on the people who
nearly as early as they did that of men. In the chose and wore them. On the whole Victorian

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North, co-operatives did a certain amount of women present an awesome sight when re-
business among the women in industrial com- corded in this way instead of in the flattering
munities from the last years of the nineteenth fashion-plate. From before the crinoline era -
century, but the important group was
first the mid-i850s to the mid-i86os - to the end of
Fleming Reid, which opened its first branch in the century the panoply of skirts and drapery,
1881 and by 1895 had over 75 branches, only layer upon by crinoline,
layer, firmly held out
Hepworths being larger in the men's area. By bustle, petticoats and other stiffening, is made
iqio Fleming Reid had over 200 branches, with more overwhelming by the amount of trimm-
a strong bias towards hosiery, knitwear and ings and decoration strewn and draped over it.
underwear, but catering widely for the general There seems no end to the fringes and edgings,
needs of ordinary women. beads and bugles, ruchings and bows, loops and
Most of ordinary women's clothing was, how- swirls to which skirts are subjected. The sewing
ever, provided by the stores. Mainly these were machine had a lot to answer for. It was not till
originally drapers, but they expanded from the the next century that simplicity returned to
middle of the nineteenth century, were up- women's dress.
market in their trends and met the needs of a Several attempts to rationalize women's
growing army of middle-class women who were dress were made in the course of the nineteenth
strongly imbued with the Victorian obsession century. When, in 185 1, Mrs Amelia Bloomer,
with appearances with embodying the pros- an American journalist, endeavoured to launch
perity of the family, the significance of its place in Britain the outfit which acquired her name

in the world, supported by the paterfamilias in but was in fact designed by her friend Elizabeth
his rising business or trade, and intent that their Smith Miller, it was a complete failure, achiev-
clothes, houses, furnishings should live up to ing its only immortality through cartoons in
current ideals. Punch. Fifty years later, however, it was adap-
With railway travel easing, buses plying ted as a cycling costume and was worn quite
busily in London (there were 3,000 horse omni- widely by ordinary women as well as by ex-
buses in London in 1853, each carrying 300 treme reformers. Gustav Jaeger did better in
people a day writes Alison Adburgham) the the 1880s with his gospel of sanitary woollen
attractions of a day's shopping in London were clothing, but his first disciples were not among
made available and women seized the oppor- ordinary people but among the highly fashion-
tunity. Shops expanded, grew into stores with able, from Oscar Wilde to Bernard Shaw. Wil-
20 or 30 departments and became more attract- liam Morris endeavoured to lead clothing back
ive, with rest rooms, tea rooms, solicitous to 'nature' and the simplicity thought to be
attention from staff all adding to the customer's characteristic of ordinary people in bygone
enjoyment. times, but his loose, hand-made tweeds roused
But clothes still tended to be made mainly by the scorn of the working man of the 1880s and
the dressmaker with her own premises, by the 1890s, intent on being well-turned out bv the
visiting dressmaker or in the large made-to- main multiple tailors in the dignity of the
order departments of stores, so far as the middle orthodox suit, off-the-peg from one of the new
as well as the upper classes were concerned. The big men's outfitting groups. His theories of
idea of standardized clothes, of mass- aesthetic dress for women were followed by the
production, was distasteful; ready-made was upper-crust fashionable, but not by the ordi-
regarded as 'cheap and nasty'. nary woman. The nineteenth century in fact
From the mid-i830s photography had been ended with women's dress largely unreformed
providing for the first time pictures showing both in looks and in manufacture.

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102 Mrs A melia Bloomer could not rationalize sketch of 'the new costume as shown in an
',

Englishwomen 's dress, but she added a word to A merican periodical and reproduced in
the language. Here a reproduction of an authentic England s The Home Circle.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
Sweated Labour were making major inroads into the lower-
In the mid-nineteenth century it might easily priced men's market and were increasing

