INDEX
adolescence and body-correction, 119–32
advertisement for poor, by Robert
Stevens, 168
ailments, related to sitting and eyestrain, 90
American colonies, overseas market, 93
anatomy, science of, 120
Andry, Nicholas, 120
on stays for posture, 126
on swaddling clothes, 112
Copyright
on tightness of children’s stays, 122
Angier, Sarah, staymaker, Houndsditch, 76,
79
Rag Fair, East End of London, 92
apprentice staymakers, 83
mainly boys, 23
armour-like fronts of stays, whalebone, 185
artisans in clothing trade
role in taste formation, 5
baleen (baleine) business, 12, 60
basting and ruling of cloth, 56–7
Baudouin, La Toilette, 200
Baylis, Thomas, bodice-maker, 163
bespoke stays, 145–6
inventory of goods, 25, 77
probate inventory, 1720, 91
success of, 94
bespoke and ready-made markets 143–5,
158, 160–2
Billers, Sir William
Lord Mayor of the City of London, 59
billheads
aim to attract rich, 143–4
for doctors, on stays for the lame, 124–5
James Lane, 124
William Brown, 1734, Southwark, 19
– 277 –
bodicemakers
Edward Calfe, St Giles, Cripplegate, 18,
67
Thomas Wilcocks, St Giles in the Fields,
67
bodices, worn by poorer women, 25
bodily form changes and health, 3, 4
Body Beautiful, 6
body correction instruments, 19, 125, 131
Holmes & Laurie, 128–9
body culture in eighteenth century, 45
body imperfection, view of,
presumed need for stays, 138
body self-image, perceptions of, 191–5
body shape creation by stays, 4, 6, 97–8, 195
body-shaping for fashion, 157
Bone and Leather Stay Warehouse, 163–4
‘The Bone Shop’, London, baleen business, 8
Bone shop, Billers and Poston, 59
boning of stays, 57
Bonnet, Le Tailleur (1750), 200
The Book of Trades 15, 24, 213
Ladies Dressmaker, 183
breast-feeding of infants,
problems from stays, 107, 108
breasts
area roundness, 206
cancer risk from constrictive stays, 108
enhancement by stays, 210
fullness exposure, 38
breeching of boys, 117
bridges of London, for transport, 65
Brown, William, Staymaker, 19
business partnerships of staymakers, 79
business women, appropriate conduct, 24
busks
278 Stays and Body Image in London
description of, 33
eighteenth century, Churchill House
Museum, 34
Byles, Reverend Dr Mather
on breeching of his son, 117
Cadogan, Dr, of Foundling Hospital, 114
Essay Upon Nursing, 113
against swaddling of infants, 112–13
Campbell, R.
The London Tradesman, 13–15
on mantua-maker and woman’s body, 123 Dennel, A. F. (after P. A.Wille), 1780, La
on shapeliness through staymaker, 123
on staymakers’ body forming, 96–7
charitable societies, 174
childbed-linen provision, 111
childbirth and stays-wearing, 95–6, 174
child’s coat design, made by women, 27
child’s stays, 1780–1800
scale drawing, 130
City of London business district, 78
Copyright
Cleland, John
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 49,
203–4
client and dressmaker, 197
clothes making for poor children
instruction books on, 174–5
clothing manufacture industry in London, 6
clothing theft from child
Jane Simms, 174
Colley, John
trial for theft, 1798, 79, 88–9
Collyer, J.
