I have, in the past, looked at a wide variety of colours worn during the Georgian era, and this article is about the colour purple, which was very fashionable throughout the period. According to The Elements of Dying by Claude Louis Berthollet in 1824: Purple has been, almost everywhere, a mark of distinction attached to high birth and dignities. It was an ornament of the first office of Rome; but luxury, which was carried to great excess in that capital of the world, rendered the use of it common among the opulent, till the emperors reserved to themselves the right of wearing it; soon afterwards, it became the symbol of their inauguration.

This book draws on a wide range of sources to provide the first comprehensive account of the experience of eighteenth-century working girlhood across all regions of Britain, examining the lifecycle st...