Mrs Roe, Mrs Cooper and Mrs Edwards

In the last post I wrote about Marie Jane Cooper's New Guide to Knitting and Crochet, published in 1847.  In trying to find out more about Marie Jane Cooper's life, it was at first much easier to find out about her father and his Royal Marine Library in Hastings than about her mother.  But more searching eventually led to a story of three generations of women keeping Berlin wool shops, from the 1820s or 30s until the 1880s.

Mary Jane (as she is named in the records) was born in 1827, in London (St Pancras).  In the 1830s, the family evidently lived in France - from later censuses, at least three further children, Frederick, Augusta Elizabeth and Walter were born there (probably in Boulogne, which is specified as the birthplace of one of the children in one of the censuses).

At that time, it was cheaper to live in France than in England, so I surmised that it was financial difficulties that had caused the Cooper's to move to France. And in fact, there is some evidence for that: at the end of 1829, a partnership was dissolved between Nathan Chopping & Joseph Sidney Cooper, who had been japanners in London.  (The name Cooper is common, but the combination Joseph Sidney Cooper is distinctive.)   That suggests that their business was in some sort of trouble, which could account for the Cooper family leaving for France.

The Coopers moved back to England to settle in Hastings in about 1839.  (I have an idea about how that happened which I will mention below.)  Joseph Cooper had the Marine Library at least from October 1839, when an announcement of the death of another daughter, Ann Maria, appeared in the local newspaper.  From 1839 on, the family's finances appear to have been secure.

Associated with the Marine Library was a 'Bazaar', which seems to have been the "Foreign and British Depot of Berlin Patterns and Materials for Ladies' Fancy Works" mentioned on the title page of Marie Jane Cooper's book.  The title page gives the strong impression that Mr Cooper ran that part of the business as well as the Marine Library, and an ad in 1840 was placed by 'J. Cooper of the Old Established Bazaar and Royal Marine Library'.  But I am certain that the Bazaar was Mrs Cooper's domain.  In the 1841 census, Joseph is listed as 'Librarian' and Anna Maria as 'Toyshop Keeper' - though the layout may be intended to suggest that Joseph Cooper had both roles and Anna Maria was (just) his wife.  (In the same census, Isaac Hope and his son George Curling Hope, who kept a Fancy Repository and Berlin wool shop in Ramsgate at that time, are described as 'Toymen' - 'toy' seems to have included fancy goods and general fripperies such as Berlin wool.)

The Marine Library's main function was of course as a library.  An ad in 1840 gives a table of subscription fees, for periods ranging from one week up to one year, and for one person, two people or a family.  Newspapers could be borrowed for a week, for a shilling (5p) and subscribers could borrow up to two volumes at a time.  After Isaac Hope took over the Marine Library, he advertised it as "The largest reading room in the town, remote from Street Traffic, and having a splendid Sea View."   I imagine that it catered mainly for visitors to the town.  As well as a lending library, it seems to have provided a comfortable place to meet people, read the latest books and view the sea - a very useful amenity on a British seaside holiday, when good weather is not guaranteed.

In Ross's Guide to Hastings and St Leonards, published in 1847, there is a full page ad for the Marine Library.  (The British Library copy of the guide is available from Google Books).

It gives a comprehensive description of the Library's facilities:

This Library will be found the most commodious in Hastings. The leading Journals of the day lie on the table, as well as all Periodicals of merit; comprising, the Edinburgh Review, Quarterly, New Monthly, Blackwood, &c.  Road Book, Gazetteer, Court Guide, Maps, Dictionaries, &c.
J. S. COOPER has on sale every description of articles in Stationery, useful and ornamental. The Library consists of works of Biography, History, Divinity, Poetry, the Drama, Novels, Romances, &c.
A large assortment of elegantly-bound Books, Albums, Blotting, Bible, Prayer Books, Church Services, Pietas, &c., much under the ordinary charge. Periodicals supplied on the day of publication. Writing Desks and Work Boxes at reduced prices. 

In addition Mr Cooper offered pianofortes for sale or hire, and "Bagatelle Tables, Telescopes, Globes, Guitars, Backgammon Boards and Chess-Men."  He was also a local agent for the Western Life Assurance Society, and offered information to "Visitors in want of Houses or Apartments", so acted as a kind of Tourist Information Office.

The ad in the 1847 Guide goes on to describe the Berlin Wool Depot (again without mentioning Mrs Cooper):

 Adjoining the Library, is the old-established German and Berlin Wool Depot, at which will be found the largest assortment of Wools, Canvasses, Finished Needle Work, and Netting Silks, Tassels, Cords, Ivory Work from Paris and Dieppe, and a great variety of other articles for the Work Table, &c., imported direct from the Continent.