The Parent and Guardian’s Directory 15 Dressers, Millinery & Laces Warehouse, 163
on bodicemaking, 26–7
on buckram as stiffener, 56
on fine-drawing, 81
on packthread spinner, 59
Colonel Williamsburg Foundation
well-worn pair of stays, 54
competitive market of staymaking, 159–60
cone-like silhouettes, 30
corrective stays, 119, 132
corset (1805–15), 45
Corsets and Crinolines, by N. Waugh, 13
creation of garments
cause of conflict between males and
females, 12
culture in London, 65
curvature of the spine, 131
customer satisfaction promise, 160
dancing master, payment for, 147–9
danger of stay-fitting for children, 122
Dashwood, Sir Francis
Knights of St Francis club, 200
deformity
concealment of, with stays, 96
prevention by staymakers’ skills, 131
Toilette, 200
Dent, John, staymaker in Soho
house renting, 70
design of stays, change in 1780s, 138
Devonshire, Duchess of
on discomfort of stays, 185–6
positive self-image, 193
Dingler, George
murder of wife by stabbing, 99
doublets and stays, similarities, 182
Downing, Robert, staymaker
trial for stealing cloth coat, 74
drapers
Coleman, Mary, 74
Dennis, Mary, 73–4, 92, 163, 168
ready-made stays, 74, 162
Dress and Corset Maker, Mrs Mortimer, 20
dress, and gender identity, 179
dress for gentlewomen
empowerment and disenfranchisement,
181
Duke of Clarence and Dorothy Jordan, 209
Dupin (after Le Clerc)
Tailleur Costumier Essayant un Cor à la
mode (1778), 200
Ede & Ravenscroft robe-makers
business records, 72
elite society ladies, comments on looks,
191–3
English and French fashion
Lennox, Lady Sarah, 151–2, 192, 248,
253, 265
O’Brien, Lady Susan, 151–2, 190–3,
263, 267
 Index
entertainment in London, 65
erotic nature of stays, 199–212
expenditure account, Miss Goreings, 146–9
eyelet holes, 58
eyesight, poor, from staymaking, 89
fabric, diaphanous, 207
fashion, importance of, in eighteenth cen-
tury, 151, 191, 216
fashionable clothing for men, 182, 184
Favell, Michael, staymaker, Leicester Square,
74
stays stolen from, 171
female body, seen as flawed, 8, 97
female client and male tradesman, relation-
ship, 153
female clothing, 2
creation of, as contested arena, 12
female fashion in London season
importance to women, 60–1
female influence on stays’ design, 186
Copyright
female staymakers, 3
leading role as sensual beings, 212
‘feminization of fashion’, 181
‘feminization’ of stays, 186
change of shape for breasts, 207
financial independence for women, 24
fire insurance policies
reveal females as staymakers, 189
Fithian, Philip,
diary comments on stays-wearing, 133
Fitzjohn, Catherine, theft of clothing, 198
Flamand, Hector, Journeyman Staymaker, 86 Hayman, Francis
Fleming, Elizabeth, mantua-maker, 87
Flude, John, Pawnbroker, billhead, 169–70,
172
Freke, Elizabeth, inventory of goods, 135–6
French stays, 152–3
Gainsborough, Thomas
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire,
1785–8, 205–6
Mary, Countess Howe, 1760, 205
Garsault, FranVois Alexandre de
Art du Tailleur, 11–12
description of English stays, 36–8
on maternity stays, 100
stays for boys, 116
279
gender
and class relations, 220
influence on stays’ design, 179
relations of bespoke male staymakers
and female consumers, 154
George, Hannah, staymaker, 88, 92
Gibbon, Mrs Lloyd
Treatise on the Use and Effect of Anatomi-
