Lysons, later, observes that lace is made at Cheney. Certainly, the
productions of this county a century back were of exquisite beauty, as we
can bear testimony from the specimens in a pattern-book inherited by Mr.
Cardwell, the well-known lace merchant of Northampton, from his predecessor
in the trade, which we have had an opportunity of examining. We have also
received examples from various localities in Bedfordshire and
Buckinghamshire, and as there is much similarity in the products of the
three counties, we shall, perhaps, better describe them by treating of them
all collectively.
The earliest English lace was naturally the old Flemish, the pattern wavy
and graceful, the ground well executed. Fig. 136, which we select as an
example, is a specimen we received, with many others, of old Newport-Pagnel
lace, given by Mrs. Bell, of that town, where her family has been
established from time immemorial. Mrs. Bell could carry these laces back to
the year 1780, when they were bequeathed to her father by an aged relative
who had long been in the lace trade. The packets remain for the most part
entire. The custom of "storing" lace was common among the country-people.
Next in antiquity is Fig. 137, a lace of Flemish design, with the fine
Brussels ground. This is among the Northamptonshire laces already alluded
to.
Many of the early patterns appear to have been run or worked in with the
needle on the net ground (Fig. 138).
PLATE LXXXVI.
[Illustration: ENGLISH, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. BOBBIN LACE.--End of nineteenth
century. Widths: 1¾, 5¼ and 2 in.
Photo by A. Dryden from a private collection.]
_To face page 384._
{385}In 1778, according to M'Culloch,[1124] was introduced the "point"
ground, as it is locally termed, from which period dates the staple pillow
lace trade of these counties. This ground is beautifully clear, the
patterns well executed: we doubt if Fig. 139 could be surpassed in beauty
by lace of any foreign manufacture. Much of this point ground was made by
men.
[Illustration: Fig. 136.
OLD FLEMISH.--(Newport-Pagnel.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 137.
OLD BRUSSELS.--(Northampton.)]
The principal branch of the lace trade was the making of "baby lace," as
those narrow laces were called, most specially employed for the adorning of
infants' caps (Figs. 140, 141, 142). The "point" ground was used, the
patterns taken from those of Lille and Mechlin--hence the laces of
Buckingham and Bedfordshire have often been styled "English Lille." Though
the fashion in the mother-country passed away, the American ladies held to
the trimmed infant's cap until the breaking out of the Civil War; and up to
that date large quantities of "baby lace" were exported to America, the
finer sorts varying from five shillings to seven shillings and sixpence a
yard, still retaining their ancient name of "points."
{386}[Illustration: Fig. 138.
"RUN" LACE.--(Newport-Pagnel.)]
Many other descriptions of grounds were made--wire (Fig. 143), double, and
trolly, in every kind of quality and width. In the making of the finer
sorts of edging as many as 200 threads would be employed.
[Illustration: Fig. 139.
ENGLISH "POINT."--(Northampton.)]
On the breaking out of the war with France, the closing of our ports to
French goods gave an impetus to the trade, and the manufacturers undertook
to supply the English {387}market with lace similar to that of Normandy and
the sea-coast villages of France; hence a sort of "fausse" Valenciennes,
called the "French ground." But true Valenciennes was also fabricated so
fine (Fig. 144) as to rival the products of French Hainault. It was made in
considerable quantities, until the expertness of the smuggler and the
cessation of the war caused it to be laid aside.
[Illustration: Fig. 140.
"BABY" LACE.--(Northampton.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 141.
"BABY" LACE.--(Beds.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 142.
"BABY" LACE.--(Bucks.)]
One-third of the lace-workers of Northampton were {388}employed, previous
to the introduction of machine-made net, in making quillings on the pillow.
During the Regency, a "point" lace, with the "cloth" or "toilé" on the
edge, for many years was in fashion, and, in compliment to the Prince, was
named by the loyal manufacturers "Regency Point." It was a durable and
handsome lace (Fig. 145).
[Illustration: Fig. 143.
WIRE GROUND.--(Northampton.)]
Towards the year 1830, insertions found their way to the public taste (Fig.
146).