I think that Marie Jane Cooper must have worked in the Berlin Wool Depot before she published her book in 1847, and it seems much more likely that Mrs Cooper ran that side of the business than that Joseph Cooper ran it as well as the Marine Library.  And in fact I eventually found solid evidence for that.   This report appeared in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer in 1879:

Mrs. Anna Maria Cooper, another old inhabitant, died on the 15th inst. at her residence, Walland's Lodge. She was the widow of the late Joseph Sidney Cooper, Esq., and mother of Major de Brabant Cooper. She was a daughter of Mrs. Roe, of whom I had knowledge as far back as 1824, when she kept a fancy repository adjoining the old warm baths in the Fishmarket.  Mrs. Roe afterwards removed to a more prominent position at 1, East-parade, and at her death, her daughter, Mrs. Cooper, carried on the repository in connection with Cooper's Library, the latter superintended by her husband. Mr. Cooper, on retiring from business, invested some of his capital in the erection of the first houses on the east side of Warrior-square, to which, for a time, was given the name of Belgravia. He was a man of refined taste; and, as an active member of the Mechanics Institution, his services were conspicuously valuable when the said Institute in 1853 held an extensive and unique exhibition at the St. Leonards Assembly Rooms.  Mrs. Cooper survived her husband's death a considerable number of years. and at her own death had attained to the age of eighty-one.  It is but a few weeks ago that the old lady called on me, specially, as she said, to say Good bye! and to wish me and my family well; as, in all probability, it would be her last opportunity.  This mark of respect from one who was apparently in her usual health, but who was destined so soon to quit an earthly sphere, seems now to possess a peculiar significance. 

I think that Mrs Roe's death enabled the Coopers to return from France and take over her business.  A Mary Roe, born in 1772,  was buried in Hastings in June 1839;  this may be Mrs Cooper's mother, and the dates fit.  It may be significant that Joseph Cooper always refers to the Bazaar and Berlin Wool side of the business, but not the Marine Library, as 'old-established' - he may have set up the library when the family arrived in Hastings, while Mrs Cooper carried on her mother's business. But I believe that Joseph Cooper owed a lot of his subsequent prosperity to his mother-in-law and his wife, even though he never mentioned either of them in his ads.

In 1849, the Hope family moved from Ramsgate and took over the Marine Library and Bazaar.  Presumably, Joseph Cooper made enough money from the sale of the business to live on comfortably - in the 1851 census, he is listed as a 'Proprietor of houses'.

Meanwhile, what happened to Marie Jane Cooper, the starting point of this story, after she married John Edwards in 1847?

I said in the last post that in 1851, the Edwards were living in New Street, Birmingham, where Marie Jane was a Dealer in Fancy Goods and Berlin Wool.  John Edwards was a bank clerk, which was probably his occupation before they were married.  Also in the household were two children, two shop assistants, and two general servants.

In 1858, an ad in a local Birmingham newspaper announced that Mrs John Edwards was moving to different premises within New Street, probably because the business, and the family, had grown too big for the old building.  The business is described as 'Berlin, baby linen and outfitting, and fancy repository.'  By the 1861 census, there were eight children in the family.  48 New Street was their home, as well as the shop, and there were five shop assistants living there, as well as two servants.  John Edwards was still a bank clerk, but his occupation is also given as 'Berlin & Fancy repository', whereas Marie Jane's occupation is being his wife - which is annoying as the 1858 ad shows that she was the proprietor, as well as being mother to eight children and managing seven live-in staff.

The Edwards eventually had twelve children:

Annie Marie, 1849
George Joseph, 1850
Lizzie Augusta, 1851
Helen Constance, 1853
John Sydney, 1854
Catherine Blanche, 1856
Arthur Frederick, 1857
Ernest Walter, 1859
Herbert Alfred, 1861
Beatrice Mabel, 1864
Frank Percy, 1865
Hugh Leslie, 1867

(Just reading this list makes me feel tired.) I have traced seven of the children in the 1871 census; Hugh, the youngest, died before he was two, but I don't know whether the others had died, or I just can't find them.  (Researching a family with a common name like Edwards is not easy, and I know that I have missed a lot of the family's history.)

The Edwards carried on the business at 48 New Street for another 20 years, though by 1871, Ann  Ellis, one of the shop assistants, had become the manager, which perhaps allowed Mrs Edwards to slow down a bit.  And by 1881, they had downsized the business considerably, though still living in part of 48 New Street with their youngest daughter Beatrice, two shop assistants and two domestic servants.  Ann Ellis and her sister Frances, who had also been living as a shop assistant at 48 New Street,  had set up in business as Ladies Outfitters elsewhere in central Birmingham. 

 In 1882, a notice appeared in the Birmingham Daily Post to say that Mrs John Edwards was retiring and selling off her remaining stock.  She was by then 55, and it may be that John Edwards had recently died, though I have not been able to find any evidence of the date of his death.  By 1891, she was living in Hastings again, a widow, with her daughter Beatrice.  She was living on her own means, so the business in Birmingham had evidently been successful enough to provide funds for her retirement.  I think that she returned to Hastings in the early 1880s because her brother was living there with his family.  He was the grandly named Major Frederick Sidney de Brabant Cooper, mentioned in the 1879 report above about their mother Mrs Cooper - he was evidently a well-known public figure in Hastings.  

I don't know when Mary Jane died, though I can't find her in the 1901 census, nor any indication of what became of Beatrice.  But I think it's worth celebrating the fact that three generations of women made a successful business from selling Berlin wool: her grandmother Mrs Roe and her mother Mrs Cooper in Hastings,  and herself in Birmingham.  They contributed to the popularity of knitting as a leisure pursuit for Victorian ladies.  And Marie Jane Cooper added to the literature on knitting and crochet available to these Victorian ladies.  For modern knitters and crocheters, it is her book, published in 1847, that is her main achievement, but probably for her it wasn't an important part of her life compared to setting up a successful business in Birmingham, and running it with her husband for over 30 years, while raising a large family.  She must have been a tremendously energetic and capable woman - very far from the stereotypical image of a Victorian lady.  

