Dress (Georgian and Victorian)

There weren’t as many differences between rich and poor people’s clothes in the Victorian period as there were in earlier periods. Clothes became more sober and restrained in the Victorian period, especially for men. Women’s clothes were still quite ostentatious but were in quieter colours like black, white and pastel colours.

Not many pieces of clothing survive from the Victorian period but Buckinghamshire County Museum has a few pieces. Do a search on the museum collection website for pieces of clothing and jewellery and try to find the answers to these questions: 

1. When was the wedding dress made? What is it made of?
2. What were dress suspenders for?
3. When was the bonnet made? What is it decorated with?
4. What are the smocks made out of?
5. Who did the lace collar from The Lee belong to?
6. What are the sticks on the fans made out of? What do the pictures show?
7. What is the butterfly brooch made out of?
8. Find the brooch from Delhi. Who is the portrait of? What date is the brooch?
9. There are two nineteenth century bracelets from overseas. Where they are from?
10. Were all of the pieces of clothing and jewellery above made for and worn by women?

The smocks would have been worn by men. Do a search on the Buckinghamshire Photographs website. Put the word smock in the “Object” field. Write here which villages men were in when they were photographed wearing smocks:

What kind of men are they? Can you think of any reason these men might need to wear a smock? Do some research on the Internet or in books to find out. Most of the rest of the clothing in Buckinghamshire County Museum was for women. Why do you think that women’s clothing survives more often than men’s? What kind of woman would have had a silk brocade wedding dress, a bonnet with a silk bow, a lace collar, an ivory fan, and silver and gold jewellery?

Since most of what has survived belonged to rich women, what are the other ways that we can find out about what people wore in the past? Pictures are one way. Do a search on the Buckinghamshire Photographs database. Put the word clothing into the “Objects” field and 1880=1889 and find the answers to the following questions:

1. Find the picture of men loading logs onto a barge at Marlow. What are the men wearing? What kind of men are they?
2. Find the photograph of Hazell Watson and Viney band. What kind of outfits are they all wearing? How many men have moustaches? There are three different types of hat being worn, what are they? How many men are wearing ties? What kind of men are they?
3. Find the picture of Alfred de Rothschild. He is wearing a cravat instead of a tie and has a very large and droopy moustache. What kind of man is he?
4. Find the picture of Ceely House on Church Street, Aylesbury. What are the women wearing? What are the men wearing? What kind of people are they?
5. Find the picture of Swanbourne schoolchildren. What are the girls wearing? What are the boys wearing? What are their haircuts like?

Now do the same search but for the years 1890=1899 and answer the following questions: 

1. Find the shop on 67 Cambridge Street, Aylesbury. What are the Stevens brothers wearing? What kind of men are they?
2. Find the picture of three women and a boy in Askett. What are the women wearing? What kind of women are they? What is the baby wearing?
3. Find the wedding party at Butcher’s Arms, Dark Lane, Oving. How many men have moustaches? How do they do their hair? What are the women wearing? Can you work out which one is the bride? How is she similar to a modern bride? How is she different?
4. Find the Walker family from Marsh Gibbon. What pattern does Samuel have on his trousers? What is Elizabeth wearing? What pattern does Jane Elizabeth have on her blouse? Both men have beards. What kind of people are they?
5. Find the wedding of Emily Silver and Frank Edwards in Long Crendon. Can you tell which one is the bride? Who is the bride’s father? How can you tell? There are two boys in sailor’s outfits in the front. What kind of people do you think they are? 
6. Find the picture of two children in donkey baskets at Home Farm, Wingrave. Are they boys or girls? It is difficult to say, because both boys and girls wore dresses until the age of about 3 or 4.
7. Find St Leonard’s School in Cholesbury cum St Leonards. What would the schoolmistress on the right have to wear to make her that shape? One of the boys is dressed like a girl; can you find which one?

Fill in this table with what you have learnt about what people wore in the Victorian period:

Now you can choose to draw a rich and poor man or a rich and poor woman, using what you have seen and the table you filled in above.

Go back to find out more about the Rich and poor.