15 NOVEMBER 1968, Page 31

Sir: This is really a point for Notes and Queries,

but I think Mr Lennox of Antrim (Letters, 8 November) is in error.

My recollection is that prior to 1850 the modern clerical collar was unknown in England. However, in about 1852 an early Synod of Westminster (ac) decreed that English RC clerics should wear roughly the same garb as the Pope, namely, the 'abito Piano'--Pio Nono then being tenant of the Roman see. The dress of Pio Nono included the 'Roman' collar.

The habit of wearing this collar rapidly spread to High Church Anglicans and thence downwards and outwards to the broadest and

lowest of c of E parsons and the sternest of non- conformist Protestants.