Unravelling the Mystery: Charlotte Brontë’s 1850 ‘Thackeray Dress’

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.

keywords:

• Charlotte Brontë
• William Makepeace Thackeray
• bicentenary
• delaine
• nineteenth-century fashion
• Jane Eyre
• West Riding
• Yorkshire

Introduction

On 12 June 1850, in fashionable Kensington, a dinner was held to which the great and the good of London’s literary society had been invited. Writer and philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1891) and his wife Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–1866), acclaimed poet Adelaide Anne Proctor (1825–1864), socialite and hostess Jane Brookfield (1821–1896) and playwright Catherine Crowe (1803–1876), to name but a few, had gathered at the home of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) for a very special purpose.

In many ways, there was nothing unusual about this dinner party. Thackeray often entertained London’s literati, and counted as friends eminent writers such as Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892), Charles Dickens (1812–1870), Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) and Robert Browning (1812–1889). On this particular June evening, however, excitement hung in the air. Thackeray anxiously paced the floor.¹ He was waiting — and as his daughter Anne later wrote, he rarely waited — for his guest of honour, Miss Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855), ‘the lioness of the hour’.² Hidden behind the pseudonym of Currer Bell, the elusive and newly revealed writer of the much-celebrated novel Jane Eyre had done all she could to retain her anonymity (Figure 1). However, despite her vehement protestations, the proverbial cat was out of the bag, and London was at her feet.

Figure 1. J. H. Thompson, Charlotte Brontë, 1850s. Oil on canvas. Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, No. P25

© The Brontë Society

Therefore, at seven o’clock on that hot summer evening, Thackeray met the carriage and took his guest of honour’s mittened hand. The ‘tiny, delicate, serious little lady, pale, with fair straight hair and steady eyes’ entered, ‘in silence, in seriousness’, while the hearts of those waiting beat with ‘wild excitement’.³

Charlotte, though nervous and unused to social events on this scale, was also filled with anticipation. Earlier in the day on 12 June, she had written to her friend Ellen Nussey (1817–1897) with palpable enthusiasm, ‘if all be well, I am to dine at [Thackeray’s] house this evening’.⁴ It was to Thackeray that she had dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre and on whom she gazed ‘with kindling eyes of interest’.⁵ He was her hero and his dinner was to be a ‘chief incident’ in her busy trip to London. For Charlotte, the event was to rival only a sighting of the Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) and a visit to the House of Commons.⁶

Sadly, the eagerness of both Brontë and the assembled guests was to be short lived. Charlotte was most agitated in company. There was little evidence of the ‘quick and clear intelligence’ noted by her publisher, George Smith (1824–1901).⁷ Adelaide Anne Proctor was later to describe it as ‘one of the dullest evenings she ever spent in her life’.⁸ Clearly, Charlotte did not dazzle her new acquaintances with the wit or charm expected of so radical a writer. Everyone waited for brilliant conversation, but it never came.⁹ Instead, Charlotte found a safe corner of the study next to Miss Truelock, governess to Thackeray’s daughters, and offered only an occasional dreary comment. To the disappointment of those around her, Charlotte had made herself invisible when she was meant to play the celebrity.¹⁰ Thus, as soon as she had left, Thackeray, ‘much perturbed by the gloom and the silence’, abandoned his remaining guests and slipped off to his club.¹¹

The evening may not have been a success, but it was clearly significant. The dinner on 12 June 1850 was a public marker of Charlotte Brontë’s arrival on the literary scene. As a highly important occasion for Charlotte, choosing appropriate dress would surely have been key. Sartorial decisions would have been complicated by a recent period of extended mourning. Charlotte’s brother Branwell (1817–1848) had died in September 1848 and her sister Emily (1818–1848) in December of the same year. These early and tragic deaths had been followed by the loss of her last remaining sibling, Anne (1820–1849) on 28 May 1849. The writer Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) wrote about meeting Charlotte Brontë on 9 December 1849. She recalled how she was dressed ‘in a deep mourning dress, neat as a Quaker’s’.¹²

Charlotte’s London trip took place just over a year since Anne’s death; it is thus significant that renowned biographer Juliet Barker suggests that she had come out of mourning in the days before her trip.¹³ There is no evidence that she had entered into half-mourning and in fact, on the day after the dinner, and again on 15 and 24 June, Charlotte sat for George Richmond R.A. (1809–1896) wearing a green dress.¹⁴ She had also ceased to use mourning stationery by May 1850.¹⁵ Arguably, after such a long period of grieving, Charlotte may have used her trip to London to mark a new and brighter stage in her life.

Much speculation surrounds Brontë’s clothing choice for this important dinner. Hanging in a store in her old home, which is now the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire, is a dress known colloquially as the ‘1850 Thackeray Dress’ (Figure 2). It hangs beneath layers of protective calico — a white and blue delaine dress with a pretty floral print of leaves, flowers and tendrils.¹⁶

Figure 2. Charlotte Brontë ‘Thackeray Dress’, 1850s. Printed delaine. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. D129. 1&2

© The Brontë Society

The Dress in Detail

As is apparent in Figure 2, this dress is formed from a separate long sleeved, high-necked bodice and a full, floor-length skirt. Both are made from a plain woven, white ground printed fabric consisting of a cotton warp and worsted weft. The four-panelled skirt is full and bell-shaped with a flat front panel. Its waistband, which is 59 cm in girth, has been replaced during restoration, and there are patched areas immediately beneath. It is likely that the original waistband has been added to the bottom of the bodice to add length for a subsequent, taller wearer.¹⁷ Its front panel is unpleated, but there are deep knife pleats at each hip, and narrow cartridge pleats at the back of the skirt (see Figures 3 and 4). At the hem, the skirt is 239 cm in circumference. It is 88.5 cm in length, excluding the waistband. The lining is separate from the skirt and has been made from loosely woven, plain weave cotton and, despite subsequent machine alterations, was originally hand stitched using white cotton thread.¹⁸ A 4 cm wide cotton tape has been added on the inside at the hem, though this is a later addition.¹⁹

