A CERTAIN NEW STAY FOR WOMEN AND OTHERS
Year: 1800

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, MARTHA
GIBBON, of King Street, in the Parish of Saint Paul, Covent Garden, in the
County of Middlesex, Dressmaker, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Third, and so forth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Seventeenth day of December now last past, hath given and
granted unto me, the said Martha Gibbon, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, special licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, to make, use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, during the term of years therein expressed, my Invention of "A
CERTAIN NEW STAY FOR WOMEN AND OTHERS;" in which said Letters Patent there
is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said Martha Gibbon, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within one
calendar month next after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Martha Gibbon, in compliance with the
said proviso, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described and

page_text: ascertained by the plan or representation hereunto annexed, and the following
description thereof, viz:-
The stay, which I call jene scais quoi stay, is made in two parts, a front part
and a back part, exactly to suit the form of the human body, as represented in
the annexed Plan; the front part should reach to the bottom of the abdomen,
the back part proportionally low, or to any depth that may not incommode the
wearer when seated; they are put together and fastened at each side with
laces and metal, or other hooks and eyelets, or strings, as also represented in
the said Plan, as the wearer may think proper; by means whereof the stay may
be expanded or contracted at the will or pleasure of the wearer; and by this
stay the abdomen is supported, and the bowels prevented from pressing through
the omentum, which their gravity will frequently do for want of such support,
and sometimes occasion the hernia or rupture in the groin; any sudden
pressure of the bowels, arising from cough, or any fall or blow, are also pre-
vented from doing the mischief to which persons, wearing the common stay, are
liable. The upper belly is also defended by a gentle pressure of this stay upon
the navel, which answers the purpose of a truss, used by some in or on those
parts, as it prevents any protruberance of the intestine, and consequently the
wearer of this stay is less liable to the hernia umbilicalis, or navel rupture.
The stay being cut, as before mentioned and represented, to suit exactly the
form of the human body, and in the length before described, and properly
stuffed or padded in those parts required for persons to whom nature has not
been favorable, they not only combine ease, grace, and elegance, as well as
display to the greatest advantage and utility the symmetry of the female shapes,
but actually, with the advantage before described, remove all external
appearance of crookedness and deformity. They may be worn at the earliest
infancy, and every exercise may be taken in them with the greatest ease,
advantage, and utility, none of which are afforded in the smallest degree by the
best common stay; by adding to or wholly omitting the stuffing or padding,
and cutting them to the size and shape of the body, they may be made to suit
every form and size, from the largest to the smallest. They may be made of.
either silk, cotton, linen, or any other material, article, or commodity the
wearer may please-or-think proper, with or without whalebone; and with-or
without buckram, and also with or without braces.
In witness whereof, I, the said Martha Gibbon, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Seventeenth day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and one.
MARTHA GIBBON. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Seventeenth day of January,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid Martha Gibbon came before our
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid,
and all and every thing therein contained, in form above written.
And also
the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the tenor of the Statute
in that case made and provided.
Tavelled the come Co
Inrolled the came Seventeenth day of January, in the year above written.