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Abstract
In the summer of 1850, there was a frisson of excitement in London society. Charlotte Brontë, the recently revealed writer of the best-selling novel Jane Eyre, was in the capital, staying with her publisher, George Smith. The highlight of Charlotte’s trip was a large, formal dinner hosted by her literary hero, William Makepeace Thackeray. To this august event it has long been assumed that she wore a floral print, white and blue delaine skirt and bodice. This article begins by examining the colloquially named ‘Thackeray Dress’ in detail, before considering the evidence given in support of it having been worn to the dinner on 12 June 1850. The style and fabric of the dress are then compared to others of the period and this is followed by an examination of contemporary sartorial conventions, and the extent of Charlotte Brontë’s adherence to them. Questions raised by these findings are then considered alongside reports that suggest the dress may not have been worn on this occasion. Published in the bicentenary year of Brontë’s birth, this study questions the validity of the garment’s association with the legendary Thackeray dinner and, in so doing, attempts to separate fact from fiction.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Ann Dinsdale and Sarah Laycock of the Brontë Parsonage for granting me such privileged access to the ‘Thackeray Dress’ and for their constant support throughout this project. I am also grateful to Professor Maria Hayward, Dr Mary Hammond and Elizabeth Houghton for their unwavering encouragement and advice during the writing of this paper. My thanks must also be extended to Dr Philip Sykas for so generously sharing his knowledge of the manufacture and printing of delaine fabric. Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Alexandra Kim and Valerie Cumming for their skilful editing.
Notes
1 Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs (London: Macmillan and Company, 1894), p. 60.
2 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 60; and Winifred Gerin, Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 431.
3 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, pp. 60–61.
4 Charlotte Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Two, 1848–1851, ed. by Margaret Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 414.
5 The first edition of Jane Eyre was published in three volumes by Smith, Elder and Co. and sold at 31s. 6d. It was released on 19 October 1847; the second edition, dedicated to William Makepeace Thackeray, was published just three months later, in January 1848. See also Sidney Lee, George Smith and Leslie Stephen, George Smith: A Memoir (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 96.
6 Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Two, p. 414.
7 Lee, Smith and Stephen, George Smith, p. 96.
8 Lee, Smith and Stephen, George Smith, p. 99.
9 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 63.
10 Lyndall Gordon, Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life (London: Virago Press, 2008), p. 233.
11 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 63.
12 Charlotte was adhering to the conventions of mourning dress following Anne’s death in May 1849. See Harriet Martineau quoted in Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 310.
13 Juliet Barker, The Brontës (London: Abacus Books, 2010), p. 1103, note 47.
14 See George Richmond, Charlotte Brontë, 1850. Chalk, 600 x 476 mm. London: National Portrait Gallery, No. 1452. Lord Knutsford also remembered Charlotte wearing the green dress seen in the chalk painting. See ‘Letter from Edmund Gosse to Clifford Allbutt, April 28 1924’, in The Brontës: Interviews and Recollections, ed. by Harold Orel (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1997), p. 12.
15 Charlotte frequently used mourning stationery for letters written between 28 September 1848 and 22 May 1850. See Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume 2.
16 Delaine is a fine fabric with a cotton warp and worsted weft.
17 The garment was extensively restored in 1983. However, some lines of machine stitching are also apparent on both the skirt and bodice, and were added in the years after Brontë’s death.
18 The third of the four seams of the outer fabric of the skirt, starting from the centre back, is machine stitched. The other three seams have been hand stitched.
19 Taking into account the differences in style and the subsequent alterations, the ‘Thackeray Dress’ has similar dimensions to Charlotte’s largely unaltered ‘Going Away Dress’ (see Figure ).
20 See Cautley Holmes Cautley, ‘Old Haworth Folk Who Knew the Brontës’ (1910), in Orel, The Brontës: Interviews and Recollections, p. 211.
21 As will be discussed later, Esther Chadwick had the dress in her possession when she talked to Tabitha Ratcliffe about the Thackeray dinner of 1850.
22 Esther A. Chadwick wrote under the name of Mrs Ellis Chadwick.
23 Mrs Ellis Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës (London: Sir Isaac Pitman, 1914), p. 398.
24 Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë.
25 Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith, The Oxford Companion to the Brontës (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 120.
26 Esther Chadwick described being given the dress by descendants of Martha Brown and acknowledged that Eleanor Ratcliffe ‘had worn the dress for a time when she was a girl’. See Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës, p. 398.
27 No evidence has been found that the samples have been taken directly from dresses that remain in the collection at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. However, in the case of both the ‘Thackeray Dress’ and the ‘Going Away Dress’, excess fabric kept for repairs has survived and it is likely that the swatches were taken from these or others like them.
28 See John Hannavey, Encyclopaedia of Nineteenth Century Photography, Volume 1, A-I (New York and London: Routledge, 2007), p. 1086.
29 Deborah Lutz, Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 55.
30 Deborah Lutz, The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2015), p. 241.
31 Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 3.
32 Fabric fragments of Charlotte Brontë’s dress on card, date unknown. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, D136.
33 The larger card (see Figure ) has four different fabrics, one of which is identifiable as fabric from the ‘Going Away Dress’ of 1854. The smaller card features just the white and blue delaine of the ‘Thackeray Dress’.
34 See note 26.
35 For an example, see Morning Dress, 1844. British. Wool. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number: 1979.385.2.
36 Lucy Johnson, Nineteenth Century Fashion in Detail (London: V&A Publications, 2005), p. 174.
37 See Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion 1, Englishwomen’s Dresses and Their Construction c1660–1860 (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 67.
38 Penelope Byrde, Nineteenth Century Fashion (London: Batsford, 1992), p. 55.
39 This measurement is based on thorough examination of her remaining clothes and shoes as well as written and oral reports from those who knew her. For the average height of women, see Liza Picard, Victorian London: The Life of the City 1840–1970 (London: Orion Books, 2005), p. 218.
40 Charlotte Brontë Workbox and Contents, date unknown. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. HA0BP: H87. The back of the button can be seen in ‘Image 50’ of Juliet Barker, Sixty Treasures of the Brontë Parsonage Museum (Keighley: Incorporated Brontë Society, 1988), p. 50.
41 John Tallis, History and Description of the Crystal Palace and the Exhibition of the World’s Industry in 1851, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 172.
42 Thomas Webster and Mrs William Parkes, An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy: Comprising Such Subjects That Are Most Immediately Connected with Household Duties (London: Longman Brown Green and Longmans, 1844), p. 193.
43 Charlotte Brontë — Whalebone Corset, date unknown. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. D116.
44 Jane Ashelford, The Art of Dress: Clothes and Society 1500–1914 (London: National Trust Enterprises, 1996), p. 218.
45 The skirt has been examined for stitch marks that might indicate a previous flounce or flounces. For evidence of flounces in 1850s dress, see ‘Dress 5’ in Figure .
46 Ashelford, The Art of Dress, p. 218.
47 Barker, The Brontës, p. 461.
48 Kings School, Canterbury, Hugh Walpole Collection, Ellen Nussey, Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë, 1831–1855, undated MS, p. 16.
49 For an example, see Ashelford, The Art of Dress, p. 220. The photograph features a dark blue silk dress with large, opulent pagoda sleeves, dated to 1857.
50 For an example, see Figure .
51 While the production of delaine was centred in the West Riding area, there were also centres in Norfolk, England.
52 John James, The History of Worsted Manufacture in England (London: Longman, Brown, Longmans, and Roberts, 1857), p. 472.
53 Steve Wood, Haworth, Oxenhope and Stanbury from Old Maps (Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2014).
54 Holmes Cautley, ‘Old Haworth Folk’, p. 212.
55 Mary Taylor was the elder daughter of the fabric manufacturer Joshua Taylor, and Ellen Nussey’s father, John, was a woollen manufacturer and merchant who had interests in Brookroyd Mills in Birstall.