Miss Cooper's Guide to Knitting and Crochet

In the 1840s, a large number of books on knitting and crochet were published in Britain, to cater for ladies who were taking up these crafts as leisure activities.  Some of the authors who were writing in the 1840s continued to write books in the following decades - Jane Gaugain, Mlle Riego de la Branchardiere, Mrs Mee,...  Others wrote several books in the 1840s and then stopped.  And others wrote just one book and then seem to have disappeared from view.  Penny Hemingway has written about several of the more prolific authors in recent issues of The Knitter - here I'm writing about one of the last group: Marie Jane Cooper.   Her New Guide to Knitting and Crochet was published in 1847, and as far as I can tell, it was her first and last book.  (The Bodleian Library copy is available online from Google books.)

I wanted to find out more about Marie Jane Cooper because the title page of her book shows that it was published by J. S. Cooper of the Royal Marine Library in Hastings - and I had already heard of the Royal Marine Library in another context.  A few years ago I was looking into the Hope family, who were also writing and publishing books on knitting and crochet in the 1840s.  The Hopes moved to Hastings from Ramsgate and took over the Marine Library from Mr. Cooper.

Title page of the New Guide to Knitting & Crochet

Mr J. S. Cooper was obviously related to Marie Jane, and the title page describes his business as "Foreign and British Depot of Berlin Patterns and Materials for Ladies' Fancy Works", as well as the the Royal Marine Library.  So it was evidently not just a library but a needlework and knitting wool shop - what was then often called a Berlin wool repository.  (Berlin wool was wool from merino sheep, imported from Germany.)

So who were J.S. and Marie Jane Cooper?   Joseph Sidney Cooper was Marie Jane's father.  She was probably the eldest child of Joseph and his wife Anna Maria.  The Coopers were in Hastings from around 1839 onwards - Mr Cooper ran the Marine Library and Mrs Cooper the associated Berlin wool repository.

Mary Jane Cooper was only 20 when the New Guide was published in 1847.  She had probably worked in the 'Bazaar' side of the Marine Library for a few years by 1847, and in that case would have been very familiar with some of the books on knitting and crochet already published, and with what the lady visitors to Hastings wanted to make.  Even so, it seems extraordinary that a 20 year-old should have the confidence to write her own book, in competition with all the others.  In her preface, she says:

"I venture to publish THE NEW GUIDE TO KNITTING AND CROCHET, believing it will prove both instructive and amusing to those Ladies, whose taste leads them to such pursuits. The Authoress being practically acquainted with these Arts, she warrants them correct, and trusts they will meet with a favourable reception by the Public, and be found a useful appendage to every work-table.

HASTINGS, January 1847."  

The book has about 50 knitting patterns and about 20 crochet patterns.  There are only three illustrations, which makes judging them a bit difficult.  I have only looked at the knitting patterns, not being a crocheter.  Many of them are patterns for fancy stitches, and it is up to the knitter to use them in an complete article, but as well as those there are patterns like "A very handsome mat", "A bag to hold wools" and so on.  One of the patterns is for a Shetland shawl, and I tried a small swatch of the centre stitch pattern to see what it looks like.  Here's the complete pattern, so that you can see something of her style:

Shetland wool, and No. 4 pins; about one hundred and sixty stitches; cast on any number of stitches that will divide by six. First row—bring the wool forward, knit one, wool in front, knit one, slip one, knit two as one; bring the slipt stitch over, then knit one. Second row—purl knitting. Third row—wool forward, knit three, wool forward, slip one, knit two as one, and cast over. Fourth row—purl knitting. Fifth row—knit one, slip one, knit two as one, and bring the slipt stitch over, and then knit one, make one, knit one, wool forward. Sixth row—purl knitting. Seventh row—slip one, knit two as one, and cast over, make one, knit three, make one. Eighth row —purl knitting; there are to be two plain stitches at the beginning and end of each row, to form an edge; take up the stitches on each side, and knit the border in the feather pattern, increasing one stitch at each end of the rows, to form the corner. 

It's reasonably clear: she doesn't use abbreviations, and she uses 'purl' and 'knit' as we do now.  (Authors in the 1840s used several different words for purl, such as 'seam', or spelt it 'pearl'.)  It was slightly confusing at first that she uses 'bring the wool forward', 'wool in front', and 'make one' interchangeably to mean 'yarn over'.  And it could be very annoying if you were actually knitting a shawl, and cast on 'about 160 stitches', choosing a number divisible by 6, and then found after the eight rows of the stitch pattern that you should also have two extra stitches at either side.  But I had already planned a border all round my swatch when I read that part of the instructions.

Here it is, unblocked and knitted in 4-ply cotton rather than Shetland wool:

( I really don't like sewing ends in, and when I'm only knitting a swatch to try out a stitch pattern, I don't bother.)

From the swatch, I recognised it as a pattern I have seen before.  I think it was a well-known stitch pattern in the 19th century, and we have an example in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection on a pincushion.

This is the underside of the pincushion - the other side has a more elaborate pattern, and has had to be mended (probably in Victorian times) because the pins have broken the threads. This side, protected from the pins, is in perfect condition.

