Aprons and More Aprons

Sometimes there are photographs that you come across that just knock your socks off. This is one of them.

You can see the largest size HERE.

This is part of a group of women who ran a bazaar in the Stratford mechanics' Institute in 1899. The photograph is mounted on cardboard, on which has been professionally printed:


Stratford Mechanics' Institute Bazaar / Group of Stallholders / [back] Mrs WEBSTER, Mrs BREMNER, Mrs SEATON, Mrs MAYHEW, Mrs MILDENHALL. /[Middle Row] Miss HAZLETT, Miss M. MAYHEW, Miss REEVES, Miss KELLY / [Front Row] Mrs REEVES, Mrs KELLY (Treasurer), Mrs REFSHAUGE (President), Mrs DERBYSHIRE, Mrs DUCRET. Mr HOLT (Bazaar Sec). /
Presented to Mrs FREITAG. / By the Committee of the Mechanics' Institute Stratford, as a Memento of the Bazaar so successfully carried out by the Stallholders on the 12th, 13th, 14th and 16th October, 1899, whereby the sum of [pounds]400 was raised - an amount sufficient to clear the cost of building the additional rooms to the Institute. Absence from the district or illness prevented the group being complete. Mesdames Freitag, Wrigglesworth, Roach, J.Little, Brodie, Collins, Garden, Daniel and Misses Baylis, and McBain, were absent from one or other of the causes mentioned.
COMMITTEE [on side] Messers J.H.REFSHAUGE (President), J.A.DARBYSHIRE, S.McBAIN, W.BRODIE, J.MILDENHALL, J.GARDEN, A.LLOYD (Secretary).


The thing that has always taken our eye has been the aprons. What was going on here? Was it a status thing to have the most ornate apron as you stood behind your own stall. Because this would have to be the most wonderful collection of aprons that we have ever seen.