Jane Ashelford Livres

The clothes worn by our ancestors afford an unparalleled insight into lifestyles that have disappeared forever. Choice of dress has always been governed by a series of influences – social and economic, artistic and technical – and, of course, the vagaries of individual taste. Jane Ashelford has used the National Trust’s stunning costume and textile collections as well as its historic house portraits, family correspondence, diaries and household papers to produce a fascinating account of the history of dress over the past four centuries

Born at Trinity Manor, Jersey, in 1733, from his earliest age Philip De Carteret determined on a career in the Royal Navy. He made his first circumnavigation 1764-1766 as First Lieutenant on the Dolphin under the command of Captain John Byron.Within six weeks of their return Carteret was placed in command of the Swallow and Captain Wallis the Dolphin, with instructions from the Admiralty to discover ‘a Place of consequence in the South Seas’.The disparity between the two the copper-bottomed Dolphin and the lumbering and ill-equipped Swallow, described by Carteret as ‘one of the worst, if not the very worst of her kind; in his Majesty’s Navy’ had inevitable consequences and the two ships became separated after leaving the Straits of Magellan.Undeterred, Carteret sailed on into the unknown and discovered and named some twenty islands, an achievement which, according to the The Guinness Book of Maritime Records, should have led him to be ‘ranked as one of the greatest explorers of his yet, unjustly, his name is seldom remembered’.