7
Deirdre Murphy
Lord Boston was just twenty-five years old in 1885, when he earned the prestigious title of Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria. In preparation for his ceremonial introduction to the Queen, he spent an enormous sum of money on two dark blue, red, and gold uniforms he needed for his Royal Household duties. Seven months after his appointment, officials informed him that his services as Lord-in-Waiting were no longer required. He appealed to the prime minister for information, explaining that his “exclusion” from this impressive post was “a matter of great concern” to him. Having lost the job, his anxiety prompted him to ask the Lord Chamberlain for special permission to continue to wear the glamorous uniforms he was no longer technically entitled to use. The dark blue cloth, gleaming gold embroidery, and deep scarlet Royal Household cuffs of Lord Boston’s suits formed part of a color vocabulary that communicated his high status as an individual and reinforced his membership of the most elite group of men in the United Kingdom. This text will explore Lord Boston’s lifelong relationship with the pair of uniforms he wore for over fifty years. Boston’s correspondence will demonstrate how deeply the loss of his prestigious appointment affected him. More than this, his desire to continue to visibly display his membership of an elite, collectively identifiable by their luxurious dark blue and gold uniforms, shows how central this membership was to his sense of identity. Lord Boston’s blue and gold uniforms defined his public image.
The two suits and their associated accessories have survived in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Historic Royal Palaces. They were acquired in 1987 from a solicitors’ firm, which probably received them from the nephew who inherited Lord Boston’s title and estate when he died, without any offspring, in 1941. Their survival must be due to the high value they held before the Second World War and the sharp decline of the same after it, when the subsequent relative informality of court occasions rendered them more useful for fancy dress than for court events.
George Florance Irby, the sixth Baron Boston (1860–1941), was the eldest son of Florance George Irby, the fifth Baron Boston, and his wife Augusta Caroline, daughter of the third Baron de Saumarez. The younger George Florance (from here called Lord Boston) was born into an established aristocratic family: his three times great-grandfather, the first Baron Boston, had enjoyed the prestigious title Lord of the Bedchamber to George III. As a youth, Lord Boston studied at Eton and later at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in modern history in 1882. In later life, he devoted his time to the study of science—particularly astronomy, botany, and entomology. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Geological Society of London. The University of Wales eventually recognized his involvement in archaeological activities in Wales with an honorary degree in 19361 (Plate 7.1).
A life in politics, not science, had been Lord Boston’s plan. He inherited the family title in 1877, when his thirty-nine-year-old father, the fifth Baron Boston, died. He was also bequeathed various parcels of land, including the estate of Hedsor, the elegant family seat near Maidenhead, and a large proportion of Anglesey in Wales, including a colliery and a small number of farms with their tenants.2 He became involved in Conservative Party activities at age twenty, when he attended a party conference in Oxford.3 A flurry of Conservative Party meetings in Wales followed, then once he had reached the age of majority he took his seat in the House of Lords for the first time in 1882.4 Locally, Lord Boston’s public profile rose when he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Anglesey. Now twenty-two, he would theoretically stand in for the Lord Lieutenant when he wasn’t available to carry out his ceremonial duties. This established him as a key public figure in Wales. The new Deputy Lieutenant’s uniform he purchased for the role served to set him apart from crowds at public gatherings, and identify him as a member of Anglesey’s elite. He spent about fifty-seven pounds at the Savile Row tailoring firm Henry Poole on the scarlet tunic with silver embroidery, matching trousers, cocked hat, plume, sword, sword knot, waterproof sword case, belt, some spare linen collars, and the airtight case to store them in.5
This first visit to Henry Poole on Savile Row heralded the construction of Lord Boston’s public image. Four months later he returned to Henry Poole, where he spent twenty-five pounds on a black twill weave wool frock coat and vest, a tweed jacket, waistcoat and trousers, a pair of striped trousers, and a packing case. The next summer he spent sixteen pounds on a gray coat and a “homespun” check double-breasted jacket, vest and trousers. On his return to Oxford after the summer in 1883, he spent twenty-one pounds on another frock coat and suit.6 Now, looking every bit the gentleman, he became heavily involved in Conservative Party politics. He was 24 and his political career looked promising as he hosted and chaired a public party meeting at Hedsor the next year.7
Lord Boston’s appearances in Parliament, his attendance at several leveés, daytime presentations of gentlemen to the monarch, and his increasing engagement with Conservative Party matters got him noticed. In 1885, he received a letter from the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, asking whether he would accept an appointment as Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria.8 The duties would be nominal but on occasion he could be called to greet political and state leaders on behalf of the Queen. Lord Boston accepted the offer quickly. Ten days later, he returned to his tailor.