Figure 3. Eleanor Houghton, Line Drawing of Front of Charlotte Brontë ‘Thackeray Dress’, 2015. Pen and ink

© Eleanor Houghton

Figure 4. Eleanor Houghton, Line Drawing of Back of Charlotte Brontë ‘Thackeray Dress’, 2015. Pen and ink

© Eleanor Houghton

The high-necked bodice finishes at the waist, and features slightly sloping shoulders and long, tightly fitted, shaped sleeves. There is a centre front opening, side seams and two side back seams that run from the waist to the armholes. The fabric at the front of the bodice has been pleated at the shoulder before being gathered into the waistband to form loose, irregular, decorative pleats. The waistband of the bodice is 3.5 cm deep and is fastened by hooks and eyelets. Only the left side seam and the back seam of the bodice appear to be in the original hand stitching. All the other seams have either been machine stitched or hand stitched using a different thread. The sleeves have been set in by hand and show no signs of machine stitching. They have been lined using the same plain weave cotton fabric as the skirt. The inside seams on the sleeves are twisted to allow for a closer fit. There are clear signs of pulling and deterioration at the seams, under the arms and from forearm to wrist, indicating that someone of a larger size has worn the bodice subsequently. Though the fabric remains vibrant in colour, small wedge-shaped segments of fabric that are slightly less faded have been inserted under the arm and at the wrist. There is a centre front opening, side seams and two curved back seams that run from the waistband to the armholes. Nine brass and mother of pearl buttons fasten the front of the bodice, the main body of which has been lined with a stiff, cream cotton fabric for added strength.

The bust measures approximately 74 cm and two slits have been cut in the lining of the bodice, presumably to accommodate a larger wearer. The mandarin collar is made from brown silk velvet and remains of the original blue and delaine fabric can be seen beneath. The collar was a later addition by Eleanor Ratcliffe (1870–1963), the niece of the Brontë’s long-standing servant, Martha Brown (1828–1880).²⁰

A Brief History of Ownership

After Charlotte’s death in 1855, the ‘Thackeray Dress’ was left to Martha Brown. After Martha’s death in 1880, her effects were divided between her sisters and it is likely that Tabitha Ratcliffe (1834–1910) was the sibling who received the dress, as it was later worn by Tabitha’s daughter, Eleanor, who made some alterations. However, as the dress was put up for sale at Sotheby’s in 1916 by William Binns (dates unknown), one of Martha’s nephews, it is possible that the dress was left to her eldest sister, Ann Binns (1826–1894), who then lent the dress to her niece. At some point before Tabitha Ratcliffe’s death in 1910, the writer Esther Chadwick (1829–1862) ‘had the dress in her possession’.²¹ It is not known whether the dress was on loan to Chadwick or for how long she had it. The dress was donated to the Brontë Society in 1928, where it has remained ever since.

Evidence in Support of the Dress having been Worn to Thackeray’s Dinner

There are two important pieces of evidence that support the claim that Charlotte wore this dress to the dinner held in her honour. In The Footsteps of the Brontës, the author Esther Chadwick writes of showing Anne Thackeray, Lady Ritchie, a portion of the ‘Thackeray Dress’.²² Chadwick writes, ‘she recognized it at once; it [was] a white delaine, with a tiny pattern of tiny bright blue leaves, and small tendrils, joined together with a faint line’.²³ Esther Chadwick, after reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte, moved near to Haworth so as to more readily gather information about her literary heroines.²⁴ She collected oral histories about Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë and made ‘repeated pilgrimages’ to every ‘Brontë shrine in England and Belgium’.²⁵ Chadwick was keen to establish the link between the extant garment and the Thackeray dinner of 1850.²⁶ Significantly, she questioned Tabitha Ratcliffe, Martha Brown’s sister, who confirmed that Charlotte had worn the dress on the evening in question. As previously stated, Chadwick had the dress in her possession at the time of talking to Tabitha Ratcliffe, who died in 1910, but it is likely to have been on loan from either the Binns or the Ratcliffes.

The second piece of evidence exists in the form of two rather unassuming pieces of cardboard (Figure 5). These cards, which are now housed in the Brontë Parsonage Museum along with several others, have samples of fabric stuck to them with glue. The swatches were taken from excess fabric of the same type used in Charlotte’s dresses and after her death were sent out to her admirers as mementoes.²⁷ During the Victorian period fabric swatches, taken from the clothing of the deceased, were often retained and were frequently placed inside lockets and later behind photographs.²⁸ However, as Deborah Lutz writes in Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture, ‘“celebrity” relic collecting became an increasingly popular practice, beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing throughout the nineteenth’.²⁹ Brontë herself owned a mahogany chip taken from Napoleon’s outer coffin, given to her by her Belgian teacher, Constantin Héger (1809–1896).³⁰

Figure 5. Fabric Swatches of Charlotte Brontë’s Dress on Card, date unknown. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. D136

© The Brontë Society

The existence of these swatches is thought provoking. They not only highlight the extent to which Charlotte Brontë was, and continues to be, collectively owned, but also the significance of material culture to those of the past as well as of the present. These souvenirs embody the universality of Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass’s assertion that ‘material reminders can be working even when what is recalled is absent or dead’.³¹

