3-078-004 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Juvenile Fancy-Dress Ball given by the Lady Mayoress at the Mansion House, 1890. 'The Ladies' Column...some four hundred youngsters, in more or less curious dresses, enjoy[ed] thoroughly the varied amusements and plentiful refreshments provided for them by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress...The two daughters of the last Lord Mayor, Sir James Whitehead, who were dressed in their father's own Mayoralty with striking plainness as ''Puritan Maidens," were much more showy this year. Miss Florence Whitehead wore the pretty robes of white silk and scarlet facings of "A Doctor of Music," copied from the costume of the Princess of Wales; and her sister, Miss Lelia Whitehead, was a perfectly attired "Portia," or Doctor of Laws, carrying in her hand a parchment with a seal three hundred years old attached thereunto. A very little girl, Miss Violet Helm, looked pretty as "Diana," with her feet in buskins and her head adorned with the crescent. A most carefully copied and becoming costume of silver brocade and old lace was worn by Mr. Augustus Harris's little daughter as "Princess Elizabeth, the child of Charles I." Master Dudley Clulow was well got up as "Knave of Hearts," the curious design of that particular court-card being copied carefully'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.