A dress from the 1870s is currently on display at Highfield Historic Site, over 150 years after it was designed.
The dress was originally designed for the eldest daughter of Fredrick and Eleanor Ford, Selina Eleanor Ford, born in 1847. The Fords leased property at Highfield and the surrounding 596 acres in the 1850s.
Selina married Dr Richard Smyth in 1879, and they went on to have five children.
It is assumed that the dress was passed down to the eldest daughter, Elizabeth Eleanor Smyth. Elizabeth married Robert Stuart Rankin at Highfield in 1908 and they moved to Brisbane, Queensland.
The elegant black dress on display at Highfield Historic Site
Elizabeth is believed to have taken the dress with her to Brisbane, where it was handed down to Elizabeth’s eldest daughter Margaret Eleanor Rakin.
Margaret married Charles MacFarlane Cooke in 1936 and passed away in 1994 aged 81
The dress was purchased by Patricia Nixon in the early 1980s from an antique store in Brisbane, to be worn to fancy dress party. It was then displayed in her dining room for over 45 years.
The origin of how the dress came to be in an antique store is a mystery, but the history of the dress has been able to be traced, as whoever sold the dress to the antique store had attached a note.
The note has details on the origins of the dress, which were confirmed in the Ford family tree book – The Fords of Ford Green Tasmanian branch from the year 1842.
The note states the dress was made by Mary Caroll, a Tasmanian dressmaker and the aunt of Sir Joseph Lyons, Australia’s first and only Tasmanian born Prime Minister.
Patricia contacted Highfield in to arrange for it to be donated back to the historic site.
Upon return to Highfield the dress was sent to textiles conservator and dress historian, Freya Harrington.
A detailed view of the dress
The dress required extensive conservation, including repairs to the cotton lining and numerous areas of wear, and holes in the silk. A custom mannequin with supportive under garments was made to support the garment for display.
The dress is a day dress, made of two pieces, a blouse and skirt, and would have been worn for outings such as shopping, social events and other special activities.
It has been made from black silk with floral brocade accents and features a bustle made from wire cage structures or fabric cushions attached at the waist. Bustles were designed to support the heavy folds of fabric at the back of the skirt and emphasized the wearers posterior.
Details of the dress include pleats on the skirt panel facing upwards instead of downwards, which is customary for the time. The bodice has an unusual pear-shape which may indicate the pattern was drafted from an illustration of a finished dress or it may have been tailored to fit the wearer’s body.
The dress is currently on display at Highfield Historic Site.