|
|
The Lace Collection | |
| The Collection | ||
| A Social History | ||
|
Lace at the Cecil Higgins art Gallery In 1945 Amy Lester, the last member of her family, bequeathed a large collection of her grandfather’s lace to the Bedford Corporation (now Bedford Borough Council). When the Cecil Higgins Gallery opened in 1949 the Corporation saw the new venue as the natural home for the Thomas Lester collection. |
|||
| Thomas Lester and the Bedfordshire lace industry | |||
| The final years of the Sixteenth Century witnessed the birth of Bedfordshire lace, which survived various fluctuations of fortune until the last completed piece of commercial lace left a lace-pillow in the early Twentieth Century. Lace was handmade by the poor and worn by the rich, while the production and sale of lace was in the hands of lace dealers. It was the dealers who commissioned designs, supplied the lace workers with patterns, material and equipment, and it was the dealers who took away the finished lace to sell in London. | |||
|
In Bedford, two generations of the Lester family became leading lace merchants and oversaw a huge number of lace makers spread over three English counties. The patterns commissioned and provided for their workers were of exceptional quality and produced lace of an unrivalled delicacy, which won awards at successive international exhibitions. |
|
||
|
|
Thomas Lester (1791-1867) established his business in Bedford in around 1820, and within ten years, his business was thriving, owning land and property. Lester’s two sons, Charles and Thomas, assisted with their father’s trade, and the family became integral to the social and economic welfare of the town. |
|
|
|
Thomas Lester (Junior) |
Charles Lester |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The Lester business proved exceptionally robust through an outstanding awareness of fashion and design, and weathered economic storms, which saw the end of many lace-dealing contemporaries. The Lester business produced some of the finest lace made in Britain, the influence of which has spread throughout the globe. |
|
|
Thomas Lester Lace Manufacturer |
Lace Shop Bedford High Street |
