Contents:
Purling
Purling was a method of plaiting threads into a little looped
edging, and the little loops so often to be found at the edge of lace are
still called "purls". Purling is mentioned in the Canterbury Tales,
and it was much used in the fifteenth century as an ornamental edging.
From: Lace-Making in the Midlands, by C.C. Channer and M.E.
Roberts [1900], p3
Lace Schools
When a little child joins the school she is usually six or seven,
but sometimes one is taken who is a year or two younger. If she is sharp,
she will be about three weeks learning her first little edging; during that
time she pays 1s. a week, and afterwards 3d. in the summer, and 4d. during
the winter (this varies a little in different schools, as do the hours of
working). For the first six months she generally puts in only nine hours a
day, but after that at least ten, with the exception of Saturday, which is a
half-holiday. The winter hours are usually from eight to eight, allowing two
hours for meals, but many work an hour or so longer. Every Saturday the
teacher takes the lace to the buyer, and gives the girls the exact amount
they have earned, deducting only the 3d. or 4d. a week for the use of the
room and lights. If they sell their work to a private customer, they are
allowed to charge 1d. an hour more.
From: Lace-Making in the Midlands, by C.C. Channer and M.E. Roberts [1900],
p36
Till the middle of the nineteenth century, in
lace-making districts, almost the only schools were the lace
schools—and there were several in most villages—where
lace-making was the principal thing taught and a little reading
added. I am indebted to Mrs. Roberts, formerly of Stratton, near
Northampton, for the following description, which she kindly
allows me to reprint.
"The following are the few particulars of the old lace school
for which this
village was at one time famous. Indeed, it may be borne in mind that, owing
to the great interest taken in education by a former squire and a former
vicar, Spratton fifty years ago was far ahead of its neighbours in the
matter of education; and the Spratton school and Mr. Pridmore, the Spratton
schoolmaster, with his somewhat strict discipline, were well known, not only
to the children of Spratton, but to the boys and girls of most of the
adjacent villages. But the lace school was, no doubt, a commercial
institution, and I think it will be admitted that the hours were long and
the work severe. The girls left the day school at the age of eight
years, and joined the lace-school, and here the hours were from 6 a.m. to 6
p.m. in the summer, and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the winter. Half an hour
was allowed for breakfast and for tea, and one hour for dinner,
so that there were ten hours for actual work. The girls had to
stick ten pins a minute, or six hundred an hour; and if at the
end of the day they were five pins behind, they had to work for
another hour. On Saturdays, however, they had a half-holiday,
working only to the dinner-hour. They counted to themselves
every pin they stuck, and at every fiftieth pin they called out
the time, and the girls used to race each other as to who should
should call out first.
"They paid twopence a week (or threepence in winter) for lights, and in
return they received the money realised from the sale of the lace they made,
and they could earn about sixpence a day. Pay-day was a great event; it came
once a month.
"In the evenings eighteen girls worked by one tallow candle, value one
penny; the 'candle-stool' stood about as high as an ordinary table with four
legs. In the middle of this was what was known as the 'pole-board', with six
holes in a circle and one in the centre. In the centre hole was a long stick
with a socket for the candle at one end and peg-holes through the sides, so
that it could be raised or lowered at will. In the other six holes were
placed pieces of wood hollowed out like a cup, and into each of these was
placed a bottle made of very thin glass and filled with water. These bottles
acted as strong condensers or lenses, and the eighteen girls sat round the
table, three to each bottle, their stools being upon different levels, the
highest nearest the bottle, which threw the light down upon the work like a
burning-glass. In the day-time as many as thirty girls, and sometimes boys,
would work in a room about twelve feet square, with two windows, and in the
winter they could have no fire for lack of room." The makers of the best
laces would sit nearest the light, and so on in order of merit.
From: A History of Lace, by Mrs Palliser [1902], p388-390
Female Lace Makers
A child was often introduced to her pillow at three years old by
her mother, and then, when she had learnt how to handle her bobbins, she was
sent off to the lace school, where she would stay until she either went into
service or married; or, if she wished to save the expense of the 3d. or 4. a
week, she would work in her own home. In those days, especially in one part
of the Midlands, nearly every cottager, married or single, sat at her pillow;
for it was usually only farmers' or tradesmen's daughters who thought
of going to service.
From: Lace-Making in the Midlands, by C.C. Channer and M.E. Roberts [1900],
p40-41
Male Lace Makers
At the time of the Queen's [Victoria's] accession, as has been said,
the trade was very flourishing, and it was found that a man could earn more
at lace-making than in the fields, where his wages would be from 7s. to 8s.
a week, while at his pillow he could make 9s. or 10s. In those days, then,
the workers, men and women, would sit side by side in each other's houses,
in order to save firing. In the winter they had to sit very near the
windows, which did not give as much light as they do now, and it was often
bitterly cold.
