Curiously, whereas Sam Redgate was viewed with trepidation in terms of his pace, he was very much a reactionary in fashion terms. Among professionals in the 1830s, he was said to be the last to discard breeches in favour of trousers. Trousers have existed since ancient times but never became fashionable until the "sans-culottes" of the French Revolution. In England, they began to replace breeches during the Napoleonic War and were widely in use by 1815. Redgate was not alone in his preference for breeches: the Eton and Harrow teams still wore them in 1830.