It is amazing that one of the quintessential features of 18th century dress has come down to us from Doctor Johnson. These are Samuel Johnson’s shoe buckles . They are silver and elegant in their tasteful simplicity. One shows the clear signs of repair. The buckles were too valuable simply to throw them away!
They date from 1770 and became part of Francis Barber’s inheritance when Johnson died in 1784. Francis Barber was the servant Johnson treated almost as a son.
He sold the buckles to Gregory Hickman (1766-1816) a surgeon of Burslem, Staffs. His daughter inherited them and sold them to John Ward (1781 – 1870), solicitor and historian of Stoke. It is from him that the museum came into possession of the very buckles that fastened Doctor Johnson’s shoes.
18th Century shoe buckles bring us into a whole new world of expertise and technical terms.
There was no left or right to these buckles. The shoe came with two latchets (strips of leather) and you fitted the buckle to suit yourself, as described below.
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How To Buckle Your Shoe (Eighteenth Century Style!)
Slide the shorter, bottom latchet through the chape. The chape will pinch the latchet, keeping it snug. Align the buckle on the center of your foot and mark the position of the chape spikes.
With an awl or leather punch, create holes 1/4″ behind the marks for the chape spikes. With the chape spikes pushed through the holes, and laying flat, your buckle should still be centered on the top of your foot.
Feed the longer, top latchet through the buckle frame pulling back tightly. Mark the position of the tongue spikes on the underside of the long latchet.
Again, use the awl to create hole 1/4’’back from the marked position of the tongue spikes.
Secure the tongue spikes in their holes, and feed the latchet over the pin and down through the frame, to complete the closure.
Simple! You are now fit to go out into eighteenth-century society!
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Johnson and his Shoes
We read from Boswell that Johnson could be careless in his dress….
‘He received me very courteously; but, it must be confessed, that his apartment, and furniture, and morning dress, were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of cloaths looked very rusty; he had on a little old shrivelled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt-neck and knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stockings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the moment that he began to talk.’
….and that Hester Thrale took some trouble to neaten him up. Boswell takes us to the buckle shop….
‘After he had been sometime in the shop, he sent for me to come out of the coach, and help him to choose a pair of silver buckles, as those he held were too small. Probably this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs Thrale. By association with whom, his external appearance was much improved. He got better cloaths; and dark colour from which he never deviated, was enlivened by metal buttons. His wigs too were much better; and during their travels in France, he was furnished with a Paris-made wig, of handsome construction. The choosing of silver buckles was a negociation: ‘Sir,(he said)I will not have the ridiculous ones now in fashion: and I will give no more than a guinea for a pair’. Such were the principles of the business; and after some examination, he was fitt.’
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This is close up of the letter of authenticity for the shoe buckles in our collection:
Contributor: Annemarie Powell was an English teacher and first got to know the Birthplace Museum when bringing her students here on school visits.