UNIQUE GARMENTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 12

UNIQUE GARMENTS

LAST 100 YEARS NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN’S COAT A little time ago Mr. Neville Chamberlain was boasting about a coat he had been wearing for 12 years and which was still in good condition. This is, however, a very junior garment compared with an overcoat still being worn by a Fleet Street newsvendor. It was made in Edinburgh in IS7O for a famous angler, and worn by him for 19 years. Later, it was worn by a London freelance journalist for eight years before passing into the possession of the present owner. It is made of Border tweed and after 57 years the cloth is still whole and weatherproof. Another wonderful old coat belonged to a Dartmoor innkeeper. It was made for his grandfather, somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century, of the enormously stiff black broadcloth popular in those days, and was worn for two generations as Sunday best. At last after being in the same family for quite a century, it was sold for 30s to a London theatrical manager, who was staging a period Devonshire play. An equally ancient garment is the waistcoat worn at a dinner in Spalding a few weeks ago, when the male representatives of 10 families connected with the business interests of the town dined together. The invitation was issued by Mr. G. M. Gooch, a member of the Holland County Council, and most of the guests brought with them interesting heirlooms. That brought by Mr. Gooch was a beautifully made waistcoat which his great-grandfather had worn when married in France in 1824. A still older waistcoat, which belonged to Sir Christopher Wren, can be seen in the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where it is preserved along with his walking-stick.