According to the dress regulations set out by the Lord Chamberlain, Lords-in-Waiting were required to wear civil uniform for appearances at court. Lord Boston would need to purchase a full-dress uniform for formal events and a less decorative, undress uniform for informal, daytime occasions. He would have known that they should be both made of dark blue cloth embroidered with gold oak leaf embroidery and trimmed with gold lace in all the right places. His tailor knew the coatees, or tail coats, should close with hooks and eyes and the nine decorative gold buttons down the left side should feature the royal arms and supporters, that the full-dress coatee should be lined with white silk. This would ensure a tidy appearance when they were worn with full-dress white kerseymere knee breeches. A comparatively plain undress, or levée dress coatee for daytime events, was lined with black silk for wear with dark blue cloth trousers, the side seams trimmed with gold oak leaf lace. Most important of all, the standing collar and cuffs should be made of scarlet cloth. This single feature distinguished a Royal Household uniform from all the others (Graham Bennet 1903).
The Lord Chamberlain’s published regulations gave structure to a codified language of clothing worn at court occasions that had developed during the early nineteenth century. After the French Revolution, high-ranking men in many countries across Europe wore uniforms in a way that illustrated the ascendancy of group solidarity over individuality. As court historian Philip Mansel has argued, the elite presented a unified whole, demonstrating loyalty to the monarch. At this time, Napoleon’s court adopted a civil uniform that was clearly hierarchical: higher ranking individuals wore uniforms with more gold embroidery on them. By 1820, every official at the French court wore the civil uniform. They were color-coded according to rank, and regulations were drawn up to ensure courtiers wore them correctly. British officials began to wear the civil uniform in 1817 (Mansel 2005). There were three classes, each distinguishable by the amount and placement of its gold embroidery. Civil uniforms were eventually embraced wholeheartedly in Britain, the regulations becoming so complicated that they were routinely published in book form to ensure that tailors and wearers followed the established rules.
Color was central to the visual language of the civil uniform. Collectively, a sea of men in dark suits looked impressive. At formal court gatherings such as drawing rooms, state concerts, and state balls, the women’s pale and colored silk dresses, shimmering with silver and gold, contrasted sharply with the men’s dark blue cloth suits. Individually, the ratio of blue cloth to gold embroidery to scarlet trimmings was enough for someone who knew the regulations to judge the importance of the wearer. As at Napoleon’s court, the amount of gold embroidery on each uniform was directly proportional to an individual’s rank. A cursory glance around a crowded room could pinpoint the high-ranking individuals who wielded political influence. More than this, the uniform enabled an individual to enjoy membership of the elite, distinguishing him from ordinary people.
Some of these points must have occurred to Lord Boston when he visited Henry Poole’s showroom to order the blue undress uniform he needed for his new role as Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen. He spent sixty-nine pounds on the dark blue cloth coatee with a scarlet collar and cuffs embroidered in gold, a pair of dark blue cloth trousers trimmed with gold lace, a cocked hat trimmed with gold bullion, and a dress sword.9 In the coatee lining, the tailor stitched the company label bearing Lord Boston’s name, his own initials, the year and the order number 5368 (Figure 7.1). Three weeks later, Lord Boston spent another eighty-four pounds on a Windsor uniform, which he would wear when the court was at Windsor. It was a comparatively plain, dark blue uniform with a scarlet collar and cuffs, gilt buttons, two pairs of hose, and a japanned traveling case. He paid the extra for a waistcoat with a silk back.10
Figure 7.1 Undress Royal Household uniform worn by Lord Boston (detail), 1885. © Historic Royal Palaces.