From: Lace-Making in the Midlands, by C.C. Channer and M.E. Roberts [1900],
p41
Patterns
The patterns were usually designed and pricked either by
lace-buyers, superior workers, or those brought up specially to that part of
the trade.
From: Lace-Making in the Midlands, by C.C. Channer and M.E. Roberts [1900],
p42
Pillows, bobbins, etc
A "down" in Northamptonshire is the parchment pattern, generally
about twelve inches long. In Buckinghamshire they have two "eachs" ten
inches long, and putting one in front of the other, so work round the
pillow, which to many commends itself as a better plan than having one
"down" and moving the lace back on reaching the end of the "down". The
pillow is a hard round cushion, stuffed with straw and well hammered to make
it hard for the bobbins to rattle on. It is then covered with the
butcher-blue "pillow-cloth" all over; a "lace cloth" of the same, for the
lace to lie on, goes over the top; then follows the lace-paper to pin it in
as made, covered with the "lacing", which is a strip of bright print. The
"hinder" of blue linen covers up all behind, the "worker" keeping the
parchment clean in front where the hands rest. A bobbin bag and scissors are
then tied on one side and a pin-cushion on the top; a cloth "heller" is
thrown over the whole when not used.
The pins are fine brass ones made on purpose23; the bobbins are of various
sizes and makes—very fine for fine lace, heavier and twisted round
with strips of brass for coarser laces and gimp for the threads, which are
the tracing ones, dividing the different characters of patterns; some are of
bone with words tattoed round in columns. The usual bobbin is plain turned
wood, with coloured beads at the end for the necessary weight. The number
varies from twenty to five hundred, according to the width of the pattern24.
The larger pins had heads put to them with seeds of galium
locally called Hariffe or goose-grass; the seeds when fingered became hard
and polished.
Bobbins are usually made of bone, wood or ivory. English bobbins are
of bone or wood, and especially in the counties of Bedford, Bucks, and
Huntingdon, the set on a lace pillow formed a homely record of their owner's
life. The names of her family, dates and records, births and marriages and
mottoes, were carved, burnt, or stained on the bobbin, while events of
general interest were often commemorated by the addition of a new bobbin.
The spangles, jingles (or gingles) fastened to
the end of the bobbin have a certain interest; a waistcoat button and a few
coral beads brought from overseas, a family relic in the shape of an old
copper seal, or as ancient and battered coin—such things as these were
often attached to the ring of brass wire passed through a hole in the
bobbin. The inscriptions on the bobbins are sometimes burned and afterwards
stained, and sometimes "pegged" or traced in tiny leaden studs, and consist
of such mottoes as "Love me Truley" (sic), "Buy the
Ring", "Osborne for Ever", "Queen Caroline", "Let no false Lover win my
heart", "To me, my dear, you may come near", "Lovely Betty", "Dear Mother,
and so forth.—R.E. Head. "Some notes on Lace-Bobbins." The
Reliquary, July, 1900.
From: A History of Lace, by Mrs Palliser [1902], p390-391
The Rise and Fall of the Lace Industry
The Exhibition of 1851 gave a sudden impulse to the traders, and
from that period the lace industry rapidly developed. At this time was
introduced the Maltese guipures and the "plaited" laces, a variety grafted
on the old Maltese. Five years later appears the first specimen of the
raised plait, now so thoroughly established in the market. At the time Queen
Victoria's trousseau was made, in which only English lace was used, the
prices paid were so enormous that men made lace in the fields. In those days
the parchments on which the patterns were pricked were worth their weight in
gold; many were extremely old and their owners were very jealous of others
copying their patterns. But, of late years, we hear of so little store being
set by these parchments that they were actually boiled down to make glue.
The decay which threatened almost total extinction of the industry
belongs to the last twenty years. The contributory causes were several,
chiefly the rapid development of machinery, which enabled large quantities
to be sold at lower rates than the hand-workers could starve on, while the
quality of the manufactured goods was good enough for the large
public that required lace to last but a short time. Foreign competition, the
higher wages required by all, and the many new employments opening to women
took away the young people from the villages. In 1874 more than thirty young
lace-women left a village of four hundred inhabitants to seek work
elsewhere. The old workers gave up making good laces and supplied the
popular demand with Maltese, which grew more and more inferior both in
design and quality of thread, and gradually the old workers died out and no
new ones took their places.
From: A History of Lace, by Mrs Palliser [1902], p392-393
Sources: A History of Lace is available online at
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp33270
Search for other online books on lace-making:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Lace%20and%20lace%20making
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