Following the first publication of the New Guide to Knitting and Crochet in January 1847, 2nd and 3rd editions were advertised in local papers around the country in August 1847 and April 1848.  So it seems to have been a reasonably successful work.  But meanwhile, on 1st June 1847, Mary Jane Cooper married John Edwards of Aston in Warwickshire, now part of central Birmingham.  There's no clue as to how they met, but the family evidently had Birmingham connections - John Sidney Cooper was born there. She moved with her husband to Birmingham, and by the 1851 census she had set up in New Street as a Dealer in Fancy Goods and Berlin Wool (and had two children).  But she didn't write any more books, as far as I can find out.

In the next post, I'll write more about the family history, and three generations of businesswomen, including Marie Jane. 

The Guild collection at In the Loop

I'm told that work is still in progress on the recordings of the talks at the In the Loop conference in July, so in the meantime, I will write a post based on my talk.

It was a short talk (20 minutes) on a huge collection, so I could only give an outline of what there is. Brief summary: knitted and crocheted items, tools and gadgets, yarn samples and shade cards, publications of all kinds (books, magazines, pattern leaflets and booklets).  Lots of everything.  At the conference, after outlining what's in the collection I talked about how we choose what to present in a trunk show - a suitcase full of selected highlights.  We have been doing trunk shows for a few years as a way of making the collection accessible to groups around the country - the first one was at Sheffield in 2014.  (I wrote about it here.)

When we choose a piece for a trunk show, we have to be able to say something interesting about it.  Ideally, we would like to be able to tell its story: who made it, when, what pattern did they use, who was it made for, and so on.  We no longer accept new donations of knitted or crocheted items unless they come with a story like this, but many of the items already in the collection have no story of that kind.

Sometimes, lack of a story doesn't matter - some of the pieces in the collection are such fine examples of craft that they speak for themselves.

Leaf-and-trellis pincushion cover 

Here is a Victorian pincushion cover that I have shown before on this blog, because it's an example of my favourite leaf and trellis pattern (aka print o' the wave) - I showed it here. Like many of the older items in the collection, it was bought at an antique textiles fair, and had no provenance.  We have no idea who made it and no way of finding out.  But it's a beautiful piece of work.  We don't know when it was made, but I'm sure it's Victorian.   It's possible that it was made to a specific pattern for a pincushion, in which case we might find the pattern one day, but the knitter might equally well have put together the leaf and trellis stitch pattern, and a pattern for a knitted edging (of which there were lots).   Either way, it's a very fine piece of work.

A theme of my talk was that we can sometimes identify the pattern that was used to make a piece, and that this can either provide a 'story' for it, or add to the story that we already have.  And the fact that the collection has so many publications alongside all the knitted and crocheted items helps us match pieces with patterns.

Occasionally, finding the pattern that was used to make an item casts some doubt on its story.  A piece that has often featured in a trunk show is a tea-cloth with a filet crochet edging, which has 'Welcome Home' worked into each side.

As the collection got more organised, it eventually turned out that there are three 'Welcome Home' tea-cloths, one of them with a detailed story.  It had been donated, along with a note of its history, by the daughter of the woman who made it.  The maker, Ethel Booth, was born in 1897, learnt to crochet at the age of 12, and made the tea-cloth for her father who was in the Army during the Boer War, "little knowing there would be the Great War".  That implied that the tea-cloth was made before the First World War (i.e. the Great War), but when I first saw it, before knowing this story, I was sure that it was a First World War design.  And in fact the story doesn't really hang together - the Boer War, or South African War, ended in 1902, before Ethel learnt to crochet.  And the First World War origin was confirmed when we found the pattern for the edging, in a magazine published in 1915.

Fancy Needlework Illustrated no. 33, March 1915.

 The design is called 'L'Entente', and was presumably intended to celebrate the alliance between Britain and France, shown by the British and French flags in the corners.  (Though I must say that filet crochet in white cotton is really not ideal for representing red, white and blue flags.)  The design was evidently a popular one, and I'm sure that the appeal was nothing to do with the alliance, but rather the 'Welcome Home' message.  Someone at home could make it in the hope that their father, brother, sweetheart,.... would come home from the war.

After we had identified the pattern for the 'Welcome Home' tea-cloth, we assumed that Ethel Booth's father had still been in the Army during the First World War, and she made it for him then.  But I've recently managed to trace Ethel Booth's family in census records and so on, and in fact her father had died by 1911.  So the story that she made it for her father is wrong, and I think that probably she made it for her future husband - they married in 1919.

All this happened before Ethel's daughter was born, and family stories often get slightly garbled in transmission, but she knew the final part of the story at first-hand, and I'm sure it's true: the last time the cloth was used was for Ethel's 90th birthday. 

Another item I talked about at In The Loop came with no story at all - it was bought from a charity shop.

It is a remarkably short crocheted dress.  When I first saw it, I mentally labelled it as a beach dress, on the grounds that a beach would be the only possible place to wear it.  But then we found the pattern:

Patons leaflet 6249

And it is not a beach dress at all.  The leaflets describes it thus: "Swingy little discotheque dress which longs to go dancing.  Prettily crocheted in a trendy yarn, with a short flirty skirt and a mini top."  (Did you know that 'disco' was originally short for 'discotheque'?  It's true.)

Because it’s a Patons pattern, and we have the Patons pattern leaflet archive in the collection, we have the master copy of this leaflet, that gives the original date of publication: October 1969.  The one I have shown is a later reissue from the early 1970s.