After three months in post, Lord Boston returned to Henry Poole to buy the third and final uniform he needed for his new role. In October 1885, he paid an astonishing 115 pounds—approximately £50,000 by 2015 wage index calculations—for a full-dress, second-class diplomatic uniform, including a coatee with a scarlet collar and cuffs, heavily embroidered in gold11 (Plate 7.2). The expensive gold wire embroidery was applied in a pattern that enhanced Lord Boston’s trim, twenty-five-year-old figure. He asked his tailor for a silk “fit up,” meaning all the pockets, linings, and bindings should be made of silk, not of a cheaper material such as cotton.12 Requests for silk fit ups were rare and the fact that Lord Boston ordered one suggests he wanted the best uniform money could buy.
As the wearer of this new dark blue full-dress uniform, Lord Boston would have looked impressive and important. The four-and-a-half-inch-wide bands of gold embroidered oak leaves spanning his chest signaled he was a man of considerable standing. Only very high-ranking individuals such as ambassadors and privy councilors wore uniforms so heavily decorated with gold. Undoubtedly the suit cost him a small fortune. The fact that he even had the money to pay for it was impressive.
Perhaps the most obvious signifier of his status was the uniform’s scarlet collar and cuffs. To anyone who understood the significance of uniform in 1885, these flashes of red would indicate he was a member of the Royal Household. The coatee’s combination of dark blue, gold, and red was a clear visual sign that Lord Boston, aged only twenty-five, was a man to be reckoned with. Dressed alike with ambassadors, senior politicians, even the prime minister, the young and reasonably inexperienced Lord Boston belonged firmly in the upper echelon of society.
Lord Boston wore his new suits almost immediately. On the day he collected his undress uniform from Henry Poole The Times announced his attendance at the Prince of Wales’s levée at St. James’s Palace.13 He had attended several leveés in recent years but crimson Royal Household cuffs now elevated his status. In January 1886, he wore his magnificent full-dress uniform to take part in the royal procession toward the State Opening of Parliament. He then went with the Lord Chamberlain to Buckingham Palace where he met the Queen and was formally installed as Lord-in-Waiting by “kissing hands.”14 On the surviving garment, a sharp cut across the carefully embroidered gold “saw edge” points at the seam between the collar and coat fronts betrays an unforeseen alteration (Plate 7.3). The pressure on Lord Boston’s throat must have been so severe that he requested the neckline be lowered to give him more room to breathe. Henry Poole billed him for the extra work.15 Comfort was important: he could expect to attend leveés and State Openings of Parliament for the duration of his appointment.
It was widely known that a full-dress civil uniform was an excessively luxurious and expensive garment. The subject excited particular interest around the time of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, when one writer in the tailoring trade journal Tailor and Cutter complained that it cost nearly as much to hire a court suit from a theatrical costumiers as it did to buy the finest of men’s suits on Savile Row.16 The 270 pounds Lord Boston had spent on his three suits was, at the time, an incredible amount of money. The year he bought them, he earned just over 549 pounds on the farms and cottages he rented on the Hedsor Estate. His annual expenses for Anglesey were just over 200 pounds. The amount he spent on uniforms was more than half his mother’s annual allowance.17
Considering the substantial cost of his Royal Household uniforms, it is no wonder that Lord Boston got a shock in February 1886 when the prime minister told him that his services as Lord-in-Waiting were no longer required. He had only been in post for seven months. The official explanation in the London Gazette was that the liberal politician Lord Ribblesdale had been appointed Lord-in-Waiting on Lord Boston’s resignation.18 Still confused, it took Lord Boston six months to muster the courage to contact the prime minister, whom he politely asked for an explanation:
having to the best of my ability supported the Conservative cause in Lincolnshire and in this country … and having steadily attended the House except this last spring when my health necessitated my being abroad, I feel much pained at the check which has been given my connection with the party, and to the career which I hoped was opening before me.19
He went on to explain somewhat tentatively that the situation had “given rise to general comments among my friends” and “in the absence of any communication” about why he lost his post, he did not know what to say to them. He was extremely worried about the damage it would do to his political career.
