Dress worn by Queen Elizabeth II

This charming, daisy print cotton dress was worn by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022), when she was about 11 years old. It is one of a pair of similar cotton dresses in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, and the other smaller dress was worn by her younger sister, Princess Margaret. The princesses often dressed in similar or matching dresses throughout their childhood and into their teenage years.

The floral print fabric is by Liberty, a leading London department store famous for its printed fabric designs and was designed and manufactured in 1937. The dress shows signs of wear and the fabric is faded through washing showing that it was worn many times. Photographs taken of the Princesses at the time show them wearing similar dresses to play outside in the garden or grounds of Windsor Castle where the Princesses spent much of their early life. It may also have been altered for Elizabeth, as the front placket and buttons are slightly off centre. The dress has matching bloomers that were worn underneath.

The dress was given to Clara Knight (1879-1946) who was nanny to Elizabeth from her birth in 1926. Known affectionately by the young Princess as 'Allah', a child's mispronunciation of 'Clara'. Knight had previously worked as a nanny to Elizabeth's mother, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, and her siblings at Glamis Castle in Scotland. It was cared for by Knight's family with a group of other items of Elizabeth and Margaret's childhood clothing. It was loaned to the Bexhill Museum in East Sussex from 1990-2007, before entering the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection.