David Wilcox

Ribeiro Aileen

English

 In the early years of the twentieth century, the surviving wardrobe of the Georgian banke r Thomas Coutts (1735–1822) was donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This large collection of clothing was subsequently parcelled up and dispersed to museums around Britain and North America. This essay gives an account of this process and attempts to provide a description of Coutts’ late wardrobe, discusses how it relates to his life and times and re-unites on paper, at least, the surviving strands of the original collection. The essay also presents details of the cut and construction of some of these clothes, through descriptions, photography and annotated cutting diagrams. </jats:p

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Costume

The Clothing of a Georgian Banker, Thomas Coutts: A Story of Museum Dispersal

In the early years of the twentieth century, the surviving wardrobe of the Georgian banker Thomas Coutts (1735-1822) was donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This large collection of clothing was subsequently parcelled up and dispersed to museums around Britain and North America. This essay gives an account of this process and attempts to provide a description of Coutts' late wardrobe, discuss how it relates to his life and times and re-unites on paper, at least, the surviving strands of the original collection. This essay also presents details of the cut and construction of some of these clothes, through descriptions, photography and annotated cutting diagrams

Wilcox, David

Edinburgh Research Explorer

A form listing the contents of the gift was filled out by the museum and signed and dated by Francis Coutts on 12

A minute signed by

also states that a set of clothes was cleaned and given to the bank. A document lists the selections made for loan to the V&A and for preservation at the bank.

An image of a lay for the most economical cut of a coat of the type Coutts wore can be found in Fabric of Society,

Another valuable source of information on the formation of the V&A, its internal and external politics, its collecting policies and much else about its early history is: Anthony Burton,

Baron-Wilson, Memoirs of Miss Mellon,

Coleridge also gives an account of this injury by including a letter from Thomas to his lawyer, instructing him to draw up a new will making it explicit that Harriot should inherit everything he owned

Draft of a letter dated 3

Establishing Dress History (Manchester and New York:

Establishing Dress History,

For a longer discussion of male dress in the early nineteenth century, see Aileen Ribeiro, The Art of Dress,

For a longer exploration of this theme, see Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, revised edition (New Haven and London:

Four Hundred Years of Fashion,

In the V&A Collection there is a linen shirt, late eighteenth century (object T.360-1984) showing these finely pleated sleeves.

Life of Thomas Coutts,

London, nominal file: Francis Coutts, ref. MA/1/C2922. The loan was delivered to the Art Museum

London: portrait (etching) by Adam Buck of John Cartwright, NPG D8549. This can be viewed online at

Men in Black (London: Reaktion Books,

Myerly, British Military Spectacle

Necessities: Food and Clothing in the Long Eighteenth Century’

Nightshirts bearing these unusual fastenings can be found in the following collections: Victoria and Albert Museum, London (317HH-1908); Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (A1915.225f); Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum

The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France,

the bank, Coutts & Co., had been sent a clothes parcel.

The biographical information on Thomas Coutts’ life and work is drawn from three sources: Edna Healey, Coutts & Co 1692-1989, The Portrait of a Private Bank (London: Hodder and

The Bond Street Loungers, a satirical print of London notables by Richard Dighton, published in 1820, can be found reproduced in Elizabeth Ewing, Everyday Dress 1650-1900

The Culture of Clothing,

The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Regime (Cambridge:

The cut-out silhouette is reproduced in Ernest H.

The earliest biographer, Mrs Cornwell Baron-Wilson, tells of a visit to a chemist shop, where Thomas Coutts was mistaken for a gentleman of reduced means by a fellow customer and would-be benefactor

The Foundation stone for the new Aston Webb building on Cromwell Road was laid by Queen Victoria in 1899. The building was opened by King Edward

The Georgian Gentleman (Farnborough: Saxon House,

The Georgian Gentleman,

The habit of their age’,

There is a draft of a letter requesting this permission, dated 22/VI/08, presumably in response to Francis Coutts’ suggestion that the remainder of the clothes be destroyed.

This gives an account of linen and wool drawers worn by Jefferson. The V&A has two pairs of men’s linen drawers, [3] late eighteenth century, object numbers T.607.1996 and T.608.1996. These are of comparable cut to those of Coutts and Jefferson.

Thomas Nevill Money-Coutts, 5th Baron Latymer (1852-1923). He became Lord Latymer in 1913. In the V&A documentation, he is referred to simply as Francis Coutts or as Lord Latymer.

Tietania, being an essay on Starchers, by One of the Cloth (London:

Under Waistcoats and Drawers’,

The Clothing of a Georgian Banker, Thomas Coutts:A Story of Museum Dispersal

The Clothing of a Georgian Banker, Thomas Coutts:A Story of Museum Dispersal

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