It is not clear why the Lord-in-Waiting post was offered to someone else. The general election in December 1885 saw a brief shift from a Conservative to a Liberal government; it is possible that William Ewart Gladstone’s short time in office precipitated a redistribution of honorary posts. Lord Boston’s youth and inexperience may have led him to suspect that his position was reallocated due to a misunderstanding: that his short stay in Europe during the previous spring had been interpreted as a lack of commitment to the Conservative Party. There were clearly no hard feelings: two years later, he was offered another Lord-in-Waiting post, which he refused for personal reasons.20 Was he so disturbed by this experience that he could not face yet another disappointment? Whatever the reason behind his dismissal, Lord Boston’s deep distress was evident.
His first concern was to ensure that he could still wear his Royal Household uniforms. Just a few days after he lost the post he received a letter from the Lord Chamberlain’s office stating: “The Queen has given you permission to continue to wear the Household uniform.”21 There are several possible justifications for his anxiety. First, as previously indicated, the uniforms represented a considerable investment. It is possible that he simply aimed to get a return on this investment. Second, his concerns may have been of a practical nature: if he continued to attend leveés and other formal court gatherings he would have to buy another uniform—or hire one from a theatrical costumier or the men’s suit hire company Moss Bros in Covent Garden. Third, individual status may have motivated him. His full-dress uniform was a strong visual signifier of his social standing. Its dark blue cloth, four and a half inches of gold embroidery, and scarlet collar and cuffs were the preserve of the powerful elite. Lastly, perhaps it was the “friends” he mentioned in his letter to the prime minister that caused his anxiety. If he could not wear his uniform he would lose the cachet of Royal Household membership. More generally, however, he would not be a part of his visually homogenous, color-coded, elite group.
With permission to wear his Royal Household uniforms secured, Lord Boston continued his life as a reasonably prominent public figure. He was involved in various charitable activities, including the Mansion-house committee of the fund for the Relief of the Unemployed in London.22 In 1890 he married his cousin Cecelia, known as Cissie. He and Cissie traveled in prestigious circles. They attended royal events such as the State Opening of the Imperial Institute in 1893.23 They were present during a visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to nearby Penrhyn Castle in 1894.24 They enjoyed the company of high-profile individuals such as Prince George and Princess Mary (the future King George V and Queen Mary), artists like John Singer Sargeant, wealthy American businessman William Waldorf Astor, and others.25 Lord Boston had several opportunities over the years that followed his disappointment to wear one or other of his uniforms. In 1890 he asked Henry Poole to press his tunic and apply a black silk crepe mourning band to its sleeve—there was official court mourning that year for the Empress Queen Augusta of Germany and Prussia and the Duke of Aosta.26 In 1895 Lord Boston attended the Prince of Wales’ levée at St. James’s Palace—probably wearing the undress uniform.27 He also attended various State Openings of Parliament, for which he would have worn the full-dress one.
This special dispensation to wear the Royal Household uniforms offered two advantages. At some gatherings, his gleaming gold torso and scarlet cuffs set him well above the people who surrounded him. But where large crowds of men in civil uniform were present, he retained—visually, at least—his membership of the group he no longer officially belonged to. The people who knew him must have raised their eyebrows at this, but this must have been a reputational risk worth taking.