I'm not sure what you were supposed to wear underneath the dress.  The pattern calls for a pair of 'bra cups' to sew into the dress as a final stage in making up.  (Our dress doesn't have them.)  So you wouldn't need a separate bra.  But as the skirt is see-through (as well as very short) you would need underwear of some kind.  In fact, our dress is even shorter than the one shown in the leaflet - it has 5 fewer pattern repeats in the skirt.  Hopefully, the person who wore it was much shorter than the model.  Or else extremely daring.

Finding the published pattern to match our dress allows us to say a lot more about it than we could just from looking at it - we now have a story to go with it.  I finished my 'In the Loop' talk by showing a piece from the collection that is still in need of a story.

Like the pink disco dress, it was bought for the collection in a charity shop.  It is beautifully made in fine cotton.  But we don't know any more about it - it's difficult even to estimate when it was made.  If pushed, I would guess 1930s, but it seems too long for that date, or for the 1940s or 1950s.  And the work seems too fine for the 1960s or later.  It was very probably made to a published pattern and if so, we can hope to find the pattern one day - and then we will be able to give it an approximate date, and maybe say what it was intended for (a tennis shirt, I would guess).  So if you see a pattern for a shirt like this, please let us know - we would love to be able to include it in a trunk show and tell a story about it.

I'll say more about the Guild collection in future posts. 

Metal Boxes

At the Knitting & Crochet Guild convention a month ago, one of the members donated a little holder for a ball of crochet cotton to the Guild collection.

The Crochet Cotton Casket

To give it its proper name, it's a Crochet Cotton Casket - a metal box, beautifully decorated, which separates into two halves in the middle, and has a hole in the top for the cotton thread to emerge from.

It says on the top that it's patented (though I can't find a patent) and registered - that is, the design was registered, and in fact it has two registration numbers on the top, 189723 and 190426, which are both 1892 registrations.  (Though our box could have been made later than that.)  The box itself is a very functional design that could easily be used now - the size and shape of balls of crochet cotton seem not to have changed much for well over a hundred years.

There is also a manufacturer's name on the box - Jahncke.  Information from the National Archives website is that the company made tin boxes at Canonbury Works, Dorset Street, Islington (London).  It was founded in 1873 by Ernest Jahncke.

I remembered when I saw the name that there is another metal container made by Jahncke in the collection - a knitting pin case, the Mitrailleuse.  It's a cylindrical tube, ornately decorated in blue and gold.

The Mitrailleuse Knitting Pin Case

The other side of the case shows the Royal arms, and says "By Royal Letters Patent" (not sure what that means); Jahncke, London; and "Containing four sets of four pins of each size Nos. 14 to 17".  (Size 14 is 2mm., size 17 is 1.4mm., approximately.)

The cross-section of the tube is divided into 5 sectors. One is blocked off at the end, the others are open.  The cap on the end of the tube has a piece cut out of it, the same size as the sectors of the cross-section.  As you turn the end, the opening either coincides with the blocked off sector, and the case is SHUT.....

... or it coincides with one of the open sectors, allowing the needles in that sector to come out.

Our case only has needles in the size 15 compartment, in fact - but they are a set of four, and so possibly the original needles. 

It's a very clever design - an ideal way to store several sets of needles and keep each size separate.

And why 'Mitrailleuse'?  A mitrailleuse was a type of early machine gun with several barrels, that could fire the barrels simultaneously or in rapid succession (says Wikipedia).  I  suppose the separate compartments in the needle case reminded someone (with a vivid imagination) of the barrels of a mitrailleuse.  And perhaps tipping the needles out of a compartment of the case seemed a bit like bullets being fired out of it?  A very vivid imagination. 

Knitted Lace at Parcevall Hall

My friends Ann Kingstone and her sister Marie ran a Yorkshire Knitting Tour last week (finishing today). It was based at Parcevall Hall in upper Wharfedale - a 17th century manor house, extended in the 1920s, when a terraced garden was made.  

Parcevall Hall

On Friday, I went there with a suitcase of 19th century knitted lace from the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, to show to the knitters as an introduction to two days of lace knitting workshops that Ann was going to teach.

A couple of the things I took to show the knitters have already appeared on this blog, like a pin-cushion cover in print o' the wave stitch (or leaf and trellis, as Victorian knitters would have called it).   Here's a small selection of the other things I had in the case.

I showed another knitted lace pin-cushion cover, this one with its pad inside.  It's suffered some damage from the pins and has been mended, possibly in Victorian times.

Two Victorian knitted samplers had been specially requested, and caused a lot of interest. As did Captain Tweedie's splendid nightcap.

Many of the Victorian pieces in the collection are mats, covers or doileys of various kinds, including this very finely knitted mat.

The basic design, with a sort of four-petalled flower in the centre, is very common, but there are many variations.  It is often used for bedspreads, made up of lots of squares knitted in thick cotton - it isn't usual to see it knitted in very fine cotton.

I had time for a walk around part of the garden, which is open to the public.  And it rained!  (Rain doesn't normally merit an exclamation mark in a British summer, but this year, it hasn't rained for weeks.)  The hillside across the valley was covered in cloud - though the fields were yellow-brown when they should have been green, because it has been so dry.

The garden is a series of terraces stepping down the slope, with wide views across the valley.  But looking along a terrace gives a much more enclosed feeling.

At the back, part of the building was built directly on top of a huge lump of exposed bedrock - which then had a rock garden planted in it.