cal Stays, 120
awareness of eroticism of stays, 210
child’s fainting, 122
constrictive stays, 108
health improvement with new stays,
187–8
patent for stays (1800), 109, 188
stays as bodily distortion correctors, 123
womb, pressure on, from stays, 109
Gillray, James, caricaturist
The Devil to Pay (1791), 209
Female Curiosity (1778), 208
The Liberty of the Subject (1779), 208
The Morning after Marriage (1788), 208
Goreings, Miss, accounts, 145–50
Gray, Thomas
on moulding men’s bodies with clothes,
182
Grearson, George, journeyman staymaker,
71
gussets at hips and breasts, 7, 186–7, 191
Hatton, John, haberdasher, 79, 81
multipurpose dwelling, Oxford Street, 76
Le Moine entreprenant (The Lecherous
Monk), 200–1
Margaret Tyres and Her Husband George
Rogers, 1750–2, 205
health concerns, effect of stays, 8
staymaking work by candlelight, 89
high-waisted gowns, 190
hip tabs, 131, 180
Hobsbawn, Eric, on shoemakers, 154
Hogarth, William
After, 202
The Analysis of Beauty, 180, 203
Before, 202
‘line of beauty’, cut of stays, 38, 50, 180,
206
280 Stays and Body Image in London
Marriage à la Mode, 202
The Rake’s Progress, 202
satire on upper-class dress, 98
‘serpentine line’, 5, 180
stays as garments of reduction, 202, 203
‘The Staymaker’ sketch, Happy Marriage
series, 158
Taste in High Life, engraving, 98
The Wedding of Stephen Beckingham and
Mary Cox 1729–30, 205
Holme, Randle
The Academy of Armoury, 1688, 12–13,
14, 23, 25
description of busk, 33
description of stays, 29
Holmes & Laurie, London steel bodice- and
truss-makers, 19
billheads for medical purposes, 128
House of Call, for journeymen staymakers,
83
Copyright
idiopathic scoliosis, 128
infancy and childhood, stays in, 111–19
infant’s stays, eighteenth century, 114
scale drawing, 115
Jordan, Dorothy, actress, 209
journeymen staymakers, 71, 83
jumps
late eighteenth century, 105
scale drawing, 106
Viney’s wife, 104, 105
Keen, Rachel, poor woman robbed by Ann
Fell, 137–8
Kendall, Anne
violent attack by George Mason, 136–7
Kuchta, David
on ‘nonfunctional immobility’ with stays,
181
labour division in staymaking trade, 24
Ladies’ Dress Maker
1805 Book of Trades, 196–7
engraving (1805), 183
Ladies Economical Assistant (1808)
for cheap clothing, 166, 167
ladies’ instructions to staymakers, 196
Lancashire gentlewomen in eighteenth
century, 154
Lane, James
orthopaedic instruments 124–5, 128
stays to prevent crookedness, 125
steel or belt trusses, billhead, 124–6, 128
Latter, Thomas, bespoke and ready-made,
162
Le Clerc
Tailleur Costumier Essayant un Cor à la
Mode, 1778, 200
Leach, Elizabeth
stays from pawn shop, careful choice, 197
leather stays, Worthing Museum & Art Gal-
lery 51, 52
scale drawing, 53
sign of poverty, 177
Lejeune, Arnoldus, staymaker business in
rich area, 70
Leonard, John and Jane, theft accusation, 87
lightweight fabrics, 186
line and form of stays, 180
London East End staymakers, 78
London season, staymaking as seasonal
work, 87
‘loose woman’ 211
lower classes and poor, 9–10, 165–77
male and female stay-makers, 217
male customers’ reliance on tailor for fash-
ion, 184
male staymakers
and clients, 2
erotic designing, 199
male design of stays, 181
mantua-makers
female, 14, 15, 24, 184–5
Joanna Clarke, 87
mantua wearing, 26
map key to Figure 2.1.