56 See Alexander and Smith, Oxford Companion to the Brontës, p. 540.
57 Holmes Cautley, ‘Old Haworth Folk’, p. 211.
58 Holmes Cautley, ‘Old Haworth Folk’, p. 211.
59 James, History of Worsted Manufacture in England, p. 480.
60 In 1845, 48,097 people were employed in the manufacture of wool-based products compared with 74,841 in 1850. See James, History of Worsted Manufacture in England, p. 511.
61 James, History of Worsted Manufacture in England, p. 510.
62 James, History of Worsted Manufacture in England, p. 506. The ‘Ten Hours Act’ of 1847 did not allow women and children to work for more than ten hours a day. See Robert Gray, The Factory System and Industrial England, 1830–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
63 Gary Firth, ‘The Bradford Trade’, in Victorian Bradford, Essays in Honour of Jack Reynolds, ed. by D.G. Wright and J.A. Jowett (Bradford: City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 1982), p. 15.
64 Edward Parnell, Applied Chemistry: In Manufactures, Arts and Domestic Economy (New York: Appleton, 1846), p. 173.
65 Susan W. Greene, Textiles for Early Victorian Clothing 1850–1880. A Workbook of Swatches and Information (Arlington, VA: Q Graphics Production Company, 2002), p. 28.
66 The World of Fashion (1844) as quoted in Christopher Breward, The Culture of Fashion (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 150.
67 Charles O’Neill, Chemistry of Calico Printing, Dyeing and Bleaching including Silken, Woollen and Mixed Goods, Practical and Theoretical (Manchester: Dunnill, Palmer and Company 1860), pp. 241–51; and Charles O’Neill and A. A. Fesquet, A Dictionary of Dyeing and Calico Printing (Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1869), p. 191.
68 Edward Parnell, Dyeing and Calico Printing (London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly, 1849), p. 223.
69 O’ Neill, Chemistry of Calico Printing, Dyeing and Bleaching, pp. 334–43.
70 Information courtesy of Dr Philip Sykas, 27 October 2015.
71 Print works emerged in London in the seventeenth century, but by the nineteenth century the focus had shifted to the north of the country. Lancashire printing and finishing began to dominate the British market and by 1851 in Accrington alone there were five printing works employing 1200 people. See Linda Parry, The Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Collection: British Textile Collection from 1850–1900 (London: V&A Publications, 1999), p. 10; and William Turner, Patterns of Migration in Textile Workers into Accrington in the Early Nineteenth Century, p. 28 <www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/PDF/LPS30/LPS30_1983_28-34.pdf> [accessed 10 October 2015].
72 Philip Sykas, The Secret of Textiles: Six Pattern Book Archives in North West England (Bolton: Bolton Museums, 2005), p. 107.
73 Philip Sykas, Identifying Printed Textiles in Dress 1740-1890 (DATS and V&A Publication, 2007) <www.dressandtextilespecialists.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Printed-Textiles-Booklet.pdf> [accessed 25 April 2015].
74 With thanks to Dr Philip Sykas for his help and advice with this section.
75 Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës, p. 398.
76 Henry Cole and Richard Redgrave, The Journal of Design and Manufacturers, Volume II (London: Chapman and Hall, 1850), p. 22.
77 Parry, Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Collection, p. 10.
78 Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations 1851: Reports by the Juries, ed. by Charles Wentworth Dilke (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1852), p. 743.
79 Exhibition of the Works of Industry, p. 742.
80 Exhibition of the Works of Industry, p. 742.
81 Exhibition of the Works of Industry, p. 742.
82 Categories of daywear listed in the 1850 editions of the Le Belle Assemblée are Morning Dress, Promenade Dress, Carriage Dress, Home Dress, Public Promenade Dress, Morning Visiting Dress.
83 Christine Walkley and Vanda Foster, Crinolines and Crimping Irons: Victorian Clothes —How They Were Cleaned and Cared For (London: Peter Owens, 1978), p. 18.
