18th Century Men’s Great Coats

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Last updated: Oct 28, 2025

Most illustrations of 18th century great coats show them being worn by night watchmen (often carrying lanterns and/or clubs), but inventories (such as probate inventories from Deerfield, Massachusetts or runaway ads from Rhode Island and Pennsylvania) indicate that other men owned great coats as well. In a letter dated November 30, 1759, George Washington wrote to Robert Cary & Company to request “a New Market great Coat with a loose hood to it made of Blew Drab or broad Cloth with Straps before according to the present taste — let it be made of such Cloth as will turn a good Shower of Rain and made long, and fit in other respects for a Man full 6 feet high & proportionably made — possibly the Measure sent for my other Clothes may be a good d[i]rection in these.”

Extant Examples

• A man’s greatcoat, c. 1780-1800, in Fitting & Proper: “taupe wool tightly woven and fulled, half lined with olive green wool shag and off-white linen”
• Colonial Williamsburg 2001-835, man’s great coat, America or England, c. 1780-1820
• Colonial Williamsburg 2023-19, green double breasted broadcloth coat lined in a buff worsted wool, Poland, c. 1790
• National Trust 1350636, great coat made of interwoven blue and cream tabby wool, c. 1793-1794
• William Cowper’s great coat

Greatcoats in Portraits and Illustrations

• Honest Will Crouch, c. 1725-1726
• Portrait of Captain Thomas Coram by William Hogarth, 1740
• Paul Sandby figure sketches made in Edinburgh and the neighborhood after 1745: man seated on the ground, man walking, man with a staff
• Bagpiper with a dancing dog by Paul Sandby, c. 1746
• Figure study: a blind man in a tattered greatcoat by Paul Sandby, c. 1746-1751
• A man asleep by Paul Sandby, c. 1750-1760
• Voules, William, Duke of Cumberland’s bailiff by Paul Sandby, c. 1752-1765
• An Election II: Canvassing for Votes by William Hogarth, 1754-55
• A man standing, looking upwards by Paul Sandby, c. 1755-1765
• Man asleep in a long blue coat by Louis Philippe Boitard
• Cries of London: All Fire and No Smoke by Paul Sandby, c. 1759
• Man standing in a landscape by Paul Sandby
• Old man carrying a basket by Paul Sandby
• Three men at a table by Étienne Jeaurat, 1763
• Parsons, Bransby, and Watkyns in a Scene From 'Lethe' by Johann Zoffany, 1766
• A Common Council Beaſt, returning from a Turtle Feaſt, c. 1766-1799
• A scene in Love in a Village by Johan Joseph Zoffany, 1767; see versions at the Detroit Institute of Arts and Yale Center for British Art
• Thomas Gent, 1771
• A farmer in The English Farmer’s Wife converted to a fine Lady during his Absence in London, 1772
• A sailor centinel on the Pallas’s gangway by Gabriel Bray, 1774
• What’s! This My Boy Tom, 1774
• Night Watchman, 1776
• The Hireling-Constable, 1780
• A woodcutter with a young boy and a dog in wooded landscape by Charles Gill, c. 1781
• The Watchman, c. 1780s-1790s
• The Westminster Watchman, 1784
• Card players in a tavern by Jan Ekels, 1784
• The Social Pinch by John Kay, 1789
• A pencil and wash portrait of a gentleman in a great coat
• A Journey to the Watch House, 1790
• Outlines of figures and landscapes by Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1790-1792
• A Deep One, and a Knowing One, 1791
• Guy Vaux discovered in his attempt to destroy the King & the House of Lords – His companions attempting to escape –, 1791
• Morning: Higglers Preparing for Market by George Morland, 1791
• Skating by George Morland, 1792
• The Departure by George Morland, 1792
• The Shepherd’s Meal by George Morland, 1793
• Scene from ‘The Register Office’ by Joseph Reed by Benjamin Vandergucht
• An Unwelcome Visit by Thomas Rowlandson, 1794
• The Elopement, 1795
• Bodmin Cornwall: The Arrival of the Stage-Coach by Thomas Rowlandson, 1795
• A halt of a soldier and his family by George Morland, c. 1795-1800
• Inside of a Country Alehouse by George Morland, 1797
• The Afflicted Family - A Child Lost, 1797
• The Watchman of the State, 1797
• The Child Lost, 1799
• The Reckoning: A Farmer Paying the Ostler and Pot-Boy of an Inn by George Morland, c. 1800
• Interior of a country inn by George Morland
• Man with a pony outside a cottage
• A brace of public guardians, 1800
• The Benevolent Heir or the Tenant Restored to his Family by William Redmore Bigg, c. 1801