Dress worn by Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II wore this pretty, floral cotton, summer dress in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

It is one of a matching pair of dresses, with the smaller one worn by Elizabeth's younger sister, Princess Margaret. The princesses were often dressed in similar or matching outfits 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 designed and manufactured in 1936. The dress gives an insight into the careful domestic practices of the Princesses' home. The hem of the skirt has been shortened, and the fabric used to enlarge the bodice at the waist and side seams, to accommodate a growing child. The dress has matching bloomers that were worn underneath, and these have been expanded at the waist band with a different fabric. The fabric has faded slightly due to wear and washing suggesting it was worn and washed many times, and that it might also have been passed down to Princess Margaret to wear when Elizabeth grew out of it.

Items of clothing belonging to Elizabeth II when she was a child are rare, and the date when this dress was made is also significant. In 1936 Elizabeth’s father George VI became King following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, meaning Elizabeth became heir to the throne.
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.