84 C. Willett and Phyllis Cunnington, Handbook of English Costume in the Nineteenth Century (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p. 449.
85 The New Monthly Belle Assemblée, January–June 1850, p. 384.
86 The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook of Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen (London: James Hogg and Sons, 1850s), pp. 178–79.
87 Vanda Foster, A Visual History of Costume: The Nineteenth Century (London: Batsford, 1984), p. 70.
88 Elizabeth Aldrich, From the Ballroom to Hell: Grace and Folly in Nineteenth Century Dance (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991), p. 26; and Alison Gernshein, Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey (New York: Dover Publications, 1981), p. 28.
89 Holmes Cautley, ‘Old Haworth Folk’, p. 211. Due to their different class status, it is unlikely that a mill worker would have been present at a formal evening event.
90 Charlotte Brontë, Villette: Volume 3 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1853), p. 113.
91 Anonymous, Etiquette, Social Ethics and the Courtesies of Society (London: Orr & Company, 1845), p. 26.
92 Philippe Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 8.
93 Unknown Reviewer, The Rambler. Volume 3 (London: John Acton, September 1848), Part 9, p. 65.
94 Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Two, pp. 113–14.
95 Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Two, p. 298.
96 Barker, The Brontës, p. 729.
97 Rebecca Fraser, Charlotte Brontë: A Writer’s Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2008), p. 346.
98 The Lady’s Newspaper, 6 April 1850 (London: Ebeneezer Landells).
99 Barker, The Brontës, pp. 730–31.
100 Ritchie’s account was written in 1894, forty-four years after the party. Chadwick’s account was written another twenty years later, in 1914.
101 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 65.
102 Lillian F. Shankman, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Journals and Letters, ed. by Abigail Burnham Bloom and John Maynard (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1994), p. xi.
103 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 60.
104 Henrietta Garnett, Anny: A Life of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie (London: Pimlico, 2006), p. 10.
105 Robert Louis Stevenson, The Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson (New York: Digireads.com, 2011), p. 327.
106 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 60.
107 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 60.
108 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 60.
109 Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës, p. 398.
110 Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës, p. 398.
111 ‘Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Letter to Reginald J. Smith, 18th October 1906’, in Hester Ritchie, Letters of Anne Thackeray Ritchie, with Forty-Two Additional Letters from her Father, William Makepeace Thackeray (London: John Murray, 1924), pp. 269–70.
112 It must be noted, however, that in making these assertions, Chadwick’s aim was not to prove the provenance of the ‘Thackeray Dress’, but rather to disprove that an anonymous portrait purported to be of Charlotte wearing a green dress was in fact a fake.
113 La Belle Assemblée, July–December 1850, p. 63.
114 ‘Cartoon 65’, Punch, July–December 1850 (London: Henry Mayhew).
115 Sotheby Auctioneers, (1916), p. 96.
116 Charlotte Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Three, 1852–1855 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 266.
117 Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Three, p. 96.
118 After Martha Brown’s death in 1880, her possessions, including items left to her by Charlotte and her husband Arthur Nicholls, were distributed between her five sisters and their descendants. See Alexander and Smith, Oxford Companion to the Brontës, p. 419.
119 See The Ladies Companion and Monthly Magazine, Volume V, Second Series, 1854, pp. 107, 834 (London: Rogerson).
120 Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës, p. 398.
121 Brontë, ‘Letter to Ellen Nussey, 12 June 1850’, in Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Two, p. 414.
122 Brontë, ‘Letter to Ellen Nussey, 12 June 1850’, p. 414.
123 Brontë, ‘Letter to Ellen Nussey, 12 June 1850’, p. 414.
124 Lee, Smith and Stephen, George Smith, p. 100.
125 William Makepeace Thackeray in a Letter to Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 6 June 1850, quoted in Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Volume Two, p. 413.
126 Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters from Some Memoirs, p. 60.
127 Lutz, Relics of Death, p. 17.