An interesting house, and a beautiful garden - and evidently an ideal place for a week's knitting holiday. The knitters were very enthusiastic, and keen to examine the things I had brought.  It's great to be able to show pieces from the collection to an appreciative audience, and I really enjoyed joining the knitting tour for half a day.  Ann and Marie are planning to run it again next year, so hopefully I will be back.

Fascinating Crochet Hooks

I know that for most people, the words "fascinating" and "crochet hooks" don't naturally go together, but bear with me. Early crochet hook designs are very varied - the handle gives a lot of potential for decoration, and there are some ingenious methods of combining two (or more) hooks with only one handle, and ways to protect the ends of very fine hooks.  I am not a crocheter, except very occasionally, and I'm especially not a crocheter with the size of hook that you can barely see, used with thread no thicker than sewing thread. But even so, I do find many of the crochet hooks in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection fascinating.

And last week, at our usual Thursday morning knitting session, a friend brought several things to give to the collection, including these 15 crochet hooks.  In case you think they look interesting too, I've written about some of them below.

Many of these hooks are late 19th or early 20th century - I've been looking at Nancy Nehring's website here, which gives a lot of information on the history of crochet hooks.

First is a 19th century hook (rather rusty, as early steel hooks are liable to be).  It has a patent number (4439) on the sheath.  I can't trace the patent, though Nancy Nehring dates it to 1888.  I imagine that the patent was for the idea of including a tubular sheath (top) that can fit over the hook to protect it, when it is not being used, and otherwise can fit over the other end to form a handle.

Another early hook also has a tubular sheath - brass in this case.  There are two hooks of different sizes, and the sheath can fit over either to form a handle.  Nehring attributes this hook to John Shrimpton and Son (here).

In the next one, the hook is attached to a flower-shaped slider so that it can be retracted into the handle.  (But there is nothing to hold the slider in place, when the hook is in use, so this may not have been a very successful design in practice.)

The next, with a handle made from a loop of wire, is hook by another Shrimpton, Z Shrimpton & Co.  It has two hooks of different sizes, that can pivot in the middle.  The brass slider can be moved (to the left, in the photo) to hold the hook that's not being used within the handle.

And here are two later hooks - the design was patented in 1911.  They look identical, but one is called the "Evelyne" and the other the "Eclipse".  They are like a flattened version of the first hook I described - there is a sheath that either fits over the hook (top), or can form a handle (bottom).  By this time, the idea of having a flattened grip had been introduced, and very quickly seems to have become almost universal for metal crochet hooks.

There are three hooks in the donation that aren't steel.   Two are bone, and the same design. One of them is marked 'Bates' - an American company that still makes crochet hooks.  I think the different coloured ends are to show at a glance the size of the hook (at least once you know that dark blue means size 1 and light blue means size 5).

And finally, I think that the hook below might be ivory.  It is a very uniform colour, whereas bone tends to develop brown marks with age, and it feels much smoother and denser than the bone hooks.

Altogether, it's a diverse and fascinating collection, just by itself.  Thanks very much, Debbie.

'Leaf and Trellis' Stockings

Anyone who was at the Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention in Birmingham earlier this month might have seen a pair of 19th century knitted lace stockings that I showed, to illustrate the kind of object that we have in the Guild collection.  Here's one of the pair. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

They were knitted from the top down, in the round, with a band of double rib to start and then a deep band of stocking stitch, before starting the lace part.  The lace is a stitch that in Shetland lace knitting is called Print o' the Wave, but in 19th century knitting books I have seen it called Leaf and Trellis.   Here it is as it appears on the stockings.  They are knitted in very fine cotton, so that it takes 5 pattern repeats to go round the ankle - there is a huge amount of work in these stockings.

On the way to Birmingham, I found an early version of the pattern, in Miss Lambert's My Knitting Book.  The 7th edition, published in 1844, is available online from the Winchester School of Art library, here.  I think that Jane Gaugain published the pattern earlier, in 1842 (see my earlier post here), but Miss Lambert might have been the first to call the pattern Leaf and Trellis.

In Birmingham, I knitted a swatch of Leaf and Trellis to compare with the stockings.  I used DK cotton for the swatch rather than anything finer, mainly to be easier for me.  But I wanted it to be visible to an audience, too, and didn't in any case have any cotton thread anywhere near as fine as that used for the stockings, or the tiny needles to go with it (around 1mm thickness or less, at a guess.)

Here's my swatch, with the cast-on edge at the bottom, because that seems more natural to me.  (I actually used the instructions in the 12th edition of Miss Lambert's book, from 1845, also available from the Winchester School of Art library.)

Like the stitch pattern in the stockings and other early versions of the pattern, all the decreases are done by knit 2 together, so they are all right-leaning.   Later versions, and present-day Print o' the Wave patterns, use  both left- and right-leaning decreases to make the pattern symmetrical.  As I wrote here, the Leaf and Trellis pattern published in Weldon's Practical Needlework in 1886 claimed the credit for introducing this variation.

The lace stockings must have been very precious to the woman who wore them - either because she had knitted them herself,  or because they had been bought and must then have been very expensive.  We can see that she valued them, because they have been darned in several places.  The heels wore through, as you would expect, and there are also darns on the back of the calf - perhaps she sometimes wore them with boots?   And there are more darns in the stocking stitch sections at the top of the stockings.  I would have guessed that they would have been kept up by garters, though that seems a bit precarious.  But I really don't know anything about how Victorian ladies wore their stockings, and perhaps they were attached to the corset?  I don't know.  

