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Early and working class costume

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  • Early and working class costume

    I've been looking around this site and others and googling.
    I want to know what my gggrandfather might have worn in Dumbarton, Scotland in about 1830 - as a working bottlemaker - aged 18.

    (And later on in Glasgow 1870, as manager of a bottle factory.)

    There is a lot of info about fashion, less about the poor, but almost nothing about ordinary people who were working; and no photos of course at this time (1830) and very few of working people in 1870.

    Can anyone point me at information?

  • #2
    The Costume Past and Present page in our Reference Library has several links which are well worth ferreting about in.

    Also, many of the pages linked from our Trades and Occupations page have illustrations.

    Caroline
    Caroline's Family History Pages
    Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

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    • #3
      Early and working class costume

      I've had a good search around. A lot of interesting stuff there! Some of the 1850-1900 clothing pictures are interesting. - thanks. But there is almost nothing in the early 1800s, is there? (Fashion, yes, but that's not what I am looking for.) Where is there anything?

      What sparked this off is seeing the recent findmypast TV programme about the Tay Bridge disaster ( I used to live in Dundee) and one local newspaper sketch which showed people in a rescue boat with tam-o-shanters on - this in 1879.....so I wondered what other differences in clothing there might have been. This was Scotland...I'm looking for Scotland....

      And - on the way round I found a link to email with any additions to glossaries etc, which I have now lost, and I would like to send a file about occupations in the bottle industry - please tell me where it is! - Alison

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      • #4
        I recently visited St Helens Glass and here is their website with links to other glass places which may be of help http://www.worldofglass.com/index.php?part=useful_links
        It was a fabulous place to visit if ever anyone can get there
        Edna

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Frodsham70 View Post

          And - on the way round I found a link to email with any additions to glossaries etc, which I have now lost, and I would like to send a file about occupations in the bottle industry - please tell me where it is! - Alison
          Are you talking about adding extra links/information to the pages in our reference library? If so you will find a Comments box at the bottom of the pages in the reference library - just leave a message there and one of us will add it to the main listing.

          If this isn't what you are referring to then apologies but not sure what you mean!
          Elaine







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          • #6
            Elaine, I have put in a comment/query.

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            • #7
              Thanks Alison,
              I have replied and sent you a message.
              Elaine







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              • #8
                Glass places

                Edna - I haven't visited St Helen's, it's a bit far, but the place I and my sister visited recently is the Red House bottle cone in Dudley, Birmingham - a link on the list. Do look at it, if you haven't!
                A fascinating day. This is the kind of place where my gggrandfather and many of his family worked. (By the way it's free - and they do demos.)

                And the strange thing is that the cones have almost been forgotten. They are immense landmarks - I shrieked when I first saw it, and bothered my sister who was driving - and there used to be 23 in this area of Birmingham alone. This one was built about 1795.
                I never heard of them until I started on this family history lark. I've become very intrigued and am trying to find out as much as I can from anywhere. You never see a film set in Victorian times with any!
                The one in Alloa which still exists is one where I am fairly sure he worked, I know he had a child in Alloa. Glass workers moved around a lot.

                Re Pilkington's - they only got where they are by their aggressive tactics in the 19th century to eliminate rivals. (No libel, it's on record.)
                A local works to St Helens was bought and closed down....but on the other hand when it was reopened - under new management and a restrictive lease, no window glass to be made - it provided a job for my gggrandfather later when he moved to Lancashire..........
                - Alison

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                • #9
                  The St Helens one uses a cone for its entrance and I did go down into the old furnace inside another red cone but it was just as it had been left and a walking gallery around it. It was a memorable experience so I know how you felt having ancestors work in there.

                  Edna

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                  • #10
                    I too have made fruitless searches for pictures of everyday clothing for ordinary people in the 18th and 19th centuries. The reason I am interested is that I would like to include them in the family history reports I prepare for other members of my family. I already include maps, pictures of villages/towns, interesting local newspaper articles etc.

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                    • #11
                      Still haven't got any further, although I have seen a sketch of a procession in 1831 with Bristol glassmakers.....dressed up in frock coats, and hats somewhere between top hats and bowlers...short square hats - again, they are dressed up!The ealiest photo in my familly is my Welsh gggrandmother Mary Rogers, probably dated late 1850s, in a flounced skirt and pagoda-sleeved top.
                      I suspect that any pictures are scattered in various sources - or has anyone attempted to get them together?

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                      • #12
                        Did you follow the links to the issues of our magazine from the Trades and Occupations page? They are illustrated with pictures from the Penny Magazine which was published between 1832 and 1845. We didn't cover glassmakers (my great grandfather was one in the late 1800s and early 1900s and at the time there was very little online to research from) but the costumes are unlikely to very different I would think. If you "google" for Penny Magazine and look at the images there are many more:

                        Caroline
                        Caroline's Family History Pages
                        Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Caroline
                          Caroline's Family History Pages
                          Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            I just lost what I wrote here!
                            As I was saying....thank you Caroline for this link, it is quite helpful as regards clothes.
                            Adds a bit to my knowledge of the process too. I've seen the little square hats in other pics. - I was given a book for Xmas, Glass and Glassmaking by Roger Dodsworth from the Stourbridge Glass Museum, also has pictures, but not Scotland....asking again on Scottish forum too.....you never know!

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                            • #15
                              I'm struggling a bit with what you think you might find?

                              Workingclass people either made their own clothes or bought someone else's cast offs. I doubt if there was a "workingclass uniform" other than the clothes would have been home made (and therefore simple) and probably from homespun most of the time (in the early 1800s). Heavy boots, breeches, knitted stockings, a loose collarless shirt and some kind of jerkin or jacket. But mostly they wore whatever was to hand - there were no ready made clothes to be had, other than secondhand ones.

                              A glassmaker would probably have worn either leather trousers or a leather apron and probably a leather jerkin (think blacksmith).

                              I think the reason there is so little recorded about working class clothes is because there was no real identifiable uniformity.

                              OC

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