HABERDASHERY FOR USE IN DRESS 1550-1800 POLLY HAMILTON BA (Hons) A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2007 This work or any part thereof has not previously been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or for any other purpose (unless otherwise indicated). Save for any express acknowledgments, references and/or bibliographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Polly Hamilton to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned by the author. Signature……………………………………….. Date…………………………………………….. 2 Contents List of Illustrations iii Abstract v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 I. The necessity of haberdashery and its significance in dress 1 II. Haberdashery: general notes 8 III. Methodology: general notes 15 Chapter 1. Historiography and Methodology 23 Part 1. Historiography 23 Part 2. Methodology 50 The sources 52 Database specifications 56 Chapter 2. Haberdashery Wares 62 Part 1. Clothing trends and the influence of haberdashery 63 Part 2. Definition of haberdashery: the wares 66 Points and laces..p.71, Buttons..p.75, Spangles 92 Pins..p.94, Needles..p.98, Thread 99 Chapter 3. Traders in Haberdashery Smallwares 102 Primary source (documentary) evidence 102 Focus counties 107 Traders of haberdashery 119 Haberdashery traders through their inventories 136 Chapter 4. Analysis of Inventories 146 Focus Counties: Cumbria and Westmorland 147 Lancashire 160 Warwickshire and Leicestershire 169 Hampshire and West Sussex 190 London 213 Chapter 5. Analysis of Newspapers, Trade cards, Wills, and Diaries 223 Newspapers 223 Trade cards 231 Wills 238 Diaries and account books 242 Conclusion 263 Abbreviations 289 i Glossary 290 Appendices 1. Dress before the Early Modern Period 325 2. Classification of Buttons from Inventories 332 3. Mary Medhurst, Shop Goods, 1762-1764 333 4. Traders in the Inventory Sample 334 5. Accounts of Miss Grainger, 1778-87 335 6. Trade Card Example 336 7. References: Diaries, Wills, Newspapers, Databases 337 8. Traders Inventories. Lists and references 339 Cumbria 339 Lancashire 340 Warwickshire 341 Leicestershire 342 Hampshire 343 West Sussex 344 London 345 9. Table of Apprentice Bindings 346 Illustrations 347 Bibliography 358 Costume Collections and Art Galleries: References and Acknowledgements 391 ii List of Illustrations Fig. 1. Vecellio’s Renaissance Costume Book, 1521-1601 NAL/V&A 147.B.63 Fig. 2. Laces for fastening over buttons at doublet neck. V&A, 170-69 Fig. 3. Fine cords, tasselled handkerchief and silver looped ribbons worn by Elizabeth Howard, Lady Banbury, c.1619. by Daniel Mytens Fig. 4. Anon. Instructions for Making Purse Strings , 1640, NAL/V&A 86.FF.3. Fig. 5. Decorative points on male clothing. John Granville 1676, by John Michael Wright Fig. 6. Seventeenth century silk covered buttons with silk braid, made over a wooden mould. Victoria and Albert Museum Fig. 7. Man’s embroidered coat with 19 embroidered flower-pattern buttons. Chilcombe House 1972.360 Fig. 8. Faceted glass decoration on man’s corded velvet coat. Eighteenth century. Gunnersbury Museum, 74.44/IL Fig. 9. Breeches button, stitched over wooden mould. c.1740. Bath Museum of Costume Fig.10. Basket weave silver thread buttons on man’s waistcoat. Killerton House, KIL/W/3605A Fig.11. Decorated glove gauntlet, late sixteenth century. Note the tiny size of these early spangles. Bath Costume Museum, Spence Glove Collection, Ref. 23352 Fig.12. Domed spangles, together with flat spangles and facetted glass decoration, 1780s. Bath Museum of Costume. Fig.13. Man’s cream silk coat with embroidery and pressed silk ‘spangles’. Killerton House KIL/W/03782 Fig.14. Man’s velvet coat with pressed silk domes. Victoria and Albert Costume Collection Fig.15. Skirt embroidered with seventeenth-century patterns. Dating unclear. Bath Museum of Costume. Fig.16. Man’s linen shirt embroidered with red silk and having bobbin lace edgings. 1615-25. Warwick Museum H6300 Fig.17. Woman’s coif embroidered with silk fish, having spangle eyes. Metallic braid edge decoration and embroidered loops at front. Lined earflaps. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon. Fig.18. Man’s shoe. Fabric with stitched braid, edged with tape. Eighteenth century. Warwick Museum H.12222 Fig.19. Silver thread embroidery on knitted silk stockings. Late seventeenth century. Killerton House KIL/W/05349 Fig.20. Fringing with coloured floss silk tassels, c.1770-1780. Used extensively on a gown and stomacher. Chilcomb House, Winchester. C1976. 31/309/1-4 Fig.21. Knitted silk stockings, mid-eighteenth century. Bath Museum of Costume. 