The death of Queen Victoria in 1901 signaled the end of a period notable for a formality of ceremony, which might well have diminished under a new Sovereign. Lord Boston had not received tickets for the actual funeral ceremony in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor but he did watch the Queen’s funeral procession. He told his mother, “it was a grand sight. The vast crowds were something extraordinary and while the coffin was passing there was dead silence.” Ever keen to wear his uniform, he added, “I am afraid the queen’s death will make a big difference to us as regards court functions. I am not sure whether I can continue to wear my Household uniform.”28
Boston’s fears that his special dispensation to wear his uniforms would inevitably expire were unfounded. He wore the full-dress uniform at the coronation of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902. It can be seen in the photograph he had taken after the ceremony, just visible under the crimson velvet and ermine coronation robe he inherited from his father, which was supplied by the established robe makers Webb (Figure 7.2). “The whole spectacle was one of the very greatest splendour,” he reported, “and really defies description.”29 Lord Boston wore the suit and robe again in 1911, for the coronation of George V and Queen Mary. In all likelihood he wore the same for the coronation of George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937.
Figure 7.2 George Florance Irby, 6th Baron Boston, wearing coronation robes. William Plumbe, 1902. Reproduced with kind permission of Lord Boston.
Politics remained one of Boston’s key interests. In 1899 he led a committee on the supply of electricity to London.30 He was a member of the Anti-Sweating League, the social reform group that campaigned against poor conditions for workers in sweatshops, and supported the introduction of a minimum wage.31 He supported electoral reform: in March 1910, The Times published a letter from Lord Boston, in response to Lord Rosebery’s assertion “that the possession of a peerage should no longer of itself give the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.” Lord Boston supported this statement, adding that he favored a Parliament “less dominated by an element drawn exclusively from the wealthy and leisured classes, and less under the control of one political party in the State.”32
By the late 1920s, Lord Boston was becoming increasingly absorbed in his personal interests in archaeology and science. He directed the excavation of a Roman fort in North Wales, he helped to plan a strategy for preservation of Snowdonia as a place of natural interest and historic importance, and he was president of the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales and eventually left a large collection of early English pottery to the National Museum of Wales. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and of the Geological Society and in 1936 he was awarded a Doctor of Law by the University of Wales, Bangor, for his services to culture.33 Lord Boston and his wife Cissie did not have children. In 1923, they sold the Hedsor estate and the contents of the house, including historic books; an Erard piano and a pair of busts by Roubiliac were sold soon afterward.34 The rest of the estate and title passed to his nephew.
The uniforms that are now preserved in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection record some of Lord Boston’s physical characteristics. The alteration he commissioned to lower the neckline of his full-dress coatee reduced the pressure of the collar on his Adam’s apple. This small adjustment evokes the early days of his career when his need for personal comfort warranted cutting away the precise embroidered borders of his otherwise perfect coat. A triangular piece of fabric inserted at the back center waist of his undress uniform trousers suggests he gained weight in later life. Despite his expanded waistline, his coatees survive without significant alterations. Any substantial modification to these coats would be a complicated task for any tailor. The gold wire embroidery would have to be reworked to conceal any additional dark blue cloth pieces. Did Lord Boston feel that his uniforms were not worth any further investment? Perhaps he suffered through long hours at court in a coat that was too small for him.
Lord Boston’s Royal Household uniforms remained important to him. This is documented in his surviving letters where they are the only personal possessions mentioned. There are no references to the Van Dyck portrait, the busts by Roubiliac, even the Hedsor estate at Maidenhead and its surrounding grounds. This was in part due to his love of ceremony and the enjoyment he had attending formal court occasions since his early twenties. In letters to his mother, he included detailed descriptions of the King’s magnificent appearance, the striking scene at the Abbey, the naval review after George V’s coronation that resembled “an eastern city of gold, the masts representing the minarets and pagodas.”35 He relished in the personal anecdotes: one insider told him the Archbishop of Canterbury “made a bad shot at first in crowning his Majesty and put the crown on crooked!”36 Wearing the uniform, Lord Boston was immersed in these occasions as it elevated him from being a spectator to a protagonist.
