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History of the Gladstone Bag. The original Gladstone Bag developed in the mid-19th century and represented a kind of suitcase built on a rigid frame that could be split into two separate parts.  It was usually made of very strong leather and was often 'tied' with lanyards also made of leather.  READ MORE.

Great Writers and the Gladstone Bag.  So popular and iconic did the bag become in the late 19^th and early 19^th century that many of the most famous writers of the day found time to mention the Gladstone Bag. READ MORE.

The Gladstone Bag and the Great Depression of the Early 1900s. One of the world’s most popular luggage suppliers, Brenner Luggage, situated in South Illinois Street in Indiana, owes a good deal to the austerity of the Great Depression of the early 1900s, during which time travellers with taste but reduced spending ability, began looking for stylish but inexpensive luggage with style to match the iconic Gladstone Bag.  READ MORE.

When is a Gladstone Bag not a Gladstone Bag? Simply when it is another kind of bag or piece of luggage that lacks the elegance and style of the compartmentalised briefcase that formed the design of the original Gladstone Bag.  The truth is, however, that no better, more practical, more attractive design of luggage or carrying bag has yet been created to beat or even match the original Gladstone Bag.  READ MORE.

The ‘Gladstone Bag’ Murder.  The so-called ‘Murder Bag’, based on a murder where a Gladstone bag featured prominently, represents one of the most important breakthroughs in crime detection.  The story begins with a particularly macabre murder in Eastbourne in 1924, centering on Patrick Mahon, a salesman whose wife believed he was having an affair and decided to investigate.  Mrs. Mahon found a left luggage ticket in her husband’s pocket for an item held at Waterloo station which she expected to contain love letters or other proof of her husband’s infidelity.  She employed a private investigator to access the Gladstone bag.  READ MORE.

Gladstone Bags, Usually Leather, But Canvas Gladstone Bags Also Find Popularity in Major Film Presentations.  Recall an image most commonly brought to mind from the film ‘Mary Poppins’ and it’s probably Julie Andrews floating through the sky with an umbrella in one hand and a Gladstone bag in the other.  READ MORE.

The Gladstone Bag in Literature and Films.  Sometimes it isn’t just their novels or stories that cause the names of many great writers to become associated with the Gladstone bag. The name of Somerset Maugham, for example, was inextricably linked to the Gladstone bag by English novelist Christopher Isherwood who compared Maugham to “an old Gladstone bag covered with labels.  God only knows what is inside.”  READ MORE.

Comedy and the Gladstone Bag.  There was one a comedy duo called ‘Mr Gladstone’s Bag’ who thrilled audiences with their sketches accompanied by loud banging drums and poking fun at the life and times of the people of Victorian England.  During their act they would pass bunting flags through the audience in the pubs and clubs where they worked.  ‘Mr. Gladstone’s Bag’ comprised Mike Clifton and John Watcham whose names are still referred to and their act reminisced about today in Internet forums and entertainment blogs.  READ MORE.

The Name Behind the Gladstone Bag.   William Ewart Gladstone was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Newark-on-Trent in 1832 and served for more than ten years.  Gladstone’s constituency office was based at the Clinton Arms Hotel in Newark’s market place where a plaque on the wall marks his acceptance speech from the balcony of the hotel.  READ MORE.

Leonhard Heyden Bags.  A bag by Leonard Heyden is the epitome of stylish design and quality traditional workmanship and anyone buying a bag with 'Leonhard Heyden' on the label is assured of a product made by highly skilled craftsmen from top quality first class material.  READ MORE.

Leonhard Heyden Gladstone Bags.  They're always well-made and crafted from quality materials, notably the finest leather, and that is why Leonhard Heyden Gladstone bags, as for all other bags produced by the German company, are not only extremely good looking, but they're also practical and long lasting and guaranteed to last for many years, compared to cheap inferior Gladstone bags, sometimes made from plastic which can easily fall apart or become shabby looking in a very short space of time.  READ MORE.

