ABSTRACT
The Blackmores were a Devonshire family from Littleham near Exmouth, but Emma Louise's father, Henry Blackmore, had moved to London and established a West End tailoring business in Brook Street. ‘In those days we were always changing the departments about. The carpets would be moved upstairs and the china down, etc. A distinguished traveller had buttonholed the obliging proprietor in one comer; a well-known baronet, waiting to do the same, was trifling with some feather dusting brushes; two architects of well-known names were posing an attendant in another comer with awkward questions; three distinguished painters with their wives blocked up the staircase; whilst a bevy of ladies filled up the rest of the floor space. ‘To an architect one of the most interesting modern imports is the leather-like embossed paper made in pieces twelve yards long and one yard wide.
