Sunday, December 11, 2016

Advent Calendar 11: At the Richard Jefferies Museum, Swindon


From my post Too few people know about Richard Jefferies (February 2010):
This photograph shows the top floor of the house at Coate, which is where Jefferies wrote as a young man. I took it when I visited the museum last summer. 
The lifesize figure on the bed, reading intently with his heels kicked up, was rather sweet. But one thing puzzled me. 
"Did Victorian boys wear short trousers?" I asked the guide from the Richard Jefferies Society. 
"Well, you see," he said, "there was an exhibition in town last year about Swindon in the Second World War...."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Short trousers for children (male) - yes.
Wearing long trousers was almost a coming of age thing.

Jonathan Calder said...

But not until after the First World War, surely?