As a further reminder of the importance of these swatches, written above the fragments of the white and blue delaine in a neat, cursive hand are the words, ‘Piece of a dress worn by Charlotte Brontë at Thackeray’s dinner party, June 12 1850’.³² Portions of Brontë’s 1854 ‘Going Away Dress’ and two other garments, said to have been worn on her honeymoon to Ireland, have been labelled in a similarly clear and decisive manner. It is likely that these, and other examples, were sent out relatively soon after Brontë’s death, as, on the larger card, four different pieces of fabric have been included.³³ Charlotte’s belongings were dispersed in the years after her death; her husband Arthur Nicholls (1819–1906) took some to Ireland, some were auctioned in the sale of 1861 and others were shared between servants, friends and relatives. The cards must therefore have been compiled while fabric from all of these dresses was still available and before all Charlotte’s clothing had been distributed more widely.

At the Brontë Parsonage Museum, it was first thought that Tabitha Ratcliffe had assembled the swatches, but samples of her handwriting have since been compared, and there is no match to the black italic lettering. It is highly likely, however, that the creator was someone with a close association to the Brontë family — and probably had some familial connection to Martha Brown.

The Cut And Style Of The Dress

In order to assess whether the white and blue dress in question was worn to the Thackeray dinner, it is important to determine how plausible it is that this dress, in terms of cut and fabric, dates from 1850.

As has already been noted, over the years the dress has been extensively altered. Areas of machine stitching on both the bodice and around the hem of the skirt indicate modifications that were made before its arrival at the Brontë Parsonage in 1928. At some point the skirt lost its original waistband but a new one was added in 1983 when the garment was restored. A medley of pin marks from both original and subsequent pleats meant that the historical accuracy of the skirt pattern could not be assured. This is further complicated by the fact that a piece of hand seamed fabric, the correct size to make up a further one and a third panels, is also housed at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. As one seam on the skirt has been machine stitched, this could point towards this additional fabric having been removed from the skirt, possibly at the same time as Eleanor Ratcliffe added the collar. Certainly, the present style of the skirt and the addition of the mandarin collar does suggest that Eleanor Ratcliffe may have adapted the dress to better reflect the styles of the late 1880s and early 1890s.³⁴ The fact that evidence exists to show that the skirt was originally wider, and that remains of the original delaine can be seen beneath the newer brown velvet collar, supports the view that the dress has been altered from its original state.

The bodice, with its pleated front, is of a style fashionable from the mid-1840s.³⁵ The folds gave the illusion of a rounded bosom and a narrow waist.³⁶ This fashion lasted for a number of years, and a dress studied by Janet Arnold, with a similar gathered front, can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It has been given a date as late as 1852–1856.³⁷ Unlike the ‘Thackeray Dress’, dresses of the 1850s often featured a deep point at the front of the waistline, but this was not an exclusive feature, as can be seen in the bottom left-hand dress in Figure 6 taken from the April 1850 edition of La Belle Assemblée. In the delaine dress the loose, unstructured pleats on the bodice seem to indicate that the bodice originally did have a rounded waistline, as their angle is not sufficient to come to the point of a lower V.

Figure 6. ‘Fashions for April 1850’, La Belle Assemblée, January to June 1850, Volume 32 (London: Joseph Rogerson)

A high neckline was a common feature of dresses of the 1850s, particularly for those worn during the day. These bodices were either buttoned up to the neck, or were worn open, revealing the chemisette beneath.³⁸ In the ‘Thackeray Dress’, the line of the pleats on the bodice, together with the straight line of the buttons, encourages the eye to be drawn down vertically and appears to lengthen the top half of the body. This would have been advantageous to Charlotte, who at four feet nine inches was exceptionally small and slight; the average height of women living in London between 1840 and 1870 was five feet two inches.³⁹

The buttons on the bodice are likely to be original. A button of a very similar style was found in Charlotte Brontë’s workbox at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.⁴⁰ Brass and mother of pearl buttons were a frequent embellishment of mid-nineteenth-century clothing, and by 1851, the production of mother of pearl buttons employed over 2000 people in Birmingham alone.⁴¹ The buttons on the dress have suffered some damage (see Figure 3). Mother of pearl is entirely calcareous and is easily corroded by acid. Normal residue from the fingers of Charlotte and of subsequent wearers accounts for the notable circular erosion.⁴²

The unboned bodice has been lined with a heavyweight, loose weave cotton fabric that provides structure. There are no channels or stitch marks in the original fabric to suggest that boning previously existed. A corset would have been worn beneath the bodice and indeed a corset belonging to Charlotte, featuring a padded bust and metal eyelets, has survived and has good provenance.⁴³

Brass hooks and hand-sewn eyelets close the waistband of the bodice, but those on the skirt were added during conservation. As many as five stiff petticoats, often supplemented by one made from horsehair, could have been worn to produce the required shape.⁴⁴ Flounces were a common feature for dresses during the early 1850s, but there is no evidence of them ever having been part of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ skirt.⁴⁵ This absence could be due to Charlotte Brontë’s individual taste, for as Jane Ashelford states, ‘the horizontal emphasis that was demanded by fashion in the 1850s did not favour those who were short in stature. Queen Victoria’s lack of height — she was 4ft 10 in … [was] not helped by her preference for fussy, tiered skirts’.⁴⁶

Having lived in Belgium between 1842 and 1843, during what was a very formative period of her life, Brontë preferred a simpler silhouette. Juliet Barker, in her detailed biography The Brontës, writes, ‘it was evidently in Brussels that Charlotte learnt to adapt her dress to suit her tiny figure. She abandoned her old-fashioned dresses with their high waists, large sleeves and collars and began to wear plainer clothes, neatly waisted with narrow sleeves and small contrasting embroidered collars’.⁴⁷

Charlotte Brontë’s friend, Ellen Nussey, stated that ‘none of the Brontës understood dress with its right and simple advantages till Charlotte and Emily had been in Brussels; they then began to perceive the elegance of a well-fitting garment made with simplicity and neatness’.⁴⁸

Charlotte’s apparent preference, post Belgium, for ‘simplicity and neatness’ that flattered a petite figure might also account for the tight sleeves of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ being chosen above the increasingly wide sleeves of the 1850s.

