History of the National Museum of Costume

Discover how Shambellie House turned from elegant family home into a much loved museum.

Shambellie House was built in 1856 for the Stewart family. A superb example of a Victorian country house, it was designed by the Scottish architect David Bryce, who also designed Fettes College in Edinburgh.

Charles Stewart, the great grandson of the original owner, donated his superb costume collection to National Museums Scotland in 1977. He also loaned Shambellie House to be used as a Museum of Costume.

Who was Charles Stewart?

Charles William Stewart was an artist, designer, teacher, landowner, ballet dancer, Conscientious Objector and, in his own words, “that obsessed and demented being, a Collector”.

Born in 1915 at Ilo-Ilo, Panay, an island in the Philippines where his father worked for a merchant company, his mother brought him home to live at Shambellie with his uncle after the First World War ended in 1918.

Fascinated by historical costume from an early age, Charles studied at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting in London, while at the same time dancing at Covent Garden as a member of the corps de ballet.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Stewart, a Conscientious Objector, joined the Air Raid Precautions service (ARP). While still drafted as a stretcher-bearer, he began work as book illustrator in 1943. This led him to research period costume in more detail, and he first began his collection of historical garments so that he could study the fall of drapery for his work.

To help him capture period clothing in context, he purchased a life-sized artist’s lay-figure, which he christened Rosie. Stewart writes: “When I first saw her in the studio of her previous owner she was seated on the floor, bowed in an attitude of hopeless despair. We travelled home in a taxi and the driver remarked in a confidential tone, ‘You’re like me, Sir; you likes ’em quiet!’”

Rosie appeared in many guises in Stewart’s illustrations, in works including Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas, William Thackeray’s Pendennis and Edward FitzGerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam. She even stood in for the Queen, modeling the Garter Robes when Stewart lent her to artist Pietro Annigoni for his famous 1956 portrait of the monarch.

What began as an interest soon became an obsession. Driven by what he called “Holy Greed”, Stewart searched through market stalls, friends’ attics and forgotten trunks for interesting items of clothing, devoting all his energy, spare time and money to the cause.

Why did Charles donate his collection and lend his house?

Stewart inherited Shambellie from his father in 1962. The size and age of the property made it expensive to maintain, but Stewart was loathe to sell the house and see it “cannibalised” as a rest home or hotel.

He was also concerned about the fate of his collection, which he feared would be dispersed after his death and “cast away to the dangers and squalors from which so much of it had been rescued”. And so he concluded that, by offering his house and collection to the Royal Scottish Museum (which later became National Museums Scotland), he could save both.

The collection on display

By the time Stewart donated his collection, it consisted of over six thousand objects spanning three centuries. Besides a rich hoard of clothing spanning over a century, there were parasols and shawls, corsets and underwear, muffs, boas, fans, lace and much more. The Charles Stewart Collection became part of the extensive textiles and dress collections of National Museums Scotland.

Shambellie House opened its doors to the public in 1982. Many of the outfits and accessories from Stewart’s extensive collection can be seen on display, complemented by items from the National Museum Scotland’s other collections.

Many of the furnishings and paintings around the house are on loan from the Stewart family. Other items of glass, ceramics and furniture are from the National Museums of Scotland's further collections.

Charles Stewart died in 2001, aged 85. His superb collection and house continue to be enjoyed by the public today. Almost immediately after handing over the collection he was finally cured of his “holy greed”, he writes: “my interest in collecting costume mysteriously melted away."