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have been anticipated that the future of clothes supplies and reducing costs of all underwear and
would be a smooth progress towards supplying accessories, which had been so burdensome
everyone's needs at lower prices. The mills and when done by hand.
factories were pouring out an ever-increasing In spite of this the picture was not on the
flow of inexpensive cottons of every type, the whole a happy one, except perhaps for the
most practical material for the ordinary owners of the factories and mills. They soon
woman's evervdav dress and for men's shirts. found that semi-skilled or unskilled labour
Wool had moved to factories for weaving and could carry out much of the work hitherto
the newer 'shoddy' was providing a useful handled by skilled clothing workers and that
substitute for the traditional costly fabrics, so such labour could cost much less. The general
that the working man and his family could dress principle in industry was still to hire as cheaply
better at less cost. The sewing machine was as possible and get as many hours' work out of
sewing a finer seam than almost any hand-sewer
could and was also doing so infinitely more
quickly, thus easing the lot of tailor, dressmaker 103 Criiikshank s view of the sweating system as
and the woman-at-home. Clothing factories it affected the poor family as early as
, May 1828.

HotLSt erf. lH.df.sTni

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
1 l*w it!

Tryi

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SW 1

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employees as possible - which in the nineteenth 104 Factory children being driven out to work in
century was not unusually the round of the From an engraving.
the cotton factories in 1840.
clock, and even overtime on top of that.
At this time of low wages and exploitation of The immigrants, arriving in most cases
the labouring classes the clothing trade rapidly and jobless, were of necessity open to
derelict
became notorious. Another major problem was exploitation in the growing clothing trade,
the pouring into Britain (and also America) of which they entered in every kind of capacity, as
Jewish immigrants fleeing from the Russian factory workers, outworkers, one-man busi-
pogroms which from 1881 drove them from nesses, family production units. Being skilled
their homes and which spread to other areas of and clever, they frequently made good, and
Eastern Europe. The Jews had traditionally many of the 'giants' of the vast twentieth-
been the tailors of Europe, probably because century fashion trade trace their origins back to
minimum of equipment
this trade called for the those struggling immigrants of last century.
and could be carried out anywhere, even though For the moment, however, the chief effect of
the people concerned might be harried over the the invasions was further to dislocate the cloth-
earth; clothes were always needed, wherever by side with the factories there
ing trade. 'Side
they were. was growing up that army of underpaid, over-

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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worked men, women and children, whose 105 The sweating system the cheap tailor and
:

existence came with such a shock to the pioneer grim commentary by Leech in
his workers in a
reformers of the 'eighties, when the "sweating i*45-
problem" was first heard of, writes S. P. Dobbs
in The Clothing Workers of Great Britain. Protest against sweated labour in the cloth-
Sweated workers were employed in a great ing industry grew. Its momentum, however,
number of industries and trades, old and new; was impeded by the lack of organization which
one of the biggest was the manufacture of has always beset the industry. The most notable
clothing. move was the Daily News Anti-Sweating Exhi-
Although factory production of clothes was, bition of 1906, organized by J. J. Mallon and A.
apart from underwear, accessories and heavy G. Gardiner, the paper's editor. Opened by
garments, mainly concerned, round the mid- Princess Henry of Battenburg, it drew attend-
nineteenth century at any rate, with industrial ances of 30,000 people during its six-weeks'
areas and the working class market, and mainly duration at the Queen's Hall, the famous Lon-
men, the problems of sweated labour and of don hall just north of Oxford Circus which was
immigrant workers affected all classes of trade. destroyed by German raids in the Blitz of the
Even top-class men's tailors would send out Second World War. It led to the formation of
simpler parts of work to the innumerable scat- the National Anti-Sweating League, aimed at
tered workshops, outworkers and small establishing minimum wages, and to the setting
contractors who have been part of the clothes up of a Houseof Commons Select Committee to
manufacturing trade ever since then, and still investigate the whole subject of home work in
are. It has remained a notoriously badly orga- the clothing trade.
nized trade, and underpaid workers are still a When close investigation of sweated labour
problem today. After the Jews came other was carried out in, for instance, the book
immigrants, Pakistanis and Cypriots being pro- Makers of our Clothes by Mrs Carl Meyer and
minent among them in recent times. Miss Clementine Black, in 1908, it revealed a

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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
stream of cases of outworkers making women's sweated labour, with special attention to the
elaboratelace-trimmed and tucked blouses dress industry, where there are still women

