The Lace Collection

Lace and Poverty On arrival in England lace making was adopted as a means of helping the poor towards self-sufficiency. This was evident by the end of the Sixteenth Century, for in 1596, an Eaton Socon woman was paid to teach the children of the poor to work bone lace. The parents received the added incentive: “such pore as doe not send their children being able to work shall receive no relief from collection”. In the Seventeenth Century, houses of correction or workhouses were founded such as that in Great Marlow Buckinghamshire where inmates were taught, “to make bone lace, spin or knit”. Thus pillow lace became inexorably linked to poverty.
The industry was victim to a number of fluctuations in the Eighteenth Century, one of the worst being that of the 1770's, the resultant degradation of which lead the poet William Cowper to petition parliament on behalf of the the impoverished lace-makers of Olney. He wrote, "…hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving and that most unremitting industry is but barely sufficient to keep them from it". Such slumps were due to changes in fashion and the availability of continental lace and had dire consequences for the already poorly re-numerated lace makers.
Lace and the Church Church wardens from almost every denomination were keen to instigate lace manufacture, John Read an Anabaptist of Stevington, John Sarjeant a Methodist of Sandy and Robert Church a Carlton non-conformist all promoted lace making. Only the Quakers saw lace as " a thing wholly useless in the creation" and discouraged the activity.
The Lace Schools Some lace schools established were buildings especially for the purpose such as the lace school in Turvey, often however the school would be the living room of a cottage, often overcrowded, poorly lit and ventilated and unsanitary.


Annie Baker's Lace School, Riseley

Children began their education at six or seven years old, at which age they were expected to work four to five hours a day. By the time the children reached fifteen their hours had tripled to fifteen a day, with only two holidays granted a year. The schools were criticised for abandoning any academic education, with "little attention paid to moral discipline or restraint" and for producing girls unfit for household service.
Health The work was certainly a sedentary pastime, which strained the eyes and brought people together in cramped unhealthy conditions in which contagion could easily spread. It was however, the borderline poverty and consequent malnourishment, which was the main factor in the ill health of lace workers. Pay Though male lace-makers were not unheard of, pillow lace manufacture, was usually pursued by the female members of families in order to supplement the income of the main bread winner, who, in the Eighteenth Century East Midlands, was likely to be male and employed in agricultural labour. In this period adults earned from five to nine shillings a week with a tenth of their earnings ploughed back into materials, while children earned one third of the adult wage. This level of earning declined steadily through the Nineteenth Century, with makers on as little as six pence a day after 1830 when lace production was possible by machine. Lace Dealers Once trained the lace makers produced work for dealers, such as Thomas Lester and John Sarjeant, who made monthly visits to supply their workforce with materials, and designs to work from. The workers were free to take work from more than one dealer but that was the extent of their professional freedom. At the peak of production, While the makers received poor wages for their efforts, dealers made good profits and left some considerable legacies, earning up to fifty pounds a week in the Seventeenth Century. As the Eighteenth Century progressed, dealing became increasingly concentrated in the hands of just a few men, some of whom controlled up to 3,000 lace workers. This bottom heavy structure was to play a part in the decline of the product. Decline The terminal decline of commercial lace making was apparent by the second quarter of the Nineteenth Century. J.H. Matthiason published his Bedford and its environs in 1831 in which he noted, "The staple manufacture of Bedford is thread or Pillow Lace…and occupies nearly all the female population of the working classes…by this means, the industrious poor who were formerly able to earn a comfortable livelihood, have been reduced to such a state, as to render the most toilsome application insufficient to obtain a bare subsistence." The census of 1851 recorded 26, 670 lace-makers in the three counties, but by 1891, this had shrunk to just 3,376. One factor was the availability of continental lace following the lifting of import restrictions - when in need, the industry had become too small to significantly influence legislation in it's favour. Unquestionably however, the main factor in the drop of numbers was the invention in 1809 of lace making machines. In the face of mechanised competition, the hand made lace industry had two options. One was to create finer lace than the machines were capable of making, the other was to out do the speed of the machines, which could be achieved by using more repetitive patterns, lowering the quality and cost of the product. The later course was pursued. However, the less demanding work lead to the loss of skills and weakened the industry further, while the consequences of the 1809 invention were made steadily more apparent as the century progressed. Revival When the full cost of mechanisation became apparent, attempts were made to revive the industry by the country gentry and lace associations. The Midlands Lace Association formed in 1891 was the first effective agency. Financed largely by the contributions of its sponsors the Association provided instruction in lace manufacture and a market for the finished product. North Bucks Lace Association was formed in 1897 along similar lines but with more capital and achieved greater success. With the outbreak of the First World War on the continent, displaced Belgian refugees arrived in the Midlands many of who, were lace makers, and brought with them a final end to the stricken industry.

	Lace a Social History
		The Collection

		Back