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 Spratton, near
Northampton, for the following description, which she kindly allows me to
reprint.
[Illustration: Fig. 144.
VALENCIENNES.--(Northampton.)]
{389}[Illustration: Fig. 145.
REGENCY POINT.--(Bedford.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 146.
INSERTION.--(Bedford.)]
"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 {390}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 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.[1125] 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.
A "down" in Northamptonshire is the parchment {391}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 purpose;[1126] 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
pattern.[1127]
{392}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 (Fig. 147). 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 147.
PLAITED LACE.--(Bedford.)]
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 {393}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. The Lace Association has been started with the
object of stimulating and improving the local manufacture of pillow lace,
of providing lace-workers with greater facilities for the sale of their
work at more remunerative prices. Its aim is also to save the old designs
of the "point" lace and discourage the coarse Maltese, to get new designs
copied from old laces, and insist on only the best thread being used,[1128]
and good workmanship, and finally, to bring the lace before the public, and
send it direct from worker to the purchaser, thus enabling the former to
get the full value, saving the large profits which the dealers, buying for
the shopkeepers, intercept for their own advantage.
[Illustration: Fig. 148.
RAISED PLAIT.--Bedford.]
Pillow lace was also made to some extent in Derbyshire.
{394}SUFFOLK.
Suffolk has produced bobbin-made laces of little artistic value. The
patterns in most of the specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum
collection are derived from simple Mechlin, Lille, and Valenciennes
patterns. "The make of the lace resembles that of Buckinghamshire laces,
and that of the Norman laces of the present time. The entire collection
displays varied combinations of six ways of twisting and plaiting
thread."[1129]
PLATE LXXXVII.
[Illustration: ENGLISH, SUFFOLK. BOBBIN LACE.--Nineteenth century.
Resembling inferior Buckinghamshire, also Normandy and Saxony laces.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_To face page 394._
{395}CHAPTER XXXI.
WILTSHIRE AND DORSETSHIRE.
From Wiltshire and Dorset, counties in the eighteenth century renowned for
their lace, the trade has now passed away; a few workers may yet be found
in the retired sea-side village of Charmouth, and these are diminishing
fast.
Of the Wiltshire manufactures we know but little, even from tradition, save
that the art did once prevail. Peuchet alludes to it. When Sir Edward
Hungerford attacked Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, Lady Arundel, describing
the destruction of the leaden pipes by the soldiers, says, "They cut up the
pipe and sold it, as these men's wives in North Wiltshire do bone lace, at
sixpence a yard."
One Mary Hurdle, of Marlborough, in the time of Charles II., tells us in
her "Memoirs"[1130] that, being left an orphan, she was apprenticed by the
chief magistrate to a maker of bone lace for eight years, and after that
period of servitude she apprenticed herself for five years more.
Again, at the time of the Great Plague, cautions are issued by the Mayor of
Marlborough to all parents and masters how they send their children and
servants to school or abroad in making bone lace or otherwise, in any
public house, place, or school used for that purpose.[1131]
In the proceedings of the Anti-Gallican Society it is recorded that the
second prize for needle point ruffles was, in 1751, awarded to Mrs.
Elizabeth Waterman, of the episcopal city of Salisbury. Such are the scanty
notices we have been able to glean of the once flourishing lace trade in
Wiltshire.
{396}Dorset, on the other hand, holds a high place in the annals of
lace-making, three separate towns, in their day--Blandford, Sherborne, and
Lyme Regis--disputing the palm of excellence for their productions.
Of Blandford the earliest mention we find is in Owen's _Magna Britannica_
of 1720, where he states: "The manufacture of this town was heretofore
'band-strings,' which were once risen to a good price, but now times hath
brought both bands themselves and their strings out of use, and so the
inhabitants have turned their hands to making straw works and bone lace,
which perhaps may come to nothing, if the fickle humour of fashionmongers
take to wearing Flanders lace."
Only four years later Defoe writes of Blandford:--"This city is chiefly
famous for making the finest bone lace in England, and where they showed us
some so exquisitely fine as I think I never saw better in Flanders, France,
or Italy, and which, they said, they rated above £30 sterling a yard; but
it is most certain that they make exceeding rich lace in this county, such
as no part of England can equal." In the edition of 1762, Defoe adds, "This
was the state and trade of the town when I was there in my first journey;
but on June 4, 1731, the whole town, except twenty-six houses, was consumed
by fire, together with the church."