During the 1850s the expansive lines of skirts began to be echoed by wider ‘pagoda’ sleeves. This broad, triangular shape reached its zenith in 1857, but remained fashionable during the early 1860s.⁴⁹ However, throughout the 1850s, editions of La Belle Assemblée show examples of dresses with narrow sleeves alongside their more voluminous counterparts.⁵⁰

Having considered the cut and style of the dress, it seems possible that Brontë could have worn the dress to the dinner on 12 June 1850. Any discrepancies in style and embellishment can be accounted for, either by the complication of subsequent alterations or by Charlotte’s personal taste. This having been established, the fabric of the dress was carefully examined.

The White and Blue Delaine Printed Fabric

Although it cannot be known categorically, in wearing this specific fabric, Charlotte Brontë was perhaps showcasing the finest work of her region.⁵¹ Haworth is in the West Riding area of Yorkshire, close to the border with Lancashire. For much of the nineteenth century this region was famous for its production of woollen fabrics. Though seemingly barren, the landscape provided all the resources needed for the production of woollen fabrics. In time, strong cotton warp yarn was obtained from Lancashire mills to create a wide variety of mixed stuffs. This practice was first introduced in 1826 by manufacturer Joseph Barratt (dates unknown), but was not in common usage until the mid-1830s.⁵²

Throughout Brontë’s lifetime a high percentage of the population of the West Riding area was involved in the making of fabric. By 1847, in the year that Jane Eyre was first published, there were twenty-five working mills in Haworth.⁵³ Each morning, as Charlotte looked out of her bedroom window onto the town below, she would have seen the smoke rising from the chimneys of the nearby mills. As a cleric, Charlotte’s father was responsible for the pastoral care of many hundreds of mill workers and sheep farmers within his parish. Even before the large mills came into existence, one of his parishioners recalled how when she ‘wor nobbut young and [her] father was a hand loom weaver Mr Brontë used to come and sit with him and talk politics’.⁵⁴

Brontë was not from a manufacturing family, but was in frequent contact with those who were. Brontë’s two closest friends, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor (1817–1893), were both children of mill owners and Charlotte spent a lot of time at their houses during her adolescent years.⁵⁵ Also, from February to December 1841, Charlotte was governess to the White family, who had made their money through wool stapling.⁵⁶ Given the time she spent with people who were actively involved in the production of fabrics, she would have gained at least a measure of appreciation of their quality. A mill worker remembered how Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë would sit in church in their print dresses: ‘I’ve heard it said they were pinched, but it was a nice print’.⁵⁷ As parson’s daughters, the Brontë sisters were not wealthy, but evidently made efforts to purchase ‘prints’ of a good quality. Significantly, the ‘nice print’ described here was later identified as a delaine.⁵⁸

Delaine was a fashionable, lightweight fabric frequently used in summer clothing by the upper and middle classes in the middle of the nineteenth century. Originating in France in 1826, it was initially termed mousseline de laine, which literally translates to ‘muslin of wool’. As John James wrote in 1857, the French fabric was ‘composed entirely of wool’, but the English also manufactured a variation known as delaine, which ‘consisted of a cotton warp combined with worsted weft’.⁵⁹ Between 1845 and 1850 there was a fifty-five per cent increase in the number of people employed in making worsted and mixed stuffs, an overwhelming majority of whom were based in the West Riding area that surrounded Brontë’s home town of Haworth.⁶⁰ By 1850, 314,948 spindles were at work in Yorkshire, busily producing fabric.⁶¹ The requirement was so great, and ‘the sale of goods became so rapid that the Ten Hours Factory Act was often in its spirit evaded, or infringed by a system of relays in order to meet the demand’.⁶² It was hoped that this mixed fabric would ‘compete with all cotton dress goods in price, but surpass them in gloss and style’.⁶³

The fabric that makes up the body of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ not only connected Brontë to the prevalent industry of West Riding, but also exhibited recent innovations in printing on wool mixture fabrics (Figure 7). The surface printing of mixed stuffs was chemically complex. It was difficult to ensure that both the warp and weft of mixture fabrics took evenly, as cotton and wool yarns absorb dye differently. The first step in enabling the successful printing of delaines was the development of colourants combining both mordant and dyestuff that were steamed after printing to enable absorption, as described by Edward Parnell (1822–unknown) in his 1846 text, Applied Chemistry: In Manufactures, Arts and Domestic Economy.⁶⁴ Sometimes it was necessary to combine one colourant for the wool and another for the cotton in order to achieve the desired effect of a rich and bright colour.⁶⁵ Much excitement surrounded these new innovations, as is apparent in the words of a fashion columnist writing in 1844: ‘we can announce as fashionable, shades of light and dark green, deep shades of olive, blue de la reine, mixtures of cerise and blue, violet and brown, pink and lavender’.⁶⁶

Figure 7. Dress Fragment, 1850s. Printed delaine. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. D129

