[1] The Czar: A Tale of the Time of the First Napoleon by Deborah Alcock.

[2] Leghorn straw was grown in Tuscany and plaited in the Italian fashion. Leghorn straw hats were known for their superiority in fineness, colour, and durability.

[3] Consuelo by George Sand – A novel of musical life set in the 18th century. The story of Consuelo, a Gypsy singer, and her adventures in Venice, Austria and Bohemia, narrated by the most eminent of French female writers.

[4] The Town Hall, originally the Mont Dore Hotel and the grandest Victorian hotel in Bournemouth, was converted into the Town Hall in 1921.

[5] The Geisha, a story of a tea house is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts. The score was composed by Sidney Jones to a libretto by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank. Additional songs were written by Lionel Monckton and James Philp.  The Geisha opened in 1896 at Daly’s Theatre in London’s West End, produced by George Edwardes. The original production had the second longest run of any musical up to that time.

[6] Wellington: by George Hooper (1889).

[7] The Sowers by Henry Seton Merriman – a Victorian bestseller. Set mainly in the Siberia of imperial Russia, it has love, corruption, betrayal, jealousy, heroic charity, uprisings – and hair-raising sleigh journeys.

[8] Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, FRS (1809 – 1885) was an English poet, patron of literature and politician.

[9] Samuel Smiles‘ Self Help: A 52 Brilliant Ideas Interpretation (1959) – with anecdotes about The Duke of Wellington.  Samuel Smiles (1812 – 1904) was a Scottish author and government reformer. His masterpiece, Self-Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government.

[10] The Life of Arthur, first Duke of Wellington. Wellington – Gleig, Rev. G.R.. Published by Longman, Green, London (1862).

[11] A stock is a purpose made neck wrap.

[12] A tableau vivant (often shortened to tableau, plural: tableaux vivants), French for ‘living picture’, is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically lit. It thus combines aspects of theatre and the visual arts.

[13] A drawing room play is a type of play, developed during the Victorian period in the United Kingdom, in which the actions take place in a drawing room or which is designed to be reenacted in the drawing room of a home. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most widely known examples of the drawing room play.