Postlethwayt,[1132] Hutchins,[1133] Lysons, and Knight (_Imperial
Cyclopædia_) all tell the same story. Peuchet cites the Blandford laces as
"comparables à celles qu'on fait en Flandres (excepté Bruxelles), en
France, et même dans les Etats de Venise"; and Anderson mentions Blandford
as "a well-built town, surpassing all England in fine lace." More reliance
is to be placed on the two last-named authorities than the former, who have
evidently copied Defoe without troubling themselves to inquire more deeply
into the matter.
[Illustration: Fig. 149.
ENGLISH NEEDLE-MADE LACE, REPRESENTING THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.
_To face page 396._]
{397}It is generally supposed that the trade gradually declined after the
great fire of 1731, when it was replaced by the manufacture of buttons, and
no record of its former existence can be found among the present
inhabitants of the place.[1134]
Fig. 149 represents a curious piece of lace, preserved as an heirloom in a
family in Dorsetshire. It formerly belonged to Queen Charlotte, and, when
purchased by the present owner, had a label attached to it, "Queen
Elizabeth's lace," with the tradition that it was made in commemoration of
the defeat of the Spanish Armada, as the ships, dolphins, and national
emblems testify. At this we beg to demur, as no similar lace was made at
that period; but we do not doubt its having been made in honour of that
victory, for the building is decidedly old Tilbury Fort, familiar to all by
the pencil of Stanfield. But the lace is point d'Argentan, as we see by the
hexagonal "bride" ground and the workmanship of the pattern. None but the
best lace-workers could have made it; it was probably the handiwork of some
English lady, or the pattern, designed in England, may have been sent to
Argentan to execute, perhaps as a present to Queen Charlotte.
"Since the Reformation the clothing trade declined," writes Defoe, of
Sherborne. "Before 1700, making buttons, haberdashery wares, and bone laces
employed a great many hands"; which said piece of information is repeated
word for word in the _Imperial Cyclopædia_. Other authors, such as
Anderson, declare, at a far later date, Sherborne to carry on a good trade
in lace, and how, up to 1780, much blonde, both white and black, and of
various colours, was made there, of which a supply was sent to all markets.
From the latter end of the eighteenth century, the lace trade of Sherborne
declined, and gradually died out.
The points of Lyme Regis rivalled, in the eighteenth century, those of
Honiton and Blandford, and when the trade of the last-named town passed
away, Lyme and Honiton laces held their own, side by side, in the London
market. The fabric of Lyme Regis, for a period, came more before the public
eye, for that old, deserted, and half-forgotten mercantile city, in the
eighteenth century, once more raised its head as a fashionable
watering-place. Prizes were awarded by the {398}Anti-Gallican Society[1135]
to Miss Mary Channon, of Lyme Regis, and her fellow-townswoman, Miss Mary
Ben, for ruffles of needle point and bone lace. The reputation of the
fabric, too, of Lyme Regis reached even the court; and when Queen Charlotte
first set foot on English ground, she wore a head and lappets of Dorset
manufacture. Some years later a splendid lace dress was made for her
Majesty by the workers of Lyme, which, says the annalist of our southern
coast,[1136] gave great satisfaction at court. The makers of this costly
product, however, received but fourpence a day for their work.
The laces of Lyme, like all good articles, were expensive. A narrow piece
set quite plain round an old woman's cap would cost four guineas, nor was
five guineas a yard considered an exorbitant price.
It was a favourite custom at Lyme for lovers to have their initials
entwined and worked together on a piece of ornamental lace.
The making of such expensive lace being scarcely found remunerative, the
trade gradually expired; and when the order for the marriage lace of Queen
Victoria reached the southern counties, not one lace-maker was to be found
to aid in the work in the once flourishing town of Lyme Regis.
{399}CHAPTER XXXII.
DEVONSHIRE.