location of staymakers in London, 80,
223
Marchmount, Countess of, 73
bill for garments, 72
client of William and Mary Shuddall,
145
Marsden, William
theft of stays from, 85–6, 87

Marston, William, staymaker
theft by John Wild, 77–8, 84
masculine form of stays
linear and angular, 180
masculinization and feminization of female
form
by male staymakers, 4, 180, 185
master staymakers
top of hierarchy, 82
maternity stays
1760–80, 100, 101
1800–10, 110
medical practitioners
sanction of Truss-Makers, 126
middle classes, 164
ready-made stays, 160, 162
Miller, Elizabeth, staymaker, 116
Mills, Philip, taylor (1724)
inventory of goods, 16
‘Probate Inventory’, 146
miscarriage as result of stays-wearing, 107
Copyright
Moravian brethren
religious revival, 21–2
Viney, Richard, Staymaker, as member,
156
moulding of men’s bodies, by tailors, 184
multipurpose dwellings for staymakers, 76
murder of Ann Pooley, 167
murder of infant for his stays
by Susan Perry, 116, 174
Napoleonic Wars
employment of women and children, 20
National Museum of American History
linen stays, 119, 120
scale drawing, 121
Newport, Eleanor, staymaker, 73
jumps to Mary Smith, 170
Rag Fair, East End of London, 92
‘Obscene Prints’, Print Shops in London, 201 Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert, 208
Old Bailey Proceedings, 19
theft of ‘bodices’, 142
theft of clothes and stays, 165
trial dialogue, 219–20
trial testimonies, 7
orthopaedic body garments, 124–5, 128,
131
Index 281
Packer, Isaac, 163
inventory of goods, 77
probate inventory (1734), 91–2
street fairs, 164
packthread, 27, 59
Paine, Thomas, staymaking apprentice, 63
Parry, Richard, taylor, 77
inventory of goods, 16
Patmore, William, journeyman 77, 83
fall off working board, 90–91
poor staymaker, 68–9
trial for murder of wife, 89
pattern designing for stays, 86
pattern theft, 85–6
pawnbrokers
in competition with clothing dealers, 173
as receivers of stolen goods, 170–3
pawnshops as markets for stays, 169
personal relationships with staymakers, 157
physical problems
from tight lacing of stays in pregnancy,
107
Place, Francis, master tailor, 63, 83
on loose-lacing, 134–5
policies for staymakers, 19
Ponce, M. (after Baudouin)
La Toilette, 1771, 200
population of London, 64
pornography
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Cle-
land), 203
post partum problem
prolapsed uterus, 108
Poston, William, Haberdasher, 59
‘pouter pigeon’ silhouette, neoclassical dress,
190
poverty among staymakers, 69, 156
Pownall, John, staymaker, 79
Hanover Square, London, 70
pregnancy and stays, 100–10
print collecting in London, 201–2
Pritchard’s
bespoke stays, female garments, 71–2
Pritchards’ Warehouse, Mrs Dodd, rich cli-
ent, 144–5
probate inventories as sources, 18, 81
physicality of working space, 77
282 Stays and Body Image in London
profession or trade choice
tailoring or staymaking, 15
prostitutes, Mary Ford and Charlotte
Hughes, theft by, 194
Pullein, John, staymaker, Smithfield
stolen handkerchiefs, 76, 81
Quincey, John, staymaker
and warehouse labourer, 87
Rag Fair, East End of London, 92
rape case at Old Bailey, 193–4
raw materials of stays trade, 54
ready-made markets, 158, 163
bespoke, second-hand, 3, 161
retail businesses, 66, 81
Revolutionary wars
employment of women and children, 20
Reynolds, Sir Joshua
Selina, Lady Skipwith (1787), 205, 206
riding habits for women, 20
makers, 81
Copyright
Riello, Giorgio, on shoemakers, 154
robe-makers, 81
Roberts, Thomas, staymaker, 70
theft of bespoke stays from his shop, 145,
170–1
Rocque, John
grid of London with staymakers (1747),
80
plan of Southwark and Westminster, 78
Romney, George
Adam Walker and His Family (1796–
1801), 207
room renting by staymakers, 74
Rowlandson, Thomas, comic artist, 208
Damp Sheets, 209
A Little Tighter, 209
Modern Antiques, 209
The Sculptor (Nollekins) (1800), 209
