I was quite shocked to discover that suspenders were not invented by a woman as I always assumed they were but it turns out that there is evidence to suggest that they were actually invented by an ageing crofter in Scotland's Orkney Isles.

The discovery was pieced together by retired farmer Peter Leith who unearthed recordings from the 1880's of two 90-year old men describing an eccentric local called Davie Taylor. The recordings told how Mr. Taylor, who lived at a croft in the parish of Firth, was a well known 'genius' who invented 'a bib and brace sort of clasp for hooking his breeks up (breeks being the Scottish word for trousers - just in case you weren't sure!)

Mr. Taylor was an unemployed draper in the 1891 census while it revealed an apprentice draper called Andrew Thomson, 17, lived in nearby Stromness. Historians believe the pair were associates because, in 1896, a patent was lodged in California for a clasp serving to secure the stocking' by Mr. Thomson and fellow Orcadian James Dreever.

It is not known whether the patent was sold or borrowed by other designers, but it was so close to the year suspenders first appeared that historians suspect it has a major influence.