Figure 1.-- This Ambro portrait shows an unidentified English boy, we think in the 1850s. He wears a suit with dark jacket and contrasting light-colored vest and pants. As was standard at the time, he wears long pants. Notice the streched out stock for neckwear and cap. Hard to make out what type of cap it was. Notice how the suit does not seem to fit very well.

We note that many of the photographic portraits we have found shows boys wearing suits that do not seem to fit very well. At this time we can not say if this was more prevalent in the1840s than the 50s, but we do note that by the 60s, most boys wore well-fitted suits. That is something we never see in painted portraits. We notice this in American images as well during this period. Not all boys had ill-fitted suits. The boy on the previous page certainly does not, he has very well fitted suit. But many boys did. But the boy here does not have a well-fitted suit (figure 1). We are not sure why this was. We suspect that it could reflect the growing affluence of industrial Britain. There were probably other facrtoes, but we believe that this was an important one. Some how thanks to Charles Dickens, the popular image of Victorian Britain was one of slums and desperate poverty. The actual change was the creation of great wealth and a substantial middle class. Many of the new middle-class came from very humble origins, families that earlier could not afford fashionable clothes. (Clothes in the 18th century consumed a much higher portion of family income than is the case today.) The poverty Dickens described existed, but poverty had existed since the dawn of time. It was more observable during the Victorian era because it was concentrated in the cities rather than hidden in the countryside and for the first time the new middle class saw it as a social problem and had the political influence to demand change.

Created: 10:19 AM 7/30/2014
Last updated: 10:19 AM 7/30/2014