Historical information

The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle or simply The Queen was a magazine created in 1864 in London. The title became ‘Queen’ in the 1950s, then ‘Harpers and Queen’ in the UK and then part of the British ‘Harper's Bazaar’. In 1861 Samuel Orchart Beeton (Mrs Beeton’s husband) had founded a paper named ‘The Queen’ about fashion and culture for upper class women of society. Edward William Cox bought the title the following year and at the same time he bought the Queen's rival that was named ‘The Ladies' Paper’. He merged the two publications into ‘The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle’ in 1864.
The designer was John Redfern (1820-1895). He founded a British tailoring firm that developed into a leading European couture house and is credited for being one of the first designers to make tailored clothing respectable for women.

Significance

‘The Queen, The Lady's Newspaper’ was delivered to Australia from the UK during the late 1800s. The fashion page shows the style of dress favoured by the Royal Princesses (Queen Victoria’s daughters)

Physical description

A double-sided newspaper page. The front page shows two full length sketches and one half-sketch of winter costumes designed for the Princesses of Wales in 1887 by Messrs Redfern of Conduit-street. The back page is set out in three columns with close typeset. There are three main sections titled The Boudoir (To Correspondents, University Women & Royal Naval Scripture Readers’ Society), Births, Marriages, Deaths and What Women are Doing.
The descriptions of the winter costumes and which Princess they were for has been covered up by the date and title of the newspaper. The name Victor is written between the two full length sketches – presumably this is the artist’s signature.