Rudderford, Henry, trade card, 93
Rudderforth’s billheads c. (1805–15), 152,
159
rural fairs for selling, 164
scoliosis, 131
sculpting, ingenious
whalebone, fabric, buckram, card, paste,
59, 214
sculpture of female body, 2
S-curve, ‘line of beauty’ 207
Seamster, description, 13
female takeover for simple garments, 21
seamstresses, rights winning, 12
second-hand clothes dealers, sales to, 174
second-hand stays, 168
seductive and erotic image of stays, 10,
200–1, 217
self-image of women in stays, 193, 194–5,
217
separation of the breasts, 208
sexual awareness, ladies dressing, 200
sexuality and clothing, 3
Shackleton, Elizabeth
stay wearing in late age, 136
shape of female body in stays
cone-like and rigid, 30, 205
‘share of taste’
client and dressmaker, 197
shoes, consumption and materiality, 154
shopping as leisure pursuit, 66
Shuddall, William and Mary
Customers’ Ledger, 72–3
ready-made stays, 92
Siscotti Stay amd Fancy Corset maker, 163
size range of stays
ready-made markets, 92
Smith, Mary, arrest for jump pawning, 73,
170
social history, lives of poor, voices for
women, 220
social norm of stays wearing, 141, 198
social status, Miss Goreings, 149
Soemmerring, S. T., Engraving, 1793, 127
spine curvature, Nicholas Andry, 126
Stansfield, James, 84
helping Richard Viney, 71
Starzaker, William, staymaker, 79, 81
multipurpose dwelling, Strand, 76
Stay and Habit Maker, Fredrick Albrecht
of Bath
promoting women as staymakers, 188–9
stays wearing for corrective reasons
for children, 215
staymaker, Thomas Roberts
theft and pawning of stays, 67–8
 Index 283

staymakers 1780–1800, Worthing Museum & Art

arbiters of taste in fashion, 153 Gallery, 129
body-shapers, 139, 157 scale drawing, 130
concentrations of, 79 1780–90, Churchill House Museum,
delivery to clients, 150–1 Hereford, 40
establishments, grid location, London 80 1790–1805, Victoria & Albert Museum,
important branch of tailoring, 5 London, 41
interaction with, 198 scale model, 42
male until 1780, 18 1795–1810, Churchill House Museum,
skills and expertise, 214 Hereford, 43
trade in London, 7, 63, 67, 70, 214–15, scale drawing, 44
218 body armour, 99
staymaking shops, home and business, 75–6 creation of, 2
staymaking tailor and client dual role, seduction and respectability,
relationship implications, 5 138, 203, 211
staymaking tailors, 213 effect on unborn child, 100, 111
staymaking trade formative years’ assumed health reasons,
division of labour, 8
139
gender roles, effect on female body, 3
identity and self image, 1
importance of, 11
importance in fashion, 143
seasonal work, diversification as key to suc-
for infants and children, 9, 113–14

Copyright
cess, 93
lighter construction, 39
stays
in love scenes, 209
1700–10, Castle Howard, 26
for mature adults, 133, 136
scale drawing, 31
bodice (1730–2), Gallery of Costume, Miss Goerings’s accounts, 149–50
Manchester, 117 objects of propriety, 205
scale drawing, 118 for poor women, fashionability, 49
1735–50, Museum of London, 32 procurement of, for poor 216
scale drawing, 35 as protection from blows, 137
1760–80, Gallery of Costume, Manches- ready-made 94
ter, 36 removal as preparation for lovemaking,
scale drawing, 37 203
1760–80, Fredericksburg, Virginia, 46, representation in art, 199–200
47 rigidity and shapelessness, 28
CT scan, 48 seductive and erotic, 199, 206–207
X-ray, 47 separate garments, 26
1760–80, Victoria & Albert Museum, targets of thieves, from homes, shops,
London, 55 142
1775–85, Hereford and Worcester tight-laced or loose, 134
County Museum, 50 unlacing as seductive, 204
scale drawing, 51 stays and bodices, difference, 25
1770–85, Smithsonian Institution, stays and outer bodice as one, 29–30
Washington DC, 120 stealing charge against staymakers, 88
scale drawing, 121 steel bodices, 129
1775–85, Worthing Museum & Art steel or belt trusses, billhead, 124–6, 128
