THE DAY OF THE BUCKLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 308, 27 November 1936, Page 4

THE DAY OF THE BUCKLE.

COSTLY EXAMPLES. Old English buckles was the subject of AH Francis Buckley’s presidential address to the Arundel Society in Manchester, reports tho Guardian. Little was known of the buckle before the time of Charles 11, he said. There were a few pictures of mediaeval times in which the buckle was represented, but the pictures were too small to enable one to see wliat the buckles were like. The buckle began to be really popular when Charles II came to the throne, bringing with him foreign fashions. Reference is made by Pepys to an occasion when he bought himself a pair of buckles. The French Revolution in 1789 brought the extravagant use of buckles to an end. Buckles at that time became associated with revolutionary principles, and so became unpopular in England. The Revolution in a few years ruined thousands of buckle-makers in the Birmingham district. Buckles varied in form from the plain buckle-ring to sumptuous pieces of jewellery. It was recorded that Peg Woffington was once offered a pair of shoe buckles costing £4OO, but bad enough strength of mind to refuse them! Sir John Spencer, a wealthy eccentric, was recorded to have worn shoe buckles costing £3o.ooo_on the occasion of his wedding. In 1765 highly polished steel buckles were in fashion. Poorer people wore buckles of iron, copper, newter and white metal, while others chose pinch-beck and sil-ver-plated steel. Goldsmiths produced many of the better kinds of buckle, and an advertisement had been found of some Manchester goldsmiths of 1760 who made silver and paste buckles.