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and underwear of that and previous times for working at home for such pay as 2op an hour. In
payment which worked out in pence for a a major 1979 survey on working at home it was
garment, and a few shillings for a full round-the- found that 'slave labour' wages were on the
clock working week. increase. Of cases it examined, usually of
The problems presented by the production of women unable to work out of the home and
women's clothing since the introduction of the needing to supplement the family income, more
sewing machine are so complex that one would than half were earning less than 4op an hour and
need an entire volume to deal adequately with
the subject.
Changes and upheavals have continued to 106 Overworked women toiling in a
beset the clothing industry ever since then. In dressmaker's workroom in the West End of
the 1980s alarming to know that the Low
it is London : from a working-man 's magazine of
Pay Unit should campaign to put an end to 1858.

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two-thirds less than 6op an hour. The goods 107 Typical dress for men in the late nineteenth
they made were not cheap, and many different century, when ready-made clothes had developed
sections of the clothing trade, including some at greatlv : from the catalogue of a Ludgate Hill
the top of the market, were guilty of employing shop.

them and still are.

While what men wore maintained a consider-
The New Uniformity and an increasing
able uniformity, practicality
The dress of Victorian men of all classes rep- degree of functional simplicity, Victorian
resents a process of adjustment to a time of women indulged in a series of the most fantastic
widespread and yast economic, industrial, com- extravagances of attire seen since medieval
mercial, scientific and social developments. It times. Then, only the wealth}- few had been
progresses logically, with the lounge suit and affected, but now women of all classes suc-
bowler hat replacing the frock coat and top hat cumbed to some most extraordinary
of the
from the 1880s, sports jackets likewise indi- distortions of their natural shape that had ever
cating a more relaxed mood. But the dress of been seen. Queen Victoria and Florence Night-
women during the second half of the last ingale indeed rejected the crinoline, but factory
century seems on a general survey to bear no girls and other working women of many types
relation to any of these factors or to the great wore even in a china factory where the
it,

changes that were then taking place in the contraption swept breakable goods off shelves
position of women. quite regularly. Bustles were so popular in the

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,.:;

108 Fashionable dress for women in 1857

reached the heights of absurdity.

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1870s and 1880s that all kinds of devices were 109 A study in contrasting dress in the 1850s. A
contrived to throw out the figure to the rear. lady in a wide-sweeping crinoline visits a
They were mass-produced, cheap, and worn labourer 's cottage and meets the family in their
everywhere. simple attire.

was in the second half of the century,

All this
when the women's movement was progressing
vigorously in its aims of securing for women a 1881 and 1882. It was the time when women
more responsible place in society, some degree battled their way into the universities, first

of legal authority in the family, better edu- became doctors. They went to work in greater
cation, more job opportunities, and admission numbers; there were 17,566 women shop assist-
to professions. Itwas the time when tlv Mar- ants in 1861 and 20,166 by 1871. Women clerks
riage and Divorce Bill was passed in 1857, with first appeared in the census in 1861, when there

amendments in 1858, 1884 and 1896 the time of

; were 5,989 of them. This had risen to 17,859 by
the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870, 1891.

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110 Under the crinoline skirt : a print of the Ill Crinolines were worn as a matter of course
1860s. by the majority of middle-class women. This is a
photograph of a family group of 1865.

Ia

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But there was no accepted business or pro- traditional part as colleague and partner of her
woman's dress, no working uniform or
fessional husband, and leaving her no more to do than

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style suited to practical needs. On the contrary present to the world the success and prosperity
these women who went out into the main new of her husband. She had to show that she did not
spheres, mostly male monopolies in the past, need to work. Hence the plethora of elaborate,
followed current fashion more sedulously than impractical Victorian fashions. The first women
ordinary women had They
previously done. to strive for careers, for a share in public life and
used the increased clothes production made affairs, were dressed in the styles of the day.
possible by the sewing machine and other Dame Millicent Fawcett, then Millicent Gar-
moves into mechanization to help them to rett, is seen in early photographs in a crinoline.
conform to singularly impractical styles of Emily Davies, founder of Girton, is smothered
dress. These were styles still set by the leisured in the voluminous skirts and tight bodices of the
woman, mostly purposely ostentatious. early 1870s.
Ray Strachey, in The Cause, her history of That, however, is not the whole or even the
the women's movement in Britain as seen in the main part of the ordinary women's dress story
1920s, argues that the reason for this was that of the late nineteenth century. These pioneer
the Industrial Revolution had led to a decline in
the economic importance of women, reducing 112 Crinolines were no obstacle to shopping: a
them from craftswomen to unskilled labour, in London shop in the mid-
scene in a busy
the home robbing the married woman of her nineteenth century.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
women were mainly of the upper or upper-
middle classes - such dress was the way to

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corridors of power - so it could be argued that it
was helpful to them to keep to accepted fashion
standards. There were critics of late Victorian
dress. Women were not all content with it.

