The Society’s Academic Dress Archive

The Burgon Society has an archive of academic dress (Material Archive), academic dress related paraphernalia and papers relating to robe designers and robemakers (Paper Archive). Our archive is believed to represent the largest collection of academic dress in the world and it is available for members of the Society, researchers and dress historians to consult upon appointment.

View the Archive

The images show every item of Academic Dress in the society's extensive collection. In the case of gowns and robes, there are two images showing a view from the front and the back. In the case of hoods, the two images show a view of the hood hanging, and laid flat. If you would like to see any specific detail not shown, please contact the Curator. The images are continually updated as new items are added to the archive. All images of the Burgon Society archive may be used under the Creative Commons – Attribution, Non-Commercial 4.0 International Licence.

Notices for using photographs of the Archive:

• The University/Institutions and their official robemakers are the final arbiters on the design of their academic dress.
• The photos shown in the Burgon Society Archive are not standards but show historical examples.
• The bar shown in some of the images is in British Imperial inches - unless marked otherwise.
• The Society does not take responsibility for the interpretation or final use of the images.
• Further enquiry from members of the public wishing to use the photographs should be made to the Curator.

To view items, please select the type of institute below:

Universities & Colleges Learned & Professional Societies Music Colleges Theological Colleges Generic Items Worldwide (Headwear, Hoods & Gowns) Unidentified

Search: start typing to find an institution:

Note: if you would like to compare items in the archive, each image has a checkbox associated with it allowing you to add it to a "compare list". You can then access the compare list by either returning to this archive home page or by clicking the "help / compare list" dropdown shown on every image page.

Our Archive and Collection is maintained by the Curator, Chris Williams FBS. To contact Chris with enquiries about the archive, its holdings, viewing the archive or donating to the archive please fill in the form on this page