The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London - The Glove Collection and its Catalogue

The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London, www.thegloverscompany.org,
one of the City’s ancient Livery Companies, was formed originally to upkeep the standards of glove-making in the City some 700 years ago. In common with other City Livery Companies, the Glovers have survived and flourished by adapting to modern times, maintaining strong links with their trade, supporting the City with many of its projects, educational bursaries and charitable programmes.

The Company has not forgotten its heritage nor its obligations to posterity and within the Glove Collection Charitable Trust, it maintains and preserves a magnificent collection of gloves since the 16th century to the present day, making it available to the public as far as possible. To this end the Collection has been digitally photographed and descriptive text prepared and the resulting comprehensive CATALOGUE forms part of this web site.

The Catalogue is under Copyright (C) 2007, The Glove Collection Trust.

The Collection is in three parts, the Spence, the Harborow and the General Collection. The Trustees' policy is to undertake the acquisition of gloves which illustrate the development of taste and fashion, and gloves which are unique or of particular interest through ownership or circumstance.

The SPENCE and HARBOROW collections are housed at The Fashion Museum at Bath. www.fashionmuseum.co.uk. These are the Company's two historic Collections and it is appropriate that they are on loan to the Fashion Museum, a world class collection of contemporary and historical dress. The Glove Collection Trust has recently supported a special exhibition "17th Century Gloves" at the Fashion Museum with gloves from the Spence collection. The exhibition continues throughout 2008. It is also possible to view a selection of other gloves from the Spence and Harborow collections in the Fashion Museum's Study Facilities on a Thursday or Friday afternoon. To book an appointment, e-mail the Museum at Fashion_enquiries@bathnes.gov.uk.

An introduction to the Spence and Harborow collections follow the next paragraph.

The General Collection

THE Trustees are building the General Collection of gloves from the mid-19th Century to the present day. We have some 175 pairs of gloves to date, acquired under our policy to collect gloves which illustrate the development of taste and fashion, and gloves which are unique or of particular interest through ownership or circumstance.

IF YOU HAVE GLOVES IN GOOD CONDITON WHICH DATE FROM THE 1850'S TO THE PRESENT DAY AND ARE WILLING TO DONATE THEM TO FORM PART OF THIS COLLECTION, PLEASE CONTACT THE CLERK TO THE GLOVERS COMPANY WHO WILL ARRANGE FOR A TRUSTEE TO SPEAK TO YOU. Her e-mail address is - clerk@thegloverscompany.org or telephone 0207 376 3043. Your enquiries will be most welcome.

We suggest that you take a look at the Catalogue of the General Collection to see what has been acquired to date. Some of the latest gloves are unused, some show recent developments in materials and use of colour while earlier gloves have been discovered among family relics. Please do not hesitate to make contact - wht may seem to you as a nondescript glove or pair of gloves might prove to be a valuable link in the development of taste and fashion to our experts. And better still, what you find may have an interesting provenance.

The Spence and Harborow Collections

In 1959 the late Robert Spence presented his magnificent collection of historical gloves to the Company and we record our gratitude for his generosity. This Collection covers the period from the late 16th Century until the middle of the 19th Century, but its richest exhibits fall within the period of c.1590 and 1680. Spence obviously admired the splendidly decorated gauntlet gloves of the period and tried to assemble as wide a variety as possible. The combination of fine doeskin or kid gloves, with their narrow attenuated fingers and the richly embroidered gauntlet seemed to have exerted a special fascination for him, as it still does for enthusiasts today. Such gloves were the finest example of the work of two City Companies, the Glovers and Broderers. The embroidery can incorporate multicoloured silks, gold thread, seed pearls and applied metal strip sometimes worked on satin, sometimes worked directly on to the leather.

The majority of pairs use popular motifs of the period, flowers, leaves, birds and beasts, but some actually tell a story as does the pair which, in embroidery, depicts the allegory of Jonah and the Whale. Such splendid gloves were popular presents and there are many references to them in household and royal accounts of the time.

Occasionally they served as a cover for even richer gifts. Sir Thomas More, as Chancellor, was given as a New Year present, by a lady in whose favour
he had settled a legal dispute, a pair of gloves containing 40 angels (an old English coin). Sir Thomas, a scrupulous man, commented, “It would be against good manners to forsake a gentlewoman’s New Year gift, and I accept the gloves. The lining you will bestow elsewhere”.

Other types of gloves in the Collection include an interesting group of knitted silk ecclesiastical and secular gloves, mostly Italian and Spanish in origin.
The ecclesiastical gloves incorporate knitted Christian symbols in gold thread. The secular examples depict stylised flower and leaf patterns knitted in rich yellows, blues, reds and greens. The earliest pair of gloves in the Collection are ecclesiastical, deep crimson silk with a gold thread pattern, probably Italian in origin. The Collection also contains samples of fabric gloves, mostly dating from the first half of the 19th Century, and printed leather gloves. The latter include a small group of exquisite Spanish gloves, all wrist-length women’s gloves of white kid printed in black with simple geometrical designs or figures from popular engravings.

THE DUPLICATE ROYAL CORONATION GLOVES COLLECTION

We record our thanks to Messrs. Harborow who presented these gloves. At each Coronation, the ancient symbol of a right hand glove was presented to the Sovereign by a Peer who had inherited the privilege. A duplicate glove was always made and kept to one side in case any mishap to the original required its use. Those in the Collection are of Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V, and George VI. Also included is one Queen Alexandra’s coronation gloves and the original glove presented to Queen Elizabeth II. The ancient privilege of presenting the glove had lapsed but was revived in 1953 and was transferred to the Glovers Company by the Earl Marshal and the Company presented the glove used at the Coronation ceremony that year.

The gloves are gauntlet gloves of white leather with a cipher on the back of the hand and the gauntlets heavily embroidered with gold thread using the traditional motifs of Tudor Rose, the Shamrock, the Thistle, Oak leaves and Acorns.

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