18th Century Leading Strings

Last updated: Jan 5, 2024

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What are leading strings? As the V&A notes: “Leading strings originated in the clothing of very young children, where they helped adults to assist the child who was learning to walk. In the 18th century they also became customary for unmarried teenage girls, perhaps to symbolise the fact that they were still under parental control.”

Linda Baumgarten agrees: “The bodices [of young children’s dresses], which usually fastened at the back, often had leading strings or bands attached to the shoulders to help parents guide a young child who was learning to walk. Perhaps they also acted as a restraint on a lively youngster. Leading strings were occasionally retained on girls’ dresses as a symbol of youthfulness long after their practical functions had been outgrown.” (See also What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America.)

Depictions of infants and toddlers with leading strings

The use of leading strings continues well after Dr. William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine (1774) warns against their use:

When children begin to walk, the ſafeſt and beſt method of leading them about, is by the hands. The common way, of ſwinging them in leading-ſtrings fixed to their backs, has ſeveral bad conſequences. It makes them throw their bodies forward, and preſs with their whole weight upon the ſtomach and breaſt; by this means the breathing is obſructed, the breaſt flattened, and the bowels compreſſed; which muſt hurt the digeſtion, and occaſion conſumptions of the lungs, and other diſeaſes.

Toddlers’ leading strings were often separate from their garments, not necessarily sewn in (the way we see with girls’ leading strings). The 1700 probate inventory of John Moore in York County, Virginia, mentions “One payre of Childrens Leading Strings,” and the Verney letters include a request in 1715: “Buy me a pair of leading strings for Jak [age 4]; there is stuff made on purpose that is very strong.”

• Mother teaching her child to walk by Jan Luyken, 1712
• Madame de Ventadour with Louis XIV and his heirs, 1715-1720
• The Four Ages of Man: Childhood by Nicolas Lancret, by 1735
• Scenes of family life by Johann Peter Wolff, c. 1746-1755
• Nouveau Chatteaux de la Baronie de Belpp by Johann Ludwig Aberli, 1757
• Several illustrations by Christina Chalon, including a mother teaching her child to walk, a family teaching a child to walk, a man with a child on leading strings, A farmer with a child on leading strings, and A family group
• The Kitchen by Willem Joseph Laquy, c. 1760-1771
• Jeanette by Daniel Chodowiecki, 1762-1763
• De Groenmarkt gezien naar het Westeinde by Paulus Constantijn la Fargue, c. 1765
• John, Fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke, and his family by Johann Zoffany, c. 1766
• George Harry Grey, later 6th Earl of Stamford and Lady Henrietta Grey, later Lady Chetwode as Children, with their Nurse, 1767
• Lady with mountainous headdress in a garden, 1775
• Galerie des Modes, 32e Cahier, 2e Figure: “Young Governess of a child helping a very young child to walk; he is dressed in a little Sailor suit, but he is equipped with a Pudding Cap and also wears leading strings,” 1780
• Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1442, a handkerchief with The Several Stages of a Man’s Life From the Cradle to the Coffin, England, c. 1785; one roundel (“What fears attend his first endeavours to walk”) his mother supports him with leading strings tied around his waist
• Scene from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: Mamillius conjuring up sprites and goblins for his mother, Hermione by Henry Fuseli, 1785-1786
• Galerie des Modes, 63e Cahier, 3e Figure: “The good little Sister walking her little Brother,” 1786
• Family portrait by Angelica Kauffman, 1790s
• Bauernhaus bey Bern by Franz Niklaus König, 1798

Depictions of girls with leading strings

• The Golden Age by Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater
• Children playing with a hobby horse by Joseph Francis Nollekens, c. 1741-1747
• Six Children of Rhoda and Francis Blake Delaval, c. 1745
• Portrait of a young girl, traditionally identified as Jane Brooke
• Miss Marsden by Paul Sandby
• Portrait of a girl by Bartholomew Dandridge
• Anne Hoare by William Hoare
• Eliza Durbin, Lady Elton as a child by Thomas Hickey, c. 1760
• A girl reading by Paul Sandby, c. 1760-1770
• The children of Edward Holden Cruttenden by Joshua Reynolds, c. 1763
• Girl with a doll, c. 1765
• Miss Frances Lee by Francis Cotes, 1769
• George III, Queen Charlotte and their six eldest children by Johan Zoffany, 1770
• Helena Beaston by Katherine Read, c. 1770
• Young girl singing into a mirror by Jean-Étienne Liotard

Extant garments with 18th century leading strings

• GNM T2589 a sleeved bodice in silk, c. 1720
• Met 1990.24, a wool and silk dress, British, c. 1740
• V&A T.2-1917, a dress bodice in Spitalfields silk brocade with leading strings attached to the backs of the shoulders, England, c. 1750
• V&A 162-1899, a girl’s dress bodice in white Spitalfields silk damask brocade, 1750-1759
• Manchester 1980.197, a back-fastening closed dress in light blue figured silk with trained skirt and leading strings, 1760-1770

Dolls with leading strings on their gowns

• V&A W.42:6-1922, a wooden doll made in England c. 1740
• V&A MISC.271-1981, a wooden doll made in England 1740-1750 (“Although this 18th century doll looks looks as if she represents an adult woman, her clothing presents clues which demonstrate very clearly that she is not an adult. In the 18th century, dresses fastening at the back like this were for children, not women. Long streamers of matching fabric called 'leading strings' at the back of the dress indicate that she represents a teenage girl.”)
• V&A W.183-1919, a doll with wax head and forearms, made in England in 1754. (“The unnecessary leading strings on the doll's dress act as a mark of independence, suggesting the doll represents a young girl rather than a fully grown lady.”)
• Colonial Williamsburg 1958-241, an early 18th century doll in a printed gown probably 1770-1780 with leading string, England
• Colonial Williamsburg 1971-1739,A-E, a wooden doll in a silk gown with leading strings, England or Germany, 1775-1785