"Bone lace and Cyder."--_Anderson._
"At Axminster, you may be furnished with fyne flax thread there spunne.
At Honyton and Bradninch with bone lace much in request."--Westcote.
HONITON.
The lace industry found its way to Devonshire, if the generally-accepted
theory be correct, by the Flemish refugees flying from the persecutions of
the Duke of Alva. There is much probability to support the theory, and some
names,[1137] of undoubted Flemish origin, appear among the entries of the
church registers still preserved at Honiton, towards the latter end of the
sixteenth century--names all handed down to their descendants in the
present generation, and in these families the fabric has continued for a
long lapse of years. On the other hand, if there had been any considerable
number of Flemings in Devonshire, they would surely have founded a company
of their Reformed Church, and no reference is found in the published books
of the archives of the London Dutch Church of any such company in
Devonshire, whereas references abound to places in the Eastern Counties and
Midlands where Flemings were settled. Lace was made on the pillow in the
Low Countries by the middle of the sixteenth century, so by the date of the
Alva persecution (1568-77) the people might have learned it in sufficient
numbers to start it wherever they set up their new home. Up to that date in
England lace was made with the needle,[1138] {400}and it was not till we
read of "bone-lace" that it may be taken to mean pillow-lace. The term
"bone," according to Fuller, was applied from the custom of using sheep's
trotters as bobbins. In Devonshire, however, the tradition is that, owing
to the high price of pins, the lace-makers, being within reach of the sea,
made use of fish-bones, and thus pillow-lace became "bone-lace." The term
"bobbin" came into use soon afterwards, but was not so universal as "bone";
it occurs in the Wardrobe Accounts and Royal inventories (where one entry
runs, "In ye shoppe, 4 oz. and ½ of Bobbing lace, 6s. 4d.").
Although the earliest known MS.[1139] giving an account of the different
towns in Devon makes no mention of lace, we find from it that Mrs.
Minifie,[1140] one of the earliest-named lace-makers, was an Englishwoman.
Queen Elizabeth was much addicted to the collecting and wearing of
beautiful clothes; but no mention of English lace by name seems to occur in
the inventories and accounts, and the earliest mention of Honiton lace is
by Westcote, who, writing about 1620, speaks of "bone lace much in request"
being made at Honiton and Bradninch; and again referring to Honiton.
"Here," says he, "is made abundance of bone lace, a pretty toye now greatly
in request; and therefore the town may say with merry Martial--
"In praise for toyes such as this
Honiton second to none is."
The oft-cited inscription let into a raised tombstone, near the wall of old
Honiton church, together with Westcote, {401}prove the industry to have
been well established in the reign of James I. The inscription runs--
"Here lyeth y^e body of James Rodge, of Honinton, in y^e County of
Devonshire (Bonelace Siller, hath given unto the poore of Honinton
P'ishe, the benyfitt of £100 for ever), who deceased y^e 27 of July A^o
D^i 1617 AETATAE SVAE 50. Remember the Poore."
There have been traditions that Rodge was a valet who accompanied his
master abroad, and there learning the fine Flemish stitches, taught some
Devonshire women on his return home, and was enabled to make a comfortable
competence by their work, bequeathing a sum of money to the poor of
Honiton; but it is more probable that he was an ordinary dealer.
Westcote,[1141] who wrote about the year 1620, when noticing bone lace,
does not speak of it as a new manufacture; the trade had already taken root
and flourished, for, including the above-mentioned Rodge, the three
earliest bone lace makers of the seventeenth century on record all at their
decease bequeathed sums of money for the benefit of their indigent
townspeople, viz., Mrs. Minifie,[1142] before mentioned, who died in 1617,
and Thomas Humphrey, of Honiton, laceman, who willed in the year 1658 £20
towards the purchase of certain tenements, a notice of which benefaction is
recorded on a painted board above the gallery of the old parish church.
By this time English lace had advanced in public estimation. In the year
1660 a royal ordinance of France provided that a mark should be affixed to
thread lace imported from England as well as on that of Flanders; and we
have already told elsewhere how the Earl of Essex procures, through his
countess, bone lace to a considerable amount as a present to Queen Anne of
Austria.