1720-50 Fig.22. Shoes with matching pattens. Brocade with tape edge binding. c.1720. Killerton House KIL/W/04241 Fig.23. Lindfield Account and Letterbook, 1621 WSRO 18.007 iii iv Abstract This study investigates the supply, distribution and use of haberdashery wares in England in the late sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with especial reference to the paired counties of Cumbria and Lancashire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire, Hampshire and West Sussex. A brief comparison is also made with London. Through examination of documentary evidence and extant examples, it aims to set the provision and use of haberdashery for dress into the context of the Early Modern period, and challenges widely held assumptions concerning the availability of wares through the country. The purpose of the argument is firstly to demonstrate that haberdashery, being both a necessity and a luxury, was an important, and historically traceable, part of traded goods in the early modern period, and secondly, with particular reference to the response of retailers to changing needs and demands, to show that the widescale availability of haberdashery for use in dress made it significant in the expression of personal identity and appearance for individuals of all social strata, while its manufacture and distribution provided employment for considerable numbers of people. v Acknowledgements Over the several years of this project I have received assistance and encouragement from a veritable army of people, to all of whom I offer my sincere thanks. Help has been freely dispensed by a considerable number of Record Office archivists in: Birmingham, Carlisle, Chester, Chichester, Exeter, Lancaster, Leicester, Lichfield, Newport (I.O.W.), Preston, Shrewsbury, Warwick, Winchester, Worcester, and in London at the PRO in Chancery Lane and Kew, the London Record Office, Guildhall, and several departments at the British Museum. For access to additional archive material my thanks to the administrator of Petworth House, Sussex, and to the archivist of the National Trust Southern Area, Polesden Lacy, Surrey (Tracey Avery). I am particularly appreciative of the number of occasions on which I was permitted to photograph documents. I have been welcomed and assisted by Keepers of Costume in, Bath Costume Museum (Rosemary Hurden); Blaise Castle House, Bristol, (Linda Coode); Chilcombe House, Winchester, (Alison Carter); Gunnersbury Park Museum, (Sarah Levitt); Hampton Court Textile Conservation Department, (Jenny Band); Hartlebury: Hereford and Worcester County Museum; Killerton Manor, Broadclyst, Exeter, (Atherton Harrison and Elizabeth); The Museum of London (Kay Staniland); Macclesfield Silk Museum; Osterley Park; Platt Hall, Manchester, (Mrs. P. Jarvis); Red House, Christchurch; Costume Collection, St. John’s House Warwick; Textile and Dress Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Claire Browne and Miss A. Hart). Thanks to the many who so kindly and enthusiastically assisted with the photography of their precious and fragile examples. I am pleased to acknowledge the help I have received from librarians at the following Libraries: Bath Costume Reference Library, Birmingham Library, British Library, Glasgow University Library, Ironbridge Museum Library, National Art Library at the V&A London, Westminster Abbey Library, and Wolverhampton University Library. vi My initial researches were helped by Dr. Ian Archer of Downing College, Cambridge, and Helen Bradley, Archivist at Haberdashers Hall, London, and I have been greatly informed by discussions with curators of the following Art Galleries: The National Portrait Gallery, The National Gallery, The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, and The Tate Gallery. At the Witt Computer Library, my thanks to Dr. Cathy Gordon, and Matthew Imms. I am particularly grateful to Negley Harte, and the Pasold Research Fund for the contribution to the project at its inception; together with two twentieth century haberdashery companies for their sponsorship: Olney Amsden, and Selectus. I thank the Board of the University of Wolverhampton for their patience and understanding through various personal crises over a number of years, for financial assistance, and for the opportunity to work on this absorbing subject. I thank my husband Alexander Hamilton for his continuing support. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my supervisors: David Greysmith, M.Phil., former Senior Lecturer in History & Theory of Art and Design, Wolverhampton University; John Styles, Head of the V&A/RCA MA Course in the History of Design, and in particular Dr. Nancy Cox, Honorary Research Fellow and Academic Editor,