This robe would have been worn by several singers who played The Lord Chancellor in Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera Iolanthe, or the Peer and the Peri with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. It was worn with a full-bottomed judge's wig, a swallow-tail coat, waistcoat and knee breeches, silk stockings and patent leather pumps with buckles. Its material and deoration make it tremendously heavy and liable to damage worn onstage. The robe would have been very expensive to produce - in 2010 a similar robe worn by the Lord Chancellor was estimated at costing over £18,000.

W.S. Gilbert frequently used characters dressed in uniforms in his operas, and as a stickler for detail had them made by the firms that made them for their original purpose. This was made by the London firm Ede & Ravenscroft, thought to be the world's oldest tailoring firm. Originally founded in 1698, the firm has provided regalia for twelve coronations and today provides tailoring and robes to the church, state, legal profession and academia. The robe bears the label of Ede Son & Ravenscroft woven with the details: Robemaker to the King and Queen and Prince and Princess of Wales' dating it to between 1902 when Ede & Sons merged with the wigmaker Ravenscroft, and 1911 when the Prince of Wales was crowned king after the death of Edward Vll the previous year.