Gallery, 38 steel stays, to prevent crooked body in
scale drawing, 39 children, 124
284 Stays and Body Image in London
Stelfox, William, staymaker
combination business, 81
theft problem, 87
stiffening devices in men’s clothes, 184
stigmatisation of poor, 178
Stiles, Thomas, staymaker, 79
Hanover Square, London, 70
Stitchers’ employment, 84
stomachers, 3, 32–3
post-partum, 104
and stays, 164
strait-lacing, 134
Strange Stay Maker
bespoke and ready-made, 160–61
SunFire Offices Insurance Registers
policies for staymakers, 19
swaddling of infants
in Aristotle’s Compleat and Experience’d
Midwife, 111–12
from fear of deformity, 112
leading to stays wearing, 112
Copyright
Syfret’ Stay Warehouse
guarantees fitting, 159–60
Sykes, George
advertisement for poor, 168
tailor-designed men’s garments
influence on women’s stays, 182
tailoring and staymaking, 15, 60–61
as one and the same, 1688, 14
separation, 11
Tailors and Mantua makers
latter as female, 13
tailors, work of, 213
taste and perceptions of beauty, 197
textile and dress history, 220
The Taylor’s Complete Guide
riding habits for women, 195–6
theft
by the poor, 165
of clothing in eighteenth century, 142
and pawning of stays, 172
second-hand markets, 174
from staymakers, 86–7
Todd, John, staymaker, on House of Call, 83
town and country links, 66
trade cards of staymakers, 18
trade directories, London
addresses of Taylors and Staymakers,
London, 18
staymakers survey, 1677, 17
trading-in stays, 159
trial proceedings,
for personal information, 194
trial records
forceful removal of stays from child, 143
trusses, 131–2
Truss-Makers
irons for relief of lame, 126
tuberculosis, cancer and scoliosis
stays as cause, 128
Tutt, William Staymaker
Sarah Simpson, stitcher, 85
urbanization
of English towns, 64
of London, 18th century, 64
Van Aken, Joseph
A Musical party on a Terrace 1725, 205
victimization of older, poor women, 137
Victoria & Albert Museum
pair of unlined stays, 54–5, 58
Viney, Richard, Staymaker, 70–71
betrayal by Stansfield, 84
breast of wife, lancing, 102–3
client Ann Gee, 168–9
diary of his work, 1744, 7–8, 21–2, 213,
221
comments on stays-wearing, 218–19
details of trade staymaking, 218
financial situation, 69–71
relations 219
rich source for rural worker, 221
health problems of wife and self, 89–90,
107
illness of baby son, 103–4
living quarters, 74–6
ready-made stays, 176
relationship with clients, 154–7
on rules and order in life, 82
setting up shopboard, 177
stay-making, 56–8
stays for children, 176
tailor in London first, 221
 Index
wife’s childbirth and breast problems, 95,
101–8
work situation, 88
Von Soemmerring, Samuel Thomas
anatomist and pathologist, 128
waist length changes, 30
Waller, T.
Book of Trades (1805), 97–8
A General Description of all Trades, 13, 15
on bodicemaking, 26
on buckram stiffeners, 1747, 56
Washington, Martha
on her stays-wearing, 133–4
wearing of stays, boys, girls, women, 2, 4
well-dressed and poor
cause of suspicion, 166
Whalebone and Rattan trade, London, 59
whalebone, use of, 12, 27, 58, 60
White, Jane and Mary
staymakers for pregnancy, 19–20
Copyright
Wilcocks, Thomas
St Giles in the Fields, bodicemaker, 18
Wild, John, foreman to William Marston
side business, 85
285
theft of stays, 84
Wille, P. A.
L’Essai du Corset, (A. F. Dennel) (1780),
200
Wilson, Stephen, staymaker
theft problem, 76, 87
womb, pressure on, from stays, 108
women of elite, 143
women, role of, in history, 220
Women Stay-Makers, 19
women’s bodies
flawed in natural state, 216
working-boards, 77
working hours, long for staymaking, 88
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery
child’s stays 1780–1800, 131
Wright, Charles, staymaker, and bankruptcy,
88
Wright, Gilbert, journeyman staymaker
trial for assault, 83
X-ray of stays (1760–80), 47
X-rays of stays in research, 7
yellow stomacher, Ann Pooley, 167
Young, Alfred, on shoemakers, 154