The Regency Men's Shirt Masterpost

"the marvellous Boy / The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride."

This month's Historic Sew Monthly challenge is "Literature" - so I've chosen Thomas Chatterton's shirt, as modeled so romantically in the Death of Chatterton painting by Victorian Henry Wallis. Chatterton was a rather minor poet, who wrote faux-Medieval poetry, and is most famous for killing himself aged 17. This was, retrospectively, seen as a supremely romantic act of poetry - hence that ridiculous painting - rather than a sad end or a result of poverty or ill health. I've wanted to do the regency menswear for a while, and I'm picking it as my first project because it's easy, and I can complete it in the time remaining this month. A shapeless garment, without much fit to speak of. I'm making a couple of adjustments to better fit my body, as "standard male measurements" are going to be too large for me.

This shirt is good for decades - throughout the 1700s (Chatterton died 1770) and as far as 1815 (i.e. it's good for Austen), and maybe even a touch later?

Resources

I'm drafting my own pattern based on this deviantart pattern:

• Goldenspring's 18th C shirt pattern instructions and pattern

Shirts of this era were made of linen - specifically lawn, or for more active pursuits, cambric:

• Fabric choices for 19th Century Costumes: Linen
• A washing guide for linen (as you need to follow careful pre-shrinking procedures with linen before use)

Shirt collars were starched. Frills on the cuffs is OK for the 1700s, but is old-fashioned by the 1800s.

I'm using a couple of sew-alongs for help:

• 1830 shirt part 1 & part 2 (this gentleman does great historical menswear & I will be returning to him a lot)
• The "MY Mr Knightley" Regency shirt (this blog has sewalongs for the whole regency men's costume)
• Hand-sewing the men's shirt (this is a newer post by the same author with great hand-sewing and detail resources)
• Historic descriptions of how to assemble the shirt
• This sewalong, with photos, instructions and a set of measurements  
• One commenter identifies the gathers as "stroke gathers", described and explained here. 

Shirts of this kind continued to be worn by working men well into the Victorian period:

• Instructions from 1840

Good history articles:

• A description of the items in a man's wardrobe
• A collection of historic plates & movie characters, with notes on the clothes
• I'm also relying on this historical post for details - no ruffles on the cuffs, but starched collar points, were the regency look. This author seems super well informed.

Example photos include:

• A historic shirt from the V&A (1770s-1800)
• This historic shirt from a private collection - somewhat less fancy and more coarse; blog has lots of historic photos for future use 
• 18th Century from Cleveland collection
• Reproduction photos from a pattern manufacturer
• Rewatching all the Jane Austen, including this chap
• and of course, THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON
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