© The Brontë Society

When, as in the case of the ‘Thackeray Dress’, shades of blue were required, either Prussian blue or indigo sulphate was used.⁶⁷ Prussian blue produced a brighter shade, but as Edward Parnell makes clear in his 1849 text, Dyeing and Calico Printing, in some cases the two dyestuffs were mixed so as to ensure the colour took to both the cotton and woollen threads.⁶⁸ Chapter 31 of Charles O’Neill’s Chemistry of Calico Printing reveals that the same processes were still used for delaine in 1860.⁶⁹

The fabric has been printed using two separate shades of blue — one darker shade for the outline and one lighter for the infill of the design. The selvedge width is 68.5 cm and the pattern repeat is small at 9 x 9 cm; it would therefore have been possible to print this fabric by the use of an engraved cylinder.⁷⁰ While roller prints do not deposit as much colour as hand-block prints, the degree of penetration of colour in this instance is not a clear indication of technique. However, there are no apparent registration marks to suggest a more costly hand-blocked print. If the worsted wefting for the delaine was produced in Yorkshire, one can speculate that the fabric would have been printed in nearby Lancashire, where many printing works were located; however, it is equally possible that the fabric was printed in the London area at this time.⁷¹ The Broad Oak Works at Accrington were innovators in the process of printing delaine by machine, and by the early 1840s, both machine and hand-block delaines were commercially available.⁷² The thread count is approximately 25 warp and 25 weft threads per centimetre, suggesting a mid-market fabric, and this is also supported by the fact that there are only two colours used in the pattern.⁷³ Hence, the fabric was fashionable but modest.⁷⁴

It has not yet been possible to find an exact match to the white and blue delaine, but useful information was gleaned from examination of a wide variety of sample books and contemporary publications.⁷⁵ The second volume of the Journal of Design and Manufacturers, published in 1850, features printed calico patterns by Schwabe’s of Greater Manchester that bear remarkable similarity to the delaine.⁷⁶ In each case, stylized designs of flowers and leaves, linked by swirling tendrils, are apparent. During the 1850s, designs based on flower forms and foliage were prevalent in printed dress fabrics of all types.⁷⁷ Another pattern by the East India Company dated to 1851, which resembles that of the white and blue delaine, is shown in an engraving in the 1852 text, The Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations 1851: Reports by the Juries (Figure 8).⁷⁸ A description of current design principles accompanies this illustration, and also supports the dating of the fabric to around 1850:

The ornament is always flat and without shadow: natural flowers are never used imitatively or perspectively but are conventionalised by being displayed flat and according to symmetrical arrangement; and all other objects, even animals and birds, when used as ornament are reduced to their simplest flat form. When colour is added, it is usually rendered by the simple, local hue, often bordered with a darker shade of the colour to give it a clearer expression; but the shades of the flower are rarely introduced.⁷⁹

Figure 8. Eleanor Houghton, Sketch of Fabric of Berries and Leaves, 2015. Copied from a design included in 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), Figure 2, p. 743

This commentary immediately recalls the pattern seen on the ‘Thackeray Dress’. Here too, the pattern consists of leaves that have been ‘conventionalised’ and ‘reduced to their simplest flat form’.⁸⁰ A ‘simple, local hue’, in this case a mid-blue, has been ‘bordered with a darker shade’ to ‘give a clearer expression’ and the ‘shades’ have not been indicated.⁸¹

So, both in terms of design and technical development, the white and blue delaine fabric of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ could be dated convincingly to around 1850. Having established this, it can be stated that Charlotte Brontë could have worn this dress to Thackeray’s dinner. However, a question remains: would Charlotte Brontë have worn this dress on such an auspicious occasion?

Sartorial Conventions

Comparison with other day and evening dresses of the period proved enlightening. Though there were many categories of daywear, each with slightly different requirements, the typical day dress of the late 1840s and 1850s was floor length with long sleeves, a high neckline and a full skirt (Figure 6).⁸² Cotton and soft woollen fabrics such as delaine and merino predominated among the upper and middle classes for daywear and were often printed with small floral patterns or stripes.⁸³ Evening attire, however, was usually made from more opulent materials such as satin, silk, velvet, organdie and barège. Summer evening dresses were typically ‘off the shoulders and might be trimmed round with a deep falling lace or silk bertha’.⁸⁴ Le Belle Assemblée of April 1850 dictated that ‘the corsage intended for the morning is made high … the evening corsage is very low and the sleeves very short’.⁸⁵ Eveningwear was also categorized according to the level of formality and as the etiquette book The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook of Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen states, ‘there [was] a great deal of difference between the dinner dress and that of the ball … and for all these occasions … a lady should have her separate dresses’. For the dinner dress, ‘a low dress [was] by far the most becoming’ and must be ‘of a texture that can bear inspection … good, not heavy’.⁸⁶ Evening dinner dresses were more restrained in style than their more formal counterparts, and were characterized by the adoption of plainer fabrics that were typically trimmed with fine lace.⁸⁷ More formal attire was required for the opera or ball. These dresses were frequently made from light, plain coloured fabrics but featured ornate trimmings. Typically, they had short sleeves that were often hidden by a fine lace bertha and were accessorized with gloves, elaborate hairstyles and the finest jewellery in a woman’s possession.⁸⁸

Clearly, the delaine dress with its high neck and long sleeves has characteristics more typical of a day dress than one for an evening dinner party. The floral print would also be more appropriate for daywear, and an eyewitness report suggests that Charlotte Brontë and her sisters often wore printed dresses during the day in Haworth. As a local mill worker recalled, ‘I don’t know that ever saw them in owt but print’.⁸⁹

In her 1853 novel Villette, Brontë describes her protagonist, Lucy Snowe, attending a breakfast picnic in the countryside. Lucy acts as a chaperone to a bevy of excited young ladies, the majority of whom are English. Significantly, each girl is adorned in a ‘clean fresh print dress and light straw bonnet’.⁹⁰ Taken with the other evidence, Brontë’s description of the assembled girls in their printed dresses has some bearing on the mystery of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ in that the writer reinforces the connection between the printed dress and daywear.

