Jean Louis Bazalgette, the Prince Regent's tailor
Most of the known accounts published about George, Prince of Wales, and his profligate spending on clothes and luxury items say that his main tailor was John Weston. It is also said that under the influence of young Beau Brummel he patronized other London tailors such as Meyer, and Schweitzer and Davidson. Steven Parissien, in his very interesting book ‘George IV, Inspiration of the Regency’ has a whole chapter entitled ‘Clothing & Militaria’ which lists tailors, bootmakers etc. used by the Prince.
The name of the unknown man who was the Prince’s tailor for 32 years – Louis Bazalgette – shows up in none of these sources. He appears to have started quietly supplying the Prince with all manner of clothes in great quantities in about 1780, and carried on making most of his clothes until at least 1795.
A dandy and his tailor
In 1794, the sixteen-year-old Brummel attracted the interest of the Prince, who under his influence began slowly to change his style of dress, so that by 1795 Bazalgette was making less of the gaudy outfits of which Prinny had been so fond. However, Louis continued to make most of the Prince’s uniforms, and the livery for his servants, until at least 1806.
Louis was the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Charles Bazalgette (r), who is writing his life story. The book contains a great deal of new material; as a foretaste, Charles has started a blog which can be accessed at this blog – http://chasbaz.posterous.com/
Vic.
I’m very grateful to you for posting this link!
I hope those who venture to my blog will judge it to be worth the journey.
Thanks and best wishes,
Charles Bazalgette
Actually, it wasn’t Louis who started the blog because he’s dead ;-)
That would have made him a truly unique and long-lived individual!
Yes, and think how much easier researching him would have been…
Are you also related to the Bazalgette who was a civil engineer in Victorian times – London Underground, sewers, flood control on the Thames, etc?
Yes, Phyllis. He was my gggfr and thus Louis Bazalgette’s grandson.
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The story about how Louis Bazalgette smuggled in some material from France to make a special waistcoast for the Prince Regent was an inspiration for my new Regency mystery The Ruby Spy Ring, which should be out in a few months. I’m looking forward to reading the book about his life story.
Libi Astaire
Libi, how nice! Look forward to seeing what you will do with that story. What interests me is why Louis was recommended. Was it because he was French and a tailor, or was it because he was known as a cove who was familiar with the ins and outs of the smuggling game?
What a fascinating family tree! I, too, am eagerly awaiting the publication of your book!
Cultural and social history was a primary focus of my studies in college, and I am still fascinated by the small details of daily life in earlier times, especially the Regency. Your book will make a valuable contribution to that field, in an area for which there is a serious lack of published sources.
I wish you much success!
Hi Kathryn,
Thanks for your comments and good wishes.
I guess that with all this anticipation I’d better get on with the book instead of all this blogging!
I share your interest in social history – somehow the minutiae of a life lived 200 years ago, and how it fits into ‘history’ for some reason has a fascination which I find it hard to fathom, but there it is.
I am concentrating on the tailoring aspects in my blogs because those are up till now the parts I had the least knowledge of, but there is a huge amount of other stuff in the story which I will try to post in time.
Hope you don’t mind me mentioning that I added another blog to Prinny’s Taylor – this time it is more about Louis’s family – the Sad Tale of Evelyn’s Arm.
Hi Charles,
I first found the story about the smuggling in this New York Times article called “A Fortune Made By a Waistcoat:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=950DE7DE1039EF34BC4953DFB566838F669FDE
Hi Libi,
So did I.
It was published in several papers in the US. The source was given as Dr Chambers. Now the trick would be to find who told the story to Chambers… Probably the Chambers brothers who wrote the dictionary, cyclopedias and several books of anecdotes. If we could find the original Chambers book it might just give us the real source. Perhaps somebody connected to Carlton House. BTW, have you read Geoffrey Morley’s books on smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset etc?
A while ago I posted a blog on my site giving a reference back to this site. I’m interested to see that the statistics show that is almost the most read of my blogs. So I hope that in a way I’m returning the favour of your original link to my blog. If people happen to hit my blog and that links them to your site that’s good!
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