A COSTUME worn by the "Pearly King" of Wantage which went missing for 50 years has been bought by the town's museum after an eagle-eyed member of staff spotted it for sale on eBay.

The waistcoat, trousers and cap covered in glittering pearl buttons once belonged to Wantage menswear shop owner George Penney in the 1950s.

Mr Penney wore his lavish outfit, inspired by the philanthropic Pearly Kings of Victorian London, on special occasions such as the Wantage Hospital fundraising carnivals of the 1930s and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

But following his death in 1973 it disappeared.

Penney's menswear on the corner of Market Place later became Badgers and is now Dapper Street menswear.

Last summer Suzie Tilbury, curator of the Vale and Downland Museum, spotted Mr Penney's costume for sale on auction website eBay by complete chance when searching for something different.

She said: "I went on eBay to try and find this stove and I found the Pearly King outfit being sold by a historic costume dealer in London.

"When I came across it, it was just 24 hours before the auction ended, so I had to do some really quick ringing around the friends of the museum, who have authority over our budget, to get permission to buy it."

But then, despite the fact she got the green light to bid on the costume which was being sold for £500, Mrs Tilbury decided to play a dangerous game.

She said: "No one else had bid on it, and it was quite expensive, so I didn't bid, I just watched it right through to the end."

When the auction closed and still no one else had bid on the costume, Mrs Tilbury got in touch with the dealer directly to see if she might be able to get a discount.

She recalled: "I said to him 'we're the museum for Wantage – you need to let us have this'."

The dealer agreed and even knocked £50 off the price.

Mrs Tilbury then revealed the news to Mr Penney's oldest surviving relative – his niece Josie, who still lives in Lark Hill in Wantage.

Mrs Penney, 76, originally from north Oxford, married George Penney's nephew John and moved to Wantage in 1961.

Now a mother-of-three and grandmother-of-two, she said: "George was lovely, he was the kindest of men, he would do anything for anybody.

"The story in our family was that someone asked George if they could borrow his Pearly King suit for a charity event, and, being as kind as he was, he said 'that's fine', but he never got it back."

When she heard the costume was coming home Mrs Penney said: "I was absolutely shocked.

"John would have been thrilled to have it back in Wantage: had it come back into his hands, he would have donated it to the museum anyway."

Mrs Penney and her eldest, Steve, went to an official unveiling of the costume exhibition at the museum a few weeks ago, and she said her son was "absolutely delighted" to see his great uncle's costume back where it belonged.