In the mid-nineteenth century the sartorial conventions of the upper and middle classes dictated that a woman’s dress ought always to be ‘adapted to the hours of the day’.⁹¹ Clothing was used as a sign or symbol to affirm the wealth, class and status of the wearer. As Philippe Perrot writes, the phenomenon extended ‘even to the most disadvantaged segments of the middle class who needed to distance themselves from the workers precisely because they were themselves so close to working class’.⁹² Brontë, an unmarried, poor parson’s daughter, was herself in a precarious position and would have been aware of the power of clothing to both elevate and later cement her place in society. Her concern would only have been heightened by the controversy surrounding her novel, which though successful had also been described as being ‘one of the coarsest books … ever perused’.⁹³ As she prepared to meet Thackeray and the assembled London literati, she would surely therefore have given her clothing significant consideration.

Charlotte’s letters show an understanding of the classifications and subtleties of dress. In 1848, on her first trip to London, she suffered an embarrassment so acute that it would have made her doubly careful to meet the sartorial expectations of London society in her 1850 trip. Her first visit to the capital had been unplanned. She had arrived with her sister Anne in the hope of meeting her publisher, George Smith, who was immediately alive to the commercial prospects of the revelation that Jane Eyre’s mysterious author was, in fact, a woman. Brontë was shocked by the furore that her arrival had caused and, when later that evening the two women were unexpectedly invited to the opera, they were utterly unprepared. The consequent indignity was felt so keenly that more than two months later, Charlotte wrote to her friend Mary Taylor:

We attired ourselves in the plain — high made, country garments we possessed — and went with them in the carriage — where we found Williams too in full dress. They must have thought us queer, quizzical looking beings … Fine ladies and gentlemen glanced at us with a slight, graceful superciliousness quite warranted by the circumstances.⁹⁴

Charlotte had expected to encounter only her publishers. She had planned to visit them at their offices in the daytime, and a smart day dress, or ‘plain — high made, country garment’ would have been appropriate. It was not, however, suitable attire for a public evening event, particularly at that most formal of occasions, the opera. Given the depth of her embarrassment, it is highly unlikely that Charlotte would have compromised herself again, particularly in the presence of her literary hero and his friends.

In November 1849, before another trip to London, Charlotte Brontë had visited her dressmaker to make adjustments to her wardrobe.⁹⁵ Brontë made certain that she was prepared for all eventualities. As Juliet Barker states, Charlotte had the dressmaker ‘prepare her a whole new wardrobe of clothes from dresses down to underclothes: this time, even though she was still obliged to wear mourning, she would not be caught going to the opera in her “ plain, high made country garments”’.⁹⁶ Thus, Charlotte set out for London, ‘armed with her new wardrobe, including a sable boa and cuffs that she had commissioned Ellen to buy for her that summer with the money from Jane Eyre, along with a squirrel tippet for everyday use’.⁹⁷ Typically, a sable boa was worn for show and was an expensive acquisition. It was a status symbol and as The Lady’s Newspaper of April 1850 attests, boas ‘were much worn for the carriage drive during the present cold weather … boas of the present season are all of the Queen’s patterns, and many ladies wear them with ends exceedingly long’.⁹⁸

Charlotte’s recent procurement demonstrated that she was aware of fashionable trends and although her funds were not limitless, she put them to good use. The purchase of a stylish sable boa does not speak of a woman who chose to routinely flout the rules of fashion, but of one who instead attempted to adhere, as closely as her finances allowed, to the fashions of the period. This would have been no less true for her trip to London in 1850, or more specifically at the dinner on 12 June. Having stayed with George Smith before, she would have been well aware of the kind of social engagements that would have been awaiting her and would therefore have been prepared. On her previous visit in 1849, Charlotte had dined with Thackeray at Smith’s own house and met the author Harriet Martineau as well as visiting the theatre.⁹⁹ As a woman aware of the social niceties of dress, Charlotte would not have chosen to wear a dress more suited to the day to an evening dinner.

Lady Anne Ritchie’s Account Re-Examined

With this in mind, it seems prudent to examine in detail the earlier and more fulsome account of the occasion written by Anne Ritchie herself.¹⁰⁰ Though just thirteen in 1850, Ritchie remembers the evening with clarity. Her account begins, ‘I can see the scene quite plainly — the hot summer evening, the carriage driving to the door as we all sat silent and expectant’.¹⁰¹ Ritchie self-assuredly recalls both the heat of the day and the arrival of Brontë’s carriage. Her reminiscences are evocative but uncluttered.¹⁰² She does not falter; there is no lack of detail. Yet strikingly, in her account, the description of Charlotte’s clothing bears no relation to the delaine dress Chadwick claimed that she earlier identified as being worn by Brontë to her father’s dinner. Instead Ritchie depicted ‘a tiny delicate, serious little lady, pale with fair straight hair, and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress, with a pattern of faint green moss’.¹⁰³

There is no correlation between the ‘little barège dress, with a pattern of faint green moss’ and the delaine with a pattern of bright blue leaves. Ritchie’s sudden change in her recollections, from past to present tense is also significant. A feeling of immediacy is created, as if the picture has flashed upon her inward eye. These flashbacks were apparently not unusual. Her biographer wrote, ‘Anny remembered everything in vignettes, in pictures’.¹⁰⁴ The writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was in awe of her ability to recollect a scene. In a poem dedicated to his friend, he encouraged her in her reminiscences with the words:

