Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a general excl. of astonishment or shock.

1819		J.C. Hobhouse letter to Byron 27 Apr. in Byron-HobhouseCorrespondence 40: That I should ever have lived to see you come to this! On [sic] my stars and garters!
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 54: My stars and garters! the captain will be so cross [...] at my terrible absence!
1824		Sussex Advertiser 2 Feb. 3/5: My stars and garters! only see / The crop on that black pudding tree.
1838		Brighton Patriot 1 May 2/4: ‘My stars and garters’ — originally said by the Duke of Wellington on his return from waterloo.
1843		Cork Exmainer 21 June 1/2: Oh my stars and garters! what an address.
1856		Sherbourne Mercury (Doreset) 29 Jan. 1/2: My stars and elastic garters! Am I to alter that cardboard chart [...] and make amess.
1873		Bristol Mercury 19 Apr. 6/4: Oh! my stars and garters! Where was the Missus’s education obtained?
1880		London Standard 12 Feb. 6/3: My stars and garters! Looking up at the sublime heights at which he soars one feels fairly ‘dizzy’.
1893		Freeman’s Jrnl 22 Apr. 3/7: My stars and garters mother dear, who’s left you the fortune?
1897		R. Marsh Crime and the Criminal 190: My stars! and bars!
1903		Cornishman 21 May 2/1: Well, well, my stars and garters, I was never in no such place.
1931		Nottingham Eve. Post 26 Dec. 3/5: ‘Forgotten the Christmas pudding,’ roared the General. ‘My stars and garters’.