Gladstone Bag, Good Stories and Bad.  They've sometimes been called 'carpet bags' and 'doctor's bags', but their real name is 'Gladstone bag' and they were originally used by doctors and other Victorian men and women to carry larger accoutrements of their profession. Gladstone bags are built on a rigid frame and have two equal sized inner compartments, with a lid that opens wide and allows easy access to the contents, as well as making it easier to withdrawn large and sometimes awkwardly shaped items from the Gladstone bag.  READ MORE.
 

Ashwood Leather Bags Answer the Question: Are All Good Gladstone Bags Made from Leather?  The answer depends on whether we're talking about vintage Gladstone Bags from Victorian and Edwardian times or bags from more recent times, some of which are not Gladstone Bags at all in the traditional sense of the term. Overwhelmingly very early designs were made from leather.  'Gladstone Bags' in modern day terms are made from numerous other materials, and usually designed to look good and make a fashion statement compared to the original bags that were traditionally used by doctors and lawyers in the late 1800s and early 20th century. READ MORE.

The Gladstone Bag for Work, Travel and Play. Some people think the Gladstone Bag is reserved for professional use, by doctors and lawyers, for example, and not by holidaymakers and travellers. That's sad really because one thing that sets the average Gladstone Bag apart from typical travel luggage is its size, and durability, and the fact it contains two large compartments compared to most holdalls and cases that have just one. Moreover the Gladstone Bag has a wide opening, much bigger than most holdalls but not all suitcases, which makes it very easy for travellers to remove items from their luggage even while they're moving at speed in the car or on a train, or in the air. READ MORE.
 

The Gladstone Bag: An Old Design and High Fashion Modern Day Accessory.   The Gladstone Bag has been around for more than one hundred years, yet still it's popular today, even with few or no changes made to the
original design. And nowhere can you see such a massive range of high quality, highly fashionable Gladstone Bags than on Internet shopping portals like Amazon. Amazon offers Gladstone Bags priced in hundreds or even thousands of pounds, and some priced less than fifty pounds.  READ MORE.

When Is a Gladstone Bag Not a Gladstone Bag?   When it's carried by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, of course, and it's that battered old dispatch box, coloured red, which has been around since the middle 1800s but was recently laid to one side to make way for a new one. The box used until a few years ago actually belonged to Prime Minister Gladstone who first used it in the Budget for 1860. But unlike the standard Gladstone Bag, big and bulky, with solid wooden or metal frame and two massive internal pockets, the Chancellors' Budget Box is a rather boring design, flat and red, and actually quite small.  READ MORE.

A Gladstone Bag Made from 200-Year Old Reindeer Hide.  A Gladstone Bag offered by shoe and bag maker G. J. Cleverley of London was made from Russian Reindeer hide taken from the wreck of the 'Metta Catharine von Flensburg, a Danish ship that went down in a gale in Plymouth Sound in 1786. The ship was located in 1973 when
Plymouth Sound BSAC found a bell over mud concealing the wreck on the sea bed. The Gladstone Bag was made from one of hundreds of Reindeer hides found to be in excellent condition. The hides were made into shoes and bags, ranging in price from a few hundred pounds to £4,500 for the Gladstone bag with goatskin lining. 

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Maxwell Scott Doctors' Cases and Gladstone Bags.  Maxwell Scott is a family run business specialising in making handbags and luggage, also briefcases from high quality leather and British design coupled with fine Italian style.  Their range of doctors’ bags are among the most attractive and desirable and are preferred by some doctors to the traditional Gladstone Bag for carrying their medical equipment and tools of the trade.  READ MORE.

The Gladstone Bag, Sherlock Holmes, and Doctors Littlejohn and Bell.  It’s pretty much certain that a London leather worker called Beard created a bag named after the 19^th century British Prime Minister of the day, William Ewart Gladstone, despite some historians insisting Beard’s Gladstone bag was based on a similar design created in France a few years before.  But few literary experts dispute the most popular reason why the Gladstone bag became indelibly linked with novels by Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes.  READ MORE.