Card of the Day - 2025-08-06

Wills English Period Costume large
W.D. & H.O. WILLS [tobacco : UK - Bristol] "English Period Costumes" - large size (January 1927) 13/25 - W675-168.2 : W62-130.2 : W/195.E

Strangely, for men, wearing a loincloth lasted for a very long time, and then, along came a kind of missing link, a type of woollen knee-length underpants/trousers looking like long cloth shorts. These came from Germany, brought across by invading armies, and they are still worn there, though they call them lederhosen. In fact we also wear them, longer, and know them as long-johns. However the Romans, who adopted them, for warmth, towards the end of their occupation of this country, called them "braccae", and the Celts borrowed this, and called them "braies". It is not hard to imagine how they also became known as breeches.

These were worn with a smock like top, and the top and the braies varied in size depending on whether you were well to do (in which case they fitted your form), or not (look at drawings of medieval farmers and you will see a flowing smock and baggy pants. Eventually, as you can see on our card, this led to the fashion for them to be so tightly formed around the legs that they resembled tights, at least amongst the rich, or those who hoped to pass themselves off as so. And this was enhanced by stripes, or ribbons around the knees. 

Now this card is the large version of the home issue, but there are several other variants, including an anonymous version, issued through British American Tobacco, which we featured as our Card of the Day for the 12th of February, 2024. These differences and variations are admirably described in our original Wills reference book part IV as :

  • 195. ENGLISH PERIOD COSTUMES. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text (except C).

    Small cards, size 67 x 35 m/m. Series of 50

    A. Home issue, Wills` name and I.T.C. Clause at base of back. Issued 1929. 
    B. General Overseas Issue, Anonymous backs, series title front and back.
    C. General Overseas issue. Plain backs, unnumbered. Anonymous issue, series title front only.
    D. MEDIUM cards, size 70 x 55 m/m. Series of 25. Inscribed "Wills World Renowned Cigarettes". Two grades of board (a) white semi-glossy (b) cream, matt. Issued in Australia 1928
    E. LARGE cards, size 79 x 62 m/m. Series of 25. Home issue 1927. 

    The subjects in A-C are entirely different to those in D-E.

When the Wills part work books were reprinted into a single hard back volume, they included tables of dates of issue from the Wills` World Magazines, so we gained the month of issue for the home set, August 1929, and, also, very curiously, of our large version, which was issued almost two years earlier, in January 1927. However neither of the exported versions appear in this list, which means they were printed overseas. 

By the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index, the sets have been parted. The Home issue now appears under the Wills listings, section two, "Issues with I.T.C. Clause", and sub-section 2.B, for "Issues 1922-1939, exclusing adhesive backs." The text reads :

  • ENGLISH PERIOD COSTUMES. Nd. See W/195.A ... W62-130

    1. Small size (50)
    2. Large size (25)

And that text is repeated in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, just given a new card code of W675-168.

However, the large cards were not W/195.A, they were W/195.E - though that may be splitting hairs because you only need to look down the list to find them.

This is a list of the cards which are in this set, but any comparison with the Australian ones will have to be sorted out later - as will comparisons with the smaller sized sets - I am running late tonight. 

  1.  A Lady, Twelfth Century 
  2.  A Noble, Twelfth Century
  3.  A Lady, Thirteenth Century
  4.  A Painter, Thirteenth Century 
  5.  A Lady, Thirteenth Century 
  6.  A Sculptor, Fourteenth Century 
  7.  A Scholar, Fourteenth Century 
  8.  A Courtier, Fifteenth Century 
  9.  A Lady, Fifteenth Century 
  10.  A Merchant, Fifteenth Century 
  11.  A Courtier, Sixteenth Century
  12.  A Lady, Sixteenth Century
  13.  A Courtier, Sixteenth Century
  14.  A Merchant`s Wife, Seventeenth Century
  15.  A Lady, Seventeenth Century
  16.  A Courtier, Seventeenth Century
  17.  A Gentleman, Eighteenth Century
  18.  A Gentleman, Eighteenth Century
  19.  A Lady, Eighteenth Century
  20.  A Lady, Eighteenth Century
  21.  A Gentleman, Nineteenth Century
  22.  A Gentleman, Nineteenth Century 
  23.  A Gentleman, Nineteenth Century
  24.  A Lady, Nineteenth Century
  25.  A Lady, Nineteenth Century