Gwen Raverat, in Period Piece, writes of a

middle-class childhood in Cambridge in the
later nineteenth century (she was born in 1883)
and gives many complaints about the clothes
then worn by women. Most 'brought discom-
fort, restraint and pain' and 'except for the

most small-waisted, naturally dumb-bell-

shaped females, the ladies never seemed . . .

quite as if they were wearing their own clothes.

For their dresses were always made too tight,
and the bodices wrinkled laterally from the
strain, and their stays showed a sharp edge
across the middles of their backs.'
There was to be action as well as protests
against the afflictions caused by Victorian
clothing. Two important things happened in the
1880s which were due neither to fashion leaders
nor to the crusading women, but which were
between them to transform women's dress and
have a large influence on women's lives in all
classes. They were the invention of the tailored
costume and of the 'safety bicycle' and they
turned out to not be unconnected. Both
originated in the late 1880s. The costume, which
consisted of a skirt and a jacket, worn either
with a plain shirt, similar to that of a man, or
else a blouse which was often very and
frilly

decorative, has been said to have been

originated by top dressmakers Redfern or Creed
- it is uncertain which. Made of tweed, serge or
some other woollen material similar to men's
suitings, or linen for summer, it was adaptable
to all styles and to all types of women. For it
women went back to men's tailors, usually for
the first time since the seventeenth century.
The costume was worn for travel, sport, town or
country, for leisure or for work.

113 The bustle of the i8jos could look attractive

on occasion. This is a country wedding dress of
1872-74 in beige.

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114 and 115/1 variety of contrivances helped the period. Here are two devices to create the
Victorian women to create the extraordinary bustles of the iSyos and 1880s.
contortions of shape required by the fashions of
 ^\

f
«

y
\.
\

*»Vi
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 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
The bicycle has been eulogized times without
number as the great liberator of women, giving

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them undreamt of opportunities for getting out
and about, enjoying a new independence. Its
use began among middle-class and upper-
middle-class women in the later 1880s, but it

soon spread to nearly all classes -

you could hire
one for sixpence an hour. What did you wear?
You could not have ridden it if the bustle had
remained in fashion or if the crinoline had been
revived, but for it the new costume was
uniquely opportune. Skirts were still long, but
they could be caught up to avoid wheels while
retaining decorum. Some women wore the
Bloomer outfitwhich had been scorned more
than 30 years ago.
Women were also at this time playing games,
to some extent under the influence of the
various health campaigns which had been pro-
moted. The skirt and shirt blouse provided the
first advance towards practical sports dress.

They appeared on tennis courts. When the first

Girton girls plaved hockev in the i8gos thev too

wore this outfit, with the stiff collar and tie on
the shirt blouse. Women started to play golf in
the late 1880s and the first English golf cham-
pionship for women was held in 1893. For it too
the same outfit was worn.
It was probably before 1900 that the best

known of all fashion figures and one cast in a

new mould made her appearance in the USA
and in Britain. She was the Gibson Girl, trim in
blouse and skirt, the creation of American
artist, Charles Dana Gibson. She became world-

famous and remained so for years. The original

was his wife, Irene, one of the Langhorne sisters,
of whom another was to become Lady Astor
MP. Today a sign on a road in Danville.
Virginia, records the site of the house where
Irene was born and the fact that she was the
inspirer of the artist's 'celebrated style-setting
Gibson Girl illustrations following their
. . .

marriage in 1895'. On the stage the Gibson Girl

won new fame bv being impersonated by
116 More reasonable dress of the l8gos: a day Camille Clifford, in New York in 1902 and
worn today without
dress of about i8g§ could be London in 1904. The description is significant -
arousing comment. it was probably the first time that the dress

