Bonnet
Miss Lincoln
Category
Costume
Date
1840 - 1850
Materials
Silk velvet, Silk, Ostrich feather, Cotton, Wire
Place of origin
Yarmouth
Order this imageCollection
Snowshill Wade Costume Collection, Gloucestershire
NT 1349755
Caption
Made of sumptuous burgundy silk velvet and decorated with lace, cotton flowers and ostrich plumes, this form of poke bonnet was designed to elegantly frame the face, often with dainty and stylish adornments. This bonnet was made in Great Yarmouth, at a milliner’s on Broad Row owned by Miss Sarah Lincoln. Her stamp can be seen on the cream lining of the bonnet. Born in 1821, Sarah is listed on the 1851 census as the head of a household that included her sister, an assistant, a dressmaker, an apprentice and a domestic servant. This record allows us to peer into the world where this bonnet would have been carefully and expertly crafted, from the delicately stitched lace to the application of cotton and wire rosebuds. Sarah’s all-female business would not have been perceived as unusual in the 1850s. Millinery was dominated by female entrepreneurship, being seen as a safe and, by the 19th century, respectable space where women could practise autonomy, hold expertise and win financial independence. Helen Antrobus
Summary
A woman's bonnet, c.1840. The bonnet is made from purple-brown silk velvet with a lining of cream silk stamped with the maker's mark 'MISS LINCOLN, milliner, Broad Row, Yarmouth'. The fabric covers stiffened leno of different weights and stiffness, with the leno at the brim stamped '4' and edged with cane. The bonnet is decorated with tubes of velvet stiffened with wire with small ostrich plumes dyed to match. A garland of silk tulle is edged with blonde lace, moss rosebuds of cream and pink cotton and pressed and painted cotton leaves on wire. The bonnet ties with silk velvet ribbon of graduated red and orange tones. (Mackenzie, 2004).
Provenance
Given to National Trust with Snowshill Manaor in 1951 by Charles Paget Wade
Makers and roles
Miss Lincoln, milliner
References
Mackenzie 2004: Althea Mackenzie, Hats and Bonnets from Snowshill, One of the World's Leading Collections of Costume and Accessories of the 18th and 19th Centuries, National Trust 2004, pp. 42-43. Antrobus and Slocombe 2025: Helen Antrobus and Emma Slocombe, 100 Things to Wear: Fashion from the collections of the National Trust, National Trust 2025, pp. 108-109.