Here's one of the feet, showing the darn in the heel.  I'm not a sock knitter,  so I don't know whether there is anything unusual in the heel shaping.  The toe shaping on the other hand does look rather peculiar - it looks as though it's designed for an anatomically strange, very pointed toe.

 
But clearly the stockings did fit someone, who wore them a lot and looked after them.  And then eventually they were put away and kept carefully, until the end of the 20th century, when they were acquired for the Guild collection. And we can admire the skill that went into making them, and marvel at the amount of time they must have taken.

Practical Knitting in 1886

I was sorting out some miscellaneous Weldon's publications in the Guild collection this week.  Several of them had lost their front covers, or probably had them removed  - the covers generally just had a summary of the contents, and the rest was ads, so they were often discarded.  But it makes life difficult for a cataloguer, because sometimes, as with the Practical Needlework series, the number in the series is only printed on the cover.  But eventually, with not too much cursing, I got most of them into the right place.  In the process, I found one of earliest issues in the Practical Needlework series, from volume 1, dated by Richard Rutt to 1886.

Weldon's Practical Needlework No. 2

It's number 2 of Weldon's Practical Needlework, and also number 2 of the Weldon's Practical Knitter subseries.  I have to admit that that's a bit confusing.  But never mind  - it has some interesting things in it.  Here are a few that caught my attention.

First is a pattern for a knitted quilt square in Foxglove pattern, described as 'exceedingly pretty'.

I recognised the image immediately, because I  had seen one very like it when I was trying to find the pattern used for a 19th century bedspread  - I found the image in an Australian newspaper, the Australian Town and Country Journal, published in Sydney, also in 1886. And now that I compare  the two, the images are exactly the same - the Australian newspaper lifted both the text and the image from Weldon's Practical Needlework, in a cut-and-paste job.  And I can't see any acknowledgement to Weldon's.  To a former academic, that's really shocking behaviour - blatant plagiarism.  On the other hand, much of the wording of the pattern is taken in turn from an earlier book, Needlework for Ladies for Pleasure and Profit by 'Dorinda', though Dorinda didn't illustrate it.  So Weldon's aren't entirely innocent of plagiarism themselves.  Victorian morals weren't quite as pure as some people claim.

Another pattern in the magazine is my favourite lace pattern.  I started out thinking of it as Print o' the Wave, but I now think that that is only its Shetland name - in Victorian knitting books, it seems to have been called Leaf and Trellis (if it was given a name at all).

The description says: ' This is a very favourite old pattern for window curtains, cotton antimacassars, bread-tray cloths, and other articles. It is here rearranged and improved, and the veining of the leaves is carried symmetrically upwards."    (Following a tradition beginning with Mrs Gaugain, the sample is shown upside down, with the cast-on edge at the top - I suppose because it looks more like a pattern of leaves that way.)   The claim of symmetry in the pattern is because some of the decreases are right-leaning (knit 2 together) and some are left-leaning (slip 1, knit 1, pass the slipped stitch over) so that in the 'leaves' you get a line of successive decreases, all leaning the same way, and then a line leaning the other way.  In earlier versions of the pattern (Jane Gaugain's, for instance), all the decreases are done by knitting 2 together.

So it may be that, as claimed, this is an innovation, and the first version of the pattern to have symmetrical decreases.  Or it could be that the magazine has 'borrowed' the improvement from an earlier publication - I'm reserving judgement.

And the other pattern that I particularly noticed was for a Balaclava cap, 'a most comfortable cap for gentlemen travelling or for shooting excursions.'  

 It's knitted in navy blue Berlin wool (merino), with red stripes, on No. 10 bone needles.  I would like to believe that the pattern was written for this magazine, but the image seems very familiar - I'm sure I've seen it before, but can't remember where.  Maybe I have seen it in a later publication, but I'm not very confident - this might be another case of 'borrowing'.

Weldon's Practical Needlework

I was going to write a PS to my last post, but then I thought. "Who reads a PS?"  Probably no-one who's already read the original post.   So I'll write a new post.

Weldon's Practical Crochet, 15th Series, No. 77 in the Practical Needlework series.

 In my last post, I was speculating about the date of this Weldon's Practical Needlework magazine,  recently donated to the Knitting & Crochet Guild, which had ads from the First World War inside, but I thought was much earlier.  I suggested that it might have been originally published about 1895, but kept in print for much longer - and obviously the ads could be updated for every reprint. Hence, 1890s patterns, but WW1 ads.

Then I remembered that Richard Rutt wrote an appendix to his History of Hand Knitting giving publications dates for Weldon's Practical Needlework issues, up to July 1915, when they started to be dated.  Actually, he only gives dates for issues in the Practical Knitting sub-series (he's writing about hand-knitting, after all, and not crochet or macrame or millinery or any of the other things covered in Practical Needlework).  But all the issues were numbered consecutively, and then given another number within their sub-series - so the issue illustrated above was the 77th Practical Needlework issue, and the 15th in the Practical Crochet sub-series.  (Confusingly, this is expressed as "Fifteenth Series" on the cover.)  So we can use the appendix to date all the Practical Needlework issues, not just the knitting ones.  

It's quite simple actually - each volume of 12 issues corresponded to a year, and Rutt dates volume 1 to 1886, so volume 7 is 1892.  And if we want to be precise, No. 77 was first published in May 1892 (because 77 = 12 x 6 + 5).