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ideal had been a 'girl' - and that in face of the 117 Young ladies of 1885 went to their drawing
Edwardian adulation of the mature woman. lessons in the rather formal dress which still

The 'young fashion' of the future was born. persisted, but Punch did not find anything to
By the end of the nineteenth century skirts ridicule in it, as in the past.

still trailed on the ground at times, corsets were

still too tight, but there were no more freak pleat or two near the hem. The New Woman
fashions and the Edwardian fashionable woman could deal with that.
was not the model for other women to seek to What had happened was that ordinary dress
follow. The New Woman had arrived and she was now everybody's dress. The 1914-1918 war
was the ordinary woman, trim in her blouse and iscommonly regarded as a line of demarcation
skirt or tailored costume, later called a suit. between old and new, past and present thinking
About 1908, the next significant fashion on dress and its problems. It is not so. The
change came and its acknowledged leader, change took place long before that so far as
Pierre Poiret, declared later that he had essentials were concerned. Future develop-
achieved 'the fall of the corset and the adoption ments were to be towards ease, simplicity and
of the brassiere which, since then, has won the comfort - things which fashion had disregarded
day. Yes, I freed the bust, but I shackled the for centuries, together with a disregard for the
legs' - a reference to the hobble skirt of his needs of the ordinary woman. Classless fashion
straightup-and-down fashion figure. But that was on its way and even unisex dress. But
. . .

problem was easily solved with a slit or two or a that is another story.

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118 In the same year, 1885, a Regent Street shop casual wear for men'. But the top hat is still

featured in the Gazette of Fashion what were included,

described as 'some enterprising developments in
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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119 The Gibson Girl - one of the drawings by

Charles Dana Gibson which made her famous,
and helped to revolutionize women 's dress from
the end of the nineteenth century.
 EJEMPLAR PARA FINES EDUCATIVOS
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ADAM, S. and S., The Complete Servant (Knight and with an introduction by C. Morris, foreword by
Lacey, 1825). G. Trevelyan (Cresset Press, 1947).
adbi'RGHam, A., Shops and Shopping, 1810^1914 fraser, G. L., Textiles by Britain (Allen & Unwin,
(Allen &- Unwin, 1946). 1948).
Shopping in Style (Thames & Hudson, 1979). garland, M., The Changing Form of Fashion (Dent,
ashley, M Life in Stuart England (Batsford, 1964).
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bayne-powell, R., Housekeeping in the Eighteenth george, Dorothy, England in Transition (1931,
Century (Murray. 1956). revised with additions Penguin Books, 1953).
hkyant. A., Protestant Island (Collins, 1967). Gilchrist, A.,Mary Lamb (W. H. Allen, 1889).
Restoration England, revised edn (Collins, i960). grant, Elizabeth, Memoirs of a Highland Lady, ed.
buck, A., Dress in Eighteenth Century England A Davidson (Murray, 1950).
(Batsford, 1979). Harrison, M., People and Shopping (Benn, 1975).
byrde, P., The Male Image (Batsford, 1979). hayden, R., Mrs Delany, her Life and her Flowers
A Frivolous Distinction (Bath City Council, 1979). (Colonnade, 1980).
CAMPBELL, R The Complete London Tradesman (T.
, HINDLEY, Charles (ed.), Roxburghe Ballads (Reeves
Gardner, 1747. reprinted by David & Charles, & Turner, 1973 4).
1969). hole, C, The English Housewife in the Seventeenth
Costume (Costume Society, 1980 and 1981). Century (Chatto & Windus, 1953).
CROW, D., The Victorian Woman (Allen & Unwin, jefferys, J. H., Retail Trading in Britain,
1971). 1850 1950 (Cambridge University Press, 1954).
1 UNNINGTON, C. W. and P., Handbook of English kilpatrick, S., Fanny Burney (David & Charles,
Costume in the Seventeenth Century (Faber 1955, 1980).
reprint 1974). mayhew, H., London Labour and the London Poor
CUNNINGTON, Costume in Pictures (Herbert
P., (1851). As Mayhew's London, ed. P. Qucnnell
Press, 1964, revised edn 1981) (Pilot Press, 1949).
CUNNINGTON, P., and Lucas, C, Occupational mitford, M. R., Our Village, 1824-1832 (reprint
Costume in England (A.&C. Black, 1967). Oxford University Press, 1945, 1982).
DAVIS, D., A History of Shops and Shopping north, Roger, Lives of The Norths 1826, new edn. ed.
(Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966, also Toronto A. Jessop (G. Betton, 1890).
University Press). plumb, J. H., Georgian Delights (Weidenfeld, 1980).
defoe, D., A Tour through the Whole Island of Great rossbach, van Rostrand, The Art of Paisley
Britain, 1724 6 (pub. 1725 7, reprinted Dent, (Reinhold Co., New York, London, 1980).
1962). smith, J. T., Book for a Rainy Day (Methuen, 1845,
The Complete English Tradesman, 1727 (Reprints new edn. 1905).
Economic Classics, A. M. Kellie, 1969).
of Nollekens and his Times (Turnstile Press, 1828,
dobbs, S. P., The Clothing Workers ofCreat Britain reissue 1949).
(Routledge, 1928). stewart, M., and hunter, L., The Needle is

