# When did footmen with wigs die out in England? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769 "2012-07-19T20:33:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/1 "2012-07-19T20:33:55Z")
I’ve been reading various English novels from the 19th century recently and they sometimes make waggish comments about nobles who have footmen wearing powdered wigs. When did this practice finally die out in England? Or are there still one or two holdout noblemen who have bewigged footmen? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/2 "2012-07-20T01:40:41Z")
They had them at least into the 1910s, I think; I’ve seen pictures of Buckingham Palace footmen around the time of World War I and I believe they had them then. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/3 "2012-07-20T01:48:11Z")
In fact, in this photo taken just a few weeks ago during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, you can see the groom on the horse in the right foreground is wearing a wig: [http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site\_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/jubilee/bp41.jpg](http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/jubilee/bp41.jpg) Likewise here: [http://www.globalnews.ca/uploadedImages/Global\_News/Content/carriage.jpg?size=sw380nws](http://www.globalnews.ca/uploadedImages/Global_News/Content/carriage.jpg?size=sw380nws) And here, during the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding last year: [http://royalweddings.hellomagazine.com/imagenes//prince-william-and-kate-middleton/20110429650/prince-william-kate-middleton-wedding-procession-carriages/0-2-365/procession-02--z.jpg](http://royalweddings.hellomagazine.com/imagenes//prince-william-and-kate-middleton/20110429650/prince-william-kate-middleton-wedding-procession-carriages/0-2-365/procession-02--z.jpg) Same dude, too, I think. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/4 "2012-07-20T02:10:58Z")
I guess royalty counts as nobility. But is that everyday wear for palace footmen? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/5 "2012-07-20T02:25:03Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > In fact, in this photo taken just a few weeks ago during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, you can see the groom on the horse in the right foreground is wearing a wig: [http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site\_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/jubilee/bp41.jpg](http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/jubilee/bp41.jpg) The chubby bloke on the top left looks like he may well have had a heavy night the night before. The soldier/close protection officer immediately behind Her Maj looks like his garments are ill-fitting, Wonder what he’s got stuffed in there? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/6 "2012-07-20T02:45:25Z")
Those coachmen’s and grooms’ coats are very old, very expensive and not tailored for individuals, I learned from a BBC special on Buckingham Palace. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/7 "2012-07-20T18:30:05Z")
It also occurred to me that on _Downton Abbey_, which from what I’ve read is considered pretty accurate as a reflection of the British aristo lifestyle through WWI, the most gussied-up the Earl’s male servants ever get is white tie and tails. No wigs there: [![](https://janeaustensworld.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/downton-abbey-itv.jpg) ](https://janeaustensworld.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/downton-abbey-itv.jpg) [https://d1j2diro5xke84.cloudfront.net/photo-articles/featured\_images/773/original/downton-abbey.jpg?1328124071](https://d1j2diro5xke84.cloudfront.net/photo-articles/featured_images/773/original/downton-abbey.jpg?1328124071) [http://perioddrama.com/Articles/Period%20Drama%20Dictionary/Dictionary\_Images/servants-bells2.jpg](http://perioddrama.com/Articles/Period%20Drama%20Dictionary/Dictionary_Images/servants-bells2.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/8 "2012-07-20T20:22:44Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Those coachmen’s and grooms’ coats are very old, very expensive and not tailored for individuals, I learned from a BBC special on Buckingham Palace. That exact thought struck me-could some of these little-used costumes have been hanging around since the days of George III? I have seen 18th-century clothing-it is very well made-could some of these otfits be so old? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/9 "2012-08-20T19:54:40Z")
ISTR that they’re 80 or 90 years old, not as old as George III’s reign. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/10 "2012-08-20T20:34:41Z")
Since this has been bumped up, I’m currently reading “Framley Parsonage” by Anthony Trollope (written in 1860 and taking place around 1858 or so), and the wealthy Miss Dunstable says: > [@](#): > > I! Lord bless you, no! Nobody hates grandeur so much as I do. Of course I must do as I am told. I must live in a big house, and have three footmen six feet high. I must have a coachman with a top-heavy wig, and horses so big that they frighten me. If I did not, I should be made out a lunatic and declared unable to manage my own affairs. But as for grandeur, I hate it. I certainly think that I shall have some of these conversaziones. I wonder whether Mrs. Proudie will come and put me up to a wrinkle or two. So at least as of 1858, the idea of a wealthy woman having servants with wigs wasn’t too outré. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-footmen-with-wigs-die-out-in-england/628769/11 "2012-08-20T21:01:19Z")
[Hairstyles of the British Court: Whigs in Wigs](http://shadesbreath.hubpages.com/hub/Hairstyles-of-the-British-Court-Whigs-in-Wigs). Not bad, but mostly on ride and fall of wigs in law. Interesting graf on starched wigs/food and guinea pigs: In England the problem was food. England hovered on the brink of starvation and, given that the starch portion of the “starch and plaster of Paris” mentioned above was derived from wheat; cavorting about with a shovel full of what was essentially wasted food in your wig was simply not a good idea for the well fed well-to-do. Even then, the haughty rich continued to do it anyway, and the flouting of it in the face of famine became such an issue that a tax was imposed on those who wore powdered wigs to the tune of a guinea each, which actually netted a hefty sum of £200,000 in just the year 1795. This gluttonous consumption of food for the purpose of powdering their wigs, and the elite being willing to pay the tax rather than dispense with their vanity, got these wig-wearers the nick-name “guinea pigs” by the populace (McLaren 244).