Alex MARTINIS ROE, Amy MILLER
The Drawing Room

....'that monstrosity 'The Crinoline' which once came near to costing me

my life.....it was in the drawing room one evening after dinner at Dangstein before the gentlemen had joined us, and at the time my dress caught fire, I was showing a lady an engraving of Mr Cobden, which he had just given me, and which hung near the fireplace. Somehow or other my voluminous skirt caught fire, and in an instant I was ablaze, but I kept my presence of mind, and rolling myself in the hearthrug, by some means or other eventually beat out and subdued the flames....none of the ladies present could of course do much to assist me, for their enormous crinolines rendered them almost completely impotent to deal with the fire, and had they come very close to me, all of them would have been ablaze too'.

From ‘The Reminiscences of Lady Dorothy Nevill’