fell, S., The Household Account Book of Sarah Fell, Threaded (Heinemann/Newman Neame, 1964).
cd. Norman Penney (Cambridge University Press, strachey, Ray, The Cause (G. Bell, 1928).
1920). Thompson, F., Lark Rise to Candleford, as trilogy
fiennes, C, The Journeys ofCelia Fiennes, edited (Oxford University Press, 1982).

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verney, F. P. and M., Memoirs of the Verney Family pub. Oxford University Press, 1939).
during the Seventeenth Century (Longmans Green, wilkerson, M., Clothes (Batsford, 1970).

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1928). woodforde, J., Diary of a Country Parson, selected
von la roche, S., Sophie in London, ij86. and edited by J. Beresford (Oxford University
Translated with introduction by Clare Williams, Press, 1933, paperback 1978).
foreword by G. Trevelyan (Cape, 1933). wray, M., The Women 's Outerwear Industry
waterson, M., The Servants Hall (Routledge and
' (Duckworth, 1957).
Kegan Paul, 1981). yarwood, D., English Costume (Batsford, revised
waugh, N., The Cut of Men's Clothes, 1620- 1900 edn 1977).
(Faber, 1964). The Encyclopaedia of World Costume (Batsford,
The Cut of Women 's Clothes, 1600-1930 (Faber, 1978).
1968). The British Kitchen (Batsford, 1981).
weeton, Miss, Journal of a Governess, Vol. II, Five Hundred Years of Technology in the Home
181 1-1825 (David & Charles reprints 1969 ; first (Batsford, 1983).

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Index

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Ackerman, 52, 85 materials, 60-61
Adam Bede, 48-50 mechanization, 56, 56, 63
Apron, 48, 51, 52, 70, 82 mule, 57,55
Arkwright, Sir Richard, 57, 58 sweated labour, 61
Austen, Jane, 27, 54-5, 81, 85 'Triangular' trade, 61
water frame, 57, 58
Barber, J5, 36 Country dress, 65, 66, 6y, 6g, 74, 75
Barran, John, 107 Cranford, 85-7
Bedgown, 32, 48 50, 71 Crinoline, no, 112, 122, 128, I2Q, 130, 131, 132
Beeton, S. and I., 100, 102, 121 Crompton, Samuel, 57
Bicycle, 136, see also cycling costume Cycling costume, 122
Bloomer, Mrs A., 122, 123
Bonnet, 47, 79, 85, iij, see also caps Defoe, D., 37-41
Bowler hat, 113 Delany, Mrs, 81
Breeches, 26, 27, 32, 75 6 Detergents, 96, 97
Burney, Fanny, 53, 54, 72, 75 Dressmaker, 17, 28, 83, 85, I2j
Bustle, 128, 133, 134, 135 daily, 84, 8g, 116, 119
see also mantua, mantua maker, milliner
Calash, 86 Duffel coat, 27
Cap, 20, 49, 50, 50, 51, 52, 54, 70, 85-6, no, 113 Dyeing, 17, 102, 103, 104
Cartwright, Dr Edmund, 57
Cloak, 20, 28, 31, 32, 45-7, 46 Errdig (laundry), 99
Cloth Evelyn, John, 24-5, 31
manufacture, 18, 20, 37
mechanization, 56 Factory
Clothing trade, 39, 40 materials, 60, 60, 61, 124
Coats production, 94, 126
men's, 25, 27, 27, 75, 112 Fairs, 13
evening ('tail'), 73, 75, 76 Farthingale, 27, 28
frock, 51, 76, ///, 113, 128 Fell,Sarah, 16-17, 95
riding, 75 Fiennes, Celia, 17-19
short, 112, see also jacket Flying shuttle, 57
women's, 28
Corset, 28, 83, 83, 106, 107, 117, 137, see also stays George, Dorothy, 62-3
Cotton industry Gibson Girl, 136, jjq
eighteenth century, 56ff
fashions, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68 76 passim Hargreaves, James, 57, 58
growth, 60^) 1 Hats, 17, 18, 20, 31,
history, 62 3 beaver, 32, 74
imports, 61-3 bowler, 113, 128
Jenny, 57, 58 'soft', 113

