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Archiver > BUCKS > 2002-12 > 1038762025


From: Kevin Quick <>
Subject: Re: [BKM] Parchment and Lace Making
Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 17:01:13 +0000
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20021201105224.009efec0@pop.freeserve.net><5.1.0.14.2.20021201131437.009f9040@pop.freeserve.net>
In-Reply-To: <011801c29951$9b1f0fa0$2576fa0c@attbi.com>


>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.

Lace making saw its greatest prosperity in the UK during the Napoleonic
wars, when there was no foreign lace being imported and also the export
market to America had opened up at the end of the War of Independence.
Early in the 19th century men and women could earn up to 25 shillings per
week, and in places such as Hanslope up to 75 percent of the population
were employed in the lace making industry.

In the second half of the nineteenth century machine-made lace improved
significantly and took over. This resulted in a real slump in earnings for
lace makers (a girl of 15 only earned 1 shilling a week), and consequently
the industry never recovered. However, nowadays it has become quite a
popular hobby.

Kevin Quick


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