MADAM – As a collector of antique ladies’ skirt lifters, I was extremely interested to learn that Carole Walker bought one in silver (type unknown) dated 1836 (Pick of the Week, ATG No 2345).
This is so very early, as the 1860s seems to be the advent for long, expensive dresses, when skirt lifters were needed for bicycling, badminton and tennis. The heyday for patents was the 1870s, with makers Henry Manning Knight and Alexander Leslie Fyfe being very much to the fore.
The ‘scissor type’ gave the Victorians endless opportunities in subject matter to manufacture ‘sliders’ that however intricate, the tool-maker was up for the challenge.