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top, 70, 75, 76, 92, 112-13, 114 16, 128, 138 Off-the-peg, see mass production
tweed, 113 Old clothes
women's, 51-3 dealers, 26, 94

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Heideloff 85
, Exchange, 92
Hogarth, William, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 40, 30 Outworkers, 119, 126, 127
Hollar, Wenceslas, 28-9, 2g, 30, 31
Paisley pattern, 78
Immigrants, 125-6 Pamela (Richardson), 41-2, 44-5
Industrial Revolution, 56ff, 132 Paper patterns, 85, 119-121
Irons (domestic), 100, 102, 102 Pedlar, 13, 15, 16, 44, 68-9, 6g, 70, 71, 84-5, see also
travelling salesmen
Jaeger, Dr Gustav, 122 Pepys, Samuel, 19, 24-5, 27, 31, 32-4, 82, 95
Jewish immigrants, 94, 125-6 Perkin, Sir William Henry, 104
Johnson, Dr, 35-6 Petticoat, 19, 27, 28, 31, 32, 36, 44, 48, 49, 52, 62, 71,
Jumble sales, 94 72, 79,82, 87, 117, 122
Petticoat Lane, 91, 92, 94
Kay, John, 57 Plaid, see shawl, 47
Knitting, 50, 51, 86, 87
Ready-to-wear clothing, 107-8
Lamb, Mary, 88 women's, 121
Lark Rise to Candleford, 96 men's 128
Levenhulme, Lord, 97, g8 & Colman
see also Selincourt
London Labour and the London Poor, 90-94 Red Riding Hood, 45-7, 46
Lounge jacket (smoking jacket, dinner jacket), 76, Riding habit, 38, 82-3, 82
112, 128 Roxburghe Ballads, ig, 22ff, 23
lounge suit, 112 Rosemary Lane, 90, go, 91, 92
short jacket, 112, 113, 116, 128
suit, 112, 113, 116, 128 Seamstress, 27, 720, 121
Low Pay Unit, 126-7 Secondhand clothes, 20, 26-7, 26, 32, 80, 90-94
Selincourt & Colman, Selincourt, 121, 121
Magazines, 85, 119-20 Sewing
Mantua, 27-8, 45, 71 home (hand), 80-81, 87-9
Mantua maker, 27-8, 70, 81, 82, 83-4. 85, see also home (machine), 119
dressmaker, milliner see also milliners
Market, cloth, 39 Sewing machine, 80, 105-8, 106, 107, in, 117, 119,
Mass production, 84, 94, 11 1, 122, 124, 125, 130 121, 124, 127, 132
Materials for clothes history, 105-108
general, 8-12 passim, 17-19, 21, 40-41, 51-3 Shawl
wool, 8-12, 18, 21, 25, 28 East Indian, 54, 76-7
cotton, 8, 21 Paisley, 75-6, 77, 77
linen, 8 shop, 78
silk, 8, 21 tartan, 78-9
Mayhew, Henry, 91-4, go, gi, g2, g3 Shirt
Milliner, 53, 81-2, 85-6 men's, 17, 81, 88, 89
Mitford, Mary Russell, 47, 48 women's (blouse), 133, 136
Monmouth Street, 90, 91 Shoddy, 109
Morris, William, 122 Shopping
Multiple shops, 107, 108, 122 general, 17, 54- 5, 67-7
Bath, 69
Night cap, 36 country, 84, 85, 86, 122
Nightgown, 28, 32, 36, 44 London, 13, 15, 31