More than this, Lord Boston’s blue, gold, and scarlet Royal Household uniforms helped to define his public image. At the beginning of his career, they embodied the promise of a long career in politics. They reinforced his high social status and labeled him for all to see as a member of the Royal Household. He was already a member of the elite but his uniform provided a cohesive visual association with other members of the Royal Household and, more generally, the ambassadors and other high-ranking officials who demonstrated their status through copious gold embroidery. As a group, these men in uniform added magnificence to the court ceremony that Boston had so enjoyed. The expensive dark blue cloth absorbed the light to show off oak leaves and spangles of gold and flashes of scarlet that twinkled in the candlelight. Losing the Lord-in-Waiting’s post in 1886 put Lord Boston’s membership of this group in jeopardy. The special dispensation he received to wear the Royal Household uniform allowed him to preserve his role as an important participant in court ceremonies. But it also secured his continued affiliation with the nation’s most powerful and influential group of men. Without it, he might wear his comparatively plain scarlet Deputy Lieutenant’s uniform or the even simpler black velvet court dress that any man could wear and thus blend into the crowd.
Acknowledgments
Very special thanks to Lady Boston for allowing such generous access to family documents and photographs. Thanks also to Angus Cundey at Henry Poole & Co. for enabling me to examine the company ledgers and James Sherwood for helping me to navigate them.
Notes
1 Dictionary of Welsh Biography http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s2-IRBY-FLO-1860.html (accessed December 1, 2015).
2 Boston Family papers, Statement as to Lord Boston’s Estates and as to the Charges Thereon, June 17, 1886.
3 “Great Conservative Demonstration at Oxford,” Oxford Journal, February 7, 1880, 6.
4 “Imperial Parliament,” Morning Post, April 21, 1882, 2.
5 Henry Poole archive, ledger A-B-4, 530.
6 Ibid.
7 “Grand Conservative Demonstration,” Buckinghamshire Herald, September 6, 1884, 5.
8 Boston Family papers, Lord Salisbury to Lord Boston, July 3, 1885.
9 Henry Poole archive, ledger A-B-4, 830.
10 Ibid., 839.
11 http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php (accessed December 1, 2015).
12 Ibid., 894.
13 The Times, July 14, 1885, 12.
14 The Times, January 22, 1886, 5.
15 Henry Poole archive, ledger A-B-4, 894.
16 Tailor and Cutter, November 8, 188, 509.
17 Boston Family papers, Statement as to Lord Boston’s Estates and as to the Charges Thereon, June 17, 1886.
18 The London Gazette, March 2, 1886, 1027.
19 Boston Family papers, Lord Boston to Lord Salisbury, August 8, 1886.
20 Boston Family papers, Lord Boston to Lord Kintore, October 17, 1888.
21 Sir Spencer Ponsonby Fane to Lord Boston, February 13, 1886.
22 The Times, February 16, 1886, 6.
23 The Times, May 11, 1893, 9.
24 The Times, July 13, 1894, 10.
25 Private Collection, Autograph album.
26 Henry Poole archive, ledger A-B-4, 894.
27 The Times, May 28, 1895, 10.
28 Boston Family papers, Lord Boston to his mother, February 8, 1901.
29 Boston Family papers, Lord Boston to his mother, August 1902.
30 The Times, June 23, 1899, 14.
31 The Times, October 27, 1906, 3.
32 The Times, March 23, 1910, 6.
33 Dictionary of Welsh Biography http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s2-IRBY-FLO-1860.html (accessed December 1, 2015).
34 The Times, October 30, 1923, 24.
35 Boston Family papers, Lord Boston to his mother, June 26, 1911.
36 Boston Family papers, Lord Boston to his mother, August 1902.
References
Books
Graham Bennet, H. (ed.) (1903), Dress Worn by Gentlemen at His Majesty’s Court and On Occasions of Ceremony, 19–20, London: Harrison and Sons.
Mansel, Philip. (2005), Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II, 77–93, 100, London: Yale University Press.
Archives and papers
Boston Family papers
Henry Poole archive ledgers
Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection archive
Newspapers and periodicals
Buckinghamshire Herald
The London Gazette
Morning Post
Oxford Journal
The Tailor and Cutter
The Times
Website
Dictionary of Welsh Biography, http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s2-IRBY-FLO-1860.html (accessed December 1, 2015).