I don't know whether Rutt counted backwards from the dated issues. or whether he had other evidence too.  But it certainly works by counting backwards.  Here's No. 395, in volume 33.

Weldon's Practical Crochet, 180th Series, No. 395 in the Practical Needlework series.

It's dated November 1918 - that's the '11/18' in the bottom left corner.  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)  And extending Rutt's list of volumes and years, volume 33 does correspond to 1918.  And No. 395 would be the November issue (395 = 32 x 12 + 11).

The magazine continued with only a change of title font into the 1920s.

Weldon's Practical Needlework, No. 478.  

 This issue on Tea Cosies is dated October 1925. (You'll have to trust me on that - the pages are bigger than A4 and when I scanned the cover the date got missed off.)  And again the arithmetic works out - it's volume 40 (so 1925) and issue No. 478 (= 12 x 39 + 10).  In spite of the change of font, the cover design must have been looking very old-fashioned by 1925.  There was a redesign shortly afterwards, and the series then continued - in fact, it was still being published after the Second World War, though then as a Practical Knitting series only.

There's one problem with Richard Rutt's list of dates:  the British Library catalogue says that the Weldon's Practical Needlework series started in 1888.   Hmmm.   One possible explanation for the difference is that I think the British library has the bound annual volumes, not the monthly separate issues.  (Weldon's sold both - and if you can sell it as a monthly magazine and a yearly volume as well, why not?)   You can't produce an annual volume until you have all 12 separate numbers, and maybe volume 1 didn't appear until 1888.  And it has been known for the British Library catalogue to assign the wrong date to undated 19th century publications.  So I'm putting my money on the dates given by Richard Rutt.

Donations

It's been an exciting week at the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection.  I had accepted two donations of publications and they arrived though the post.  One is a wonderful collection of booklets and leaflets, published around 1920 - most of them I have never seen before.  Here is a selection:

We already have copies of that edition of Woolcraft, but not in such good condition - the other booklets are entirely new.  But this donation deserves a post to itself (later).

The other donation consisted mainly of collections of crochet samples, bound into notebooks.  I will perhaps write more about those in another post as well  (although crochet is not my thing, especially fine cotton crochet of the kind in the notebooks.)  An unexpected bonus with this donation were some very old magazines, including copies of Fancy Needlework Illustrated and Weldon's Practical Needlework.

Fancy Needlework Illustrated is awkward to scan - the printed area is larger than A4.  So the ilustration below is just part of the front cover.  Evidently it was also an awkward size for readers, too - this copy has been kept folded across the middle for a long time. Issue No. 64 is from the early 1920s, I guess.  (They aren't dated.)  Knitted or crocheted dresses often featured in the needlecraft magazines of that time - like the one on the left, with the model soulfully examining a rose. The dresses are so shapeless and droopy - not at all attractive to my mind.  It's amazing that only ten years previously, women were tightly corseted into the very structured Edwardian gowns - now they appear not to be wearing any corsets at all (although I'm sure they must have been).  

Fancy Needlework lllustrated No. 64 (detail of cover)

We think of 20s fashion as a very straight slim silhouette - but I think that's more typical of the later 20s.  At the time of this magazine, dresses seem to have been quite roomy on the hips (it looks as though the models might have been wearing quite bulky petticoats).   I don't think it works - if you're going to have no bust and no waist, you have to have slim hips too.

But as well as dresses, there were jumpers, and these are more successful, I think - they often have a belt, for one thing.  Here are two from the same magazine.

The "Clovelly" Jumper in Knitting and Crochet

 

The "Wingrove" Knitted and Crocheted Jumper

The Clovelly jumper is a T-shape,  in stocking stitch with panels of filet crochet.  The Wingrove jumper also has knitted sections, in stocking stitch with a regular pattern of eyelets.  The crochet pieces are done in a sort of large-scale Irish crochet, in a design of leaves and bunches of grapes.  The drawstring waist was very common in jumpers of that time - and at least it did give you a waist.

In the same parcel was an issue of Weldon's Practical Crochet - no. 77 in the Practical Needlework series.  Our copy has several ads for knitting comforts for the troops, and so must have been printed during the First World War, but Weldon's kept these magazines in print for a long time, and I think it may have been originally published earlier than that.  (A note on the first page of the magazine says "Over 360 Numbers now ready, and always in print.")

Weldon's Practical Crochet, 15th Series, No. 77 in the Practical Needlework series.

 
   It is subtitled "How to Crochet Useful Garments and Articles for Ladies and Children."  It has patterns for babies' and children's clothes, including 'bootikins'  (which made me smile, because that's Mary Beard's translation of Caligula).  There are a couple of household items - antimacassars and coverlets - but no women's clothes except underclothes. And there are patterns for toys, including the very charming elephant on the front cover.

And a toy lamb, too - though I don't think that's as successful.  Perhaps better in reality, in white wool, than in the engraving.

Some of the clothes for babies and children seem needlessly complicated.  Here's a child's dress in tricot (Tunisian crochet?) and crochet.  Not a garment to encourage active play - more suitable to sitting quietly to read an improving book.  

 
This dress and other patterns in the magazine make me think it's much earlier than the First World War.  The Practical Needlework series started in 1888, it was published monthly, and No. 77 is part of Volume 7, so I think it might have been first published in 1895 or thereabouts.  (Which is very inconsiderate to someone like me who is trying to assign a date to a publication and might be seriously misled by the ads.)

More later on the other publications that arrived this week.