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Shops travelling, journeyman, 13
general, 12, 17, 51, 54 55, 84-5 Travelling salesmen, 38-9, 40, 70, 7/

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country, 54, 67-9 see also pedlar
London, 13, 14, 15, 31, 39-41, 51, 52, 53-4, 132 Trousers, 75-6, 75, 76, ///, 112
Silas M artier, 63, 66
Singer, Isaac Merrit, 115 'Undress', 27, 65
Skirt, 27, 133, 136
hobble, 137 Vest, waistcoat, men and women, 25, 27, 28, 31
see also petticoat Victorian dress
Smock, smock frock, 47-8, 47, 51 women, early, 108, no, 122
Soap, 96 men's, 128, 130
early,96 Von la Roche, Sophie, 51-4
developments, 97-98
flakes, 97 Washing (clothes), 17, 62, 96
powder, 97 day, 70 71,95,95-6
Spencer, 76 aids, 99, gg
Spinning, 8 12 passim boiler,99
early, 8, 9, //, 17, 18, 23 drying, 96
eighteenth century, 37, 38, 56, 56 7 irons, 100, 102, 102
Jenny, 57,5* machines, 99, 100, 700, 101
mechanization, 57 see also Errdig, Beetons
mule, 57, 5S, 59, 64 Weaving
Stays, 28, 62, 133 early, 8 -12 passim, 8, II, 12
staymaker, 28, 67, 70 general, 17, 18
see also corset eighteenth century, 44, 57, 66, 80
Stores, 122, see also shops machines, 80
Street traders, hawkers, see pedlars mechanization, 57
Suit, 24 5, 25, 26, 27 power loom, §8
lounge, 112, 113 Weeton, Ellen, 87
morning, 113, 116 Wig, 32-6, 33, 34
women's, 137 powdered, 35, 36, 82
woollen, 32, 82, 108-9 see also barber, Dr Johnson
Sweated labour, 82, 84, 88 9, 8g, 124, 124 -5, 125 6, Woodforde, Parson James, 62, 66-71, 82-3, 84, 95-6
126-8 Woollen manufacture, selling, exporting, eighteenth
Tailor, 12-13, I2 7 5.< J 7. 2 °. 25, 27, 2j, 28, 31, 32, century, 37-41, 59, 40
55. 79. 79. 8 °. «i. 124, 125, 133 Working-class clothes, 105

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Costume Reference Books
from Chelsea House

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Costume of Ancient Egypt Everyday Dress 1650-1900 Japan
Costume of Ancient Rome History of Children's Costume Scandinavia
Costume of Old Testament Peoples History of Men's Costume South America
Costume of the Classical World History of Women's Costume U.S.S.R.

The clothes worn by the majority: this is the subject of Everyday Dress 1650-1900. It is

a general account of the costume that clothed the mass of the English population, and was
not ruled by the dictates of high fashion, which was by definition rapidly changing and
worn by an exclusive group. It is a topic not always given full weight in costume histories,
as everyday dress was not generally shown in formal portraits, and there are not many
surviving examples of the clothes themselves.

It is a lively story told as much as possible through first-hand descriptions in diaries and
contemporary writings, including accounts of shops and shopping. The clothes people
wore are related throughout to the history of textiles and manufacturing. The technical
advances of the Industrial Revolution and the use of sweated labor in the clothing trade
are an essential part of the story in the later years of this period.

The end of the Victorian era was the time when "everyday" dress was becoming the dress
of all classes, social and industrial changes rendering meaningless distinctions that had for
centuries ruled the lives of millions. The twentieth century had begun.

Cover illustration:

Detail from The Railway Station,

Paddington, London by W.P. Frith
(reproduced by permission of Leicester City
Museum and Art Gallery) 1 -55546-750-4