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Archiver > BUCKS > 2002-12 > 1038759376


From: "Celia Renshaw" <>
Subject: RE: [BKM] Parchment and Lace Making
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 16:32:50 -0000
In-Reply-To: <011801c29951$9b1f0fa0$2576fa0c@attbi.com>


I'd like to add my thanks to everyone who's helped to bring lacemaking to
life here on this list - it's absolutely fascinating.

At the same time, I'll throw in my doubts that early feminism changed
women's occupations! I'm much more inclined to believe it was a combination
of the industrialisation Toni mentioned and then a change in fashion so that
the market for lace dropped, with resultant (even greater) poverty for our
rural ancestors. I'd also be interested to hear from people more expert
than me about something I remembered vaguely from another list... it was
about the Lace Dealers who had the buying and selling of lace stitched up so
that lacemakers received only a tiny amount of money for their beautiful
artwork while they, the dealers, sold for a high price. It made me very
angry in retrospect, I know that - even more so now, after seeing how hard
the occupation was, in candlelight, posture, sore fingers, etc.

But some things never change for the working poor, do they - we hear that
much of this is true nowadays for many people in developing countries,
making our clothes and fitting our microchips, etc.

Celia Renshaw
in Nottingham UK (another lacemaking stronghold!)


-----Original Message-----
From: Toni Skidmore [mailto:]
Sent: 01 December 2002 15:52
To:
Subject: Re: [BKM] Parchment and Lace Making


Kevin, thanks for the wonderful site, and thanks also (to Kevin and Eve!)
for your marvelous replies on the subject.

The light portion of the question has already been answered, but having
ancestors who were lacemakers in the 1800s, I remember reading something
similar to the following about the occupation in the book "The Millennium
History of Finmere" [OXF] (paraphrased, not a quote, as I don't have the
book with me):

Lacemaking was a very difficult occupation as the ladies who performed it
had to cope with poor lighting, long work hours, and would often develop
poor posture from hours of stooping over their (lace) pillows. As a result
of this (and the new feminism coming into play in Victorian times?) the
occupation had largely died out by the 1880s, and in 1881 only two women in
Finmere still practiced it.

This could help to explain why there was only one "Parchment Pricker" to be
found in Bucks in the 1881 census. I suspect that lacemaking also became
industrialized (i.e. done on machines) not too long after this.

Cheers,

Toni Skidmore
Chicago, USA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Quick" <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 7:18 AM
Subject: RE: [BKM] Parchment and Lace Making


> I have just found the following web page which goes into great detail
> regarding Candle Stools etc. and has many photos and pictures.
>
> http://lace.lacefairy.com/Gallery/LaceLamps.html
>
> Kevin
>




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