The faces and the forms of yore

Again recall, again recast:

Let your fine fingers raise once more

The curtains of the quiet past.¹⁰⁵

There is no evidence to suggest that Ritchie’s original account is in any way fictitious. The evening was momentous. Ritchie’s childhood home was constantly filled with famous writers and artists, yet she described Charlotte Brontë as ‘one of the most notable persons who ever came into our bow-windowed drawing room’.¹⁰⁶ Brontë was ‘a guest never to be forgotten by me’.¹⁰⁷ Like many young girls, Ritchie had voraciously consumed Jane Eyre, that book ‘which set all the literary world of that day vibrating’ and had ‘been carried away by an undreamed of and hitherto unimagined whirlwind’.¹⁰⁸ In meeting this contemporary version of J.K. Rowling, no detail would have gone unnoticed.

Esther Chadwick herself admitted that Anne Ritchie’s original account reported Charlotte as having worn ‘a barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss’.¹⁰⁹ She argued that ‘this is not quite correct’ and that when Thackeray’s daughter was presented with the delaine, she had ‘recognised it at once’.¹¹⁰ However, in 1906, sometime after this interview with Chadwick, Ritchie reverted to her original description. In a letter she wrote, ‘I remember Charlotte Brontë wore a dress of a little mossy light green pattern … Light green as the colour of her dress, I can swear to’.¹¹¹ The language is unequivocal. The words ‘swear’ and ‘remember’ are potent and unyielding. In the light of such certainty, one is led to question whether Chadwick’s claim was made entirely without prejudice.¹¹²

Barège was often chosen for more formal dresses, and as the July 1850 edition of La Belle Assemblée attests, was ‘very much in favour for evening dress’.¹¹³ It was a lightweight, sheer material made from a fine woollen warp and a silk weft. It took its name from the place in which it was first invented — the town of Barèges in the Haute Pyrenees area of southern France. Though it was predominately manufactured in France, by 1850 worsted manufacturers in Bradford and the surrounding areas had also begun to produce the fabric. As in the case of the delaine, barège would have been readily available to Brontë. The fabric was so popular that it attracted the attentions of the satirical magazine, Punch.¹¹⁴ Brontë, if Ritchie’s description is correct, had chosen a fabric of the moment.

It is also interesting to note that in the archives of the Brontë Parsonage Museum are portions of what was once a fawn barège dress, decorated with small, raised, green spots. The shapes of the remaining pieces suggest that it was a more formal gown. Little is known about this garment, but fragments of this or a similar dress were sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 1916. The catalogue states: ‘A portion of Charlotte Brontë’s barège dress, made for and taken upon her wedding trip; given with other things to Martha Brown and Tabitha Ratcliffe, and altered to fit the latter’.¹¹⁵ In a letter to Elizabeth Gaskell, dated June 1854, Charlotte herself refers to a dress of ‘silver drab barège with a little green spot in it’ being prepared by her dressmaker in Halifax in preparation for her honeymoon.¹¹⁶

In the light of this, it seems unlikely that these particular dress fragments come from the dress referred to by Ritchie, but it does corroborate the fact that Charlotte Brontë wore at least one dress made from barège. The fragments of this extant garment also imply that Charlotte wore green on more than one occasion, because she had of course chosen to wear a green dress for the Richmond portrait of 1850.

An Alternative Solution

Though the 1916 Sotheby’s catalogue is not expansive in its details of the remaining portions of Brontë’s barège dress, it does offer an alternative history of the now perhaps misnomered ‘Thackeray Dress’. In the same auction, sold under lot number 675 was:

A portion of Charlotte Brontë’s Delaine Dress, of a blue pattern on a white ground, made for and taken upon her wedding trip; bought from W. Binns, nephew of Martha Brown. Tabitha Ratcliffe thought that the dress was made by Martha Brown; after Charlotte’s death it was worn by Tabitha Ratcliffe’s daughter Eleanor, who added the piece of brown velvet around the neck.¹¹⁷

This account from Sotheby’s is diametrically opposed to Chadwick’s assertion that the dress was worn to the Thackeray dinner. If this report is correct, then it was made by Martha Brown in 1854 and was included in Brontë’s wedding trousseau.¹¹⁸ It could not therefore have been worn in June 1850.

This later production date does raise some problems. By 1854, the fashion was for larger, more voluminous sleeves.¹¹⁹ Charlotte Brontë’s own ‘Going Away Dress’ of the same year features full, heavily pleated sleeves that taper to a narrow wristband (Figure 9). It seems likely that had the ‘Thackeray Dress’ been made at the same time as the ‘Going Away Dress’, then its design would also have reflected the fashion for more expansive sleeves. However, the dress might possibly have been made in 1850 and later taken on Brontë’s honeymoon; even if it was no longer in the latest style she could have worn it on less formal occasions.

Figure 9. Charlotte Brontë Going Away Dress, 1854. Brown striped silk. Haworth: Brontë Parsonage Museum, No. D74 1&2

© The Brontë Society

The mystery of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ was deepening. Chadwick had reported that Tabitha Ratcliffe had ‘confirmed’ that Brontë had worn the white and blue delaine to the dinner in 1850.¹²⁰ As the main source of Ratcliffe’s information would have been her sister, it is important to note that Martha Brown did not actually accompany Brontë to London. A trusted servant, she stayed behind to look after Charlotte’s father, and to oversee significant renovations to the Brontë Parsonage. Even if Charlotte had taken the white and blue delaine on her trip in 1850, Martha could not have seen first-hand which dress Brontë wore to Thackeray’s dinner, but could only have remembered later conversations with Charlotte, shared after her return from London. As neither Martha Brown nor Charlotte Brontë have left clear written evidence stating exactly when the ‘Thackeray Dress’ was made or worn, other reports should be viewed as second-hand, including the account in the 1916 Sotheby’s catalogue, which contains reported rather than first-hand evidence. The only exception to this is the written eyewitness account of Lady Ritchie, who was present at the dinner in question.

One other solution to the mystery of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ remains. Though the dinner on 12 June was significant, another private meeting between Charlotte Brontë and William Makepeace Thackeray took place one morning, sometime between 6 and 12 June. In a letter to her friend Ellen Nussey, written on the morning of the dinner on the 12 June, Charlotte described Thackeray paying a ‘morning call’ to Brontë at George Smith’s house and sitting ‘above two hours’.¹²¹ Only Charlotte, her publisher George Smith and Thackeray were ‘in the room the whole time’.¹²² For Brontë, it was arguably this private meeting that had the greatest impact. Though she had met Thackeray on previous occasions, this meeting was long but also private. Brontë recalled how she ‘was moved to speak to him of his short comings (literary of course) one by one faults came into my mind and I brought them out and sought some explanation or defence’.¹²³ Often shy in company, Charlotte’s combative manner was conspicuous. As George Smith later declared, ‘Miss Brontë wanted to persuade him that he was a great man with a “mission”; and Thackeray, with many wicked jests, declined to recognize the “mission”’.¹²⁴ To Charlotte, this was a meeting of the minds. It was a moment to be savoured.

At this morning meeting, a smart day dress would have been worn. The visit was expected; Thackeray had sent a note to George Smith’s mother on 6 June asking her to ‘[g]ive my very best regards to Miss Brontë, on whom I hope to have the pleasure of calling before long — today perhaps’.¹²⁵ As with other social engagements during this London trip, Charlotte would have chosen an appropriate outfit for the occasion, not least because this was a meeting with her literary hero. No direct evidence remains, but it could be argued that it was to this special morning visit that Brontë wore the white and blue delaine dress now hanging in the Brontë Parsonage. It is conceivable that Martha Brown was unaware of this earlier meeting with Thackeray, or that the two meetings were later confused. She may only have remembered being told that the dress was worn when Charlotte Brontë met William Makepeace Thackeray in London in 1850. If this is the case, the colloquial moniker of the ‘Thackeray Dress’ could still be applied.

Conclusion

The case for the ‘Thackeray Dress’ having been worn to the dinner on 12 June 1850 rests on two main pieces of evidence: the swatch cards sent out after Charlotte’s death and the claims made by Esther Chadwick in her 1914 publication, In the Footsteps of the Brontës. As has been established, the cards were written by an unknown hand, at an unknown time, and therefore their information cannot be relied upon. Esther Chadwick’s assertions are based on Ritchie’s retraction of her earlier recollection and on Tabitha Ratcliffe’s second-hand information given many years after the event.

The style of the dress, despite subsequent alterations, does not preclude it from having been made in 1850. In both terms of design and technical development, the fabric could feasibly be dated to the time of the dinner. However, the ‘Thackeray Dress’ does not bear strong resemblance to evening dresses of the period, but instead fits more comfortably into the category of daywear.

Charlotte Brontë had previously been embarrassed when she had worn inappropriate dress to the opera on her first visit to London. In contrast, in June of 1850 she was coming on a planned visit to stay with her publisher, George Smith. She knew that she would be required to accompany him on a round of social engagements during her stay. It is highly unlikely that Charlotte would have chosen to wear a day dress to this auspicious evening occasion.

The only lengthy first-hand account of the dinner on 12 June 1850 — that of Lady Ritchie — emphatically reports that Brontë wore a ‘barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss’.¹²⁶ At the later sale of Sotheby’s, the catalogue states that the white and blue delaine dress had been made for and taken on Brontë’s honeymoon in 1854. However, the style of the sleeves suggests that it was unlikely that the ‘Thackeray Dress’ was made at this late date, though this does not mean the garment was not taken on the honeymoon trip to Ireland.

At some point between 6 and 12 June 1850, Thackeray paid a private morning visit to Charlotte at Smith’s house. The white and blue delaine dress would have been an appropriate choice for such a meeting. Its high neck, long sleeves and mid-quality, printed fabric point to pretty but unassuming morning attire. Though it can never be categorically proven, it is possible that the ‘Thackeray Dress’ could be associated with this earlier meeting, and not the evening dinner, and that the two events were confused in the years after Charlotte Brontë’s death.

Whatever the truth behind the mystery, the white and blue delaine dress that once belonged to this compelling author continues to exert power. In many ways, the myths that surround such an object — in this case involving the literary giants of both Charlotte Brontë and William Makepeace Thackeray — add a value and interest out of all proportion to its original worth. What this research has proved is that such a relic has a life beyond the grave, a life of its own. The death of someone famous can ‘start inanimate objects to life, cause them to travel, move about, generate meaning’.¹²⁷ This meaning can exist independently from fact.

Eleanor Houghton read English at the University of Oxford before running her own business as a couture milliner. Following an MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Southampton, she was awarded a full Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship and is currently working towards her PhD, entitled Decoding Clothing: Charlotte Brontë, ‘Plainness’ and the Language of Dress.

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 9).

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 5) 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 6.

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 6.

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, 18^th 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.