Re: [lace] Fwd: Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago - Lace Tells Reference (Long Post)
Dear Jeri and all For a moment I thought you were referring to a book I have in my collection then realised my error. My A5 size green cloth bound book is entitled ‘Olney and the Lace-Makers’ published in 1864 by William Macintosh, London. It doesn’t mention an author but a receipt attached to the book names a Mrs Vernon. I quote from the book: Upon inquiry, a friend residing at Olney has supplied me with the following particulars respecting the songs of “the lacemakers.” “The children learn to make lace, not so much at home with their mothers, as at lace schools kept by dames. When the lace trade was better, most boys used to learn as well as the girls; and even men used to make lace, as they could earn more at ‘the pillow’ than at agricultural labour. I have seen old men who made good wages at the beginning of this century.” “The ‘Songs of the Lace-Makers’ were of the same class as the Nursery rhymes, and were sung by the children while at work. The proficiency of the children was estimated by the number of pins they could stick in an hour. They were set so many score of pins, and counted as they went on. The singing, or rather chanting, assisted them in the counting, and also kept them together in their work. I am told that we cannot imagine either the effect of thirty or forty children’s voices uniting in this ‘sing-song’, nor yet the aid it was to them. “These ‘Lace Tellings,’ as they were called, were repeated over and over, the number at the beginning lessening as the task appointed neared its conclusion, as - ‘Nineteen miles have I got to go.’ ‘Eighteen miles have I got to go.’ ‘Seventeen miles have I got to go’. “It is only the very old people who remember anything about these ‘Lace Tellings’, as they have not been used in the schools about Olney for many years. Latterly they have sung hymns, or some of the current songs of the day. “From the specimens we have been able to collect from the memories of the old Lace-Maker in the *portrait, and one of her friends, few will be disposed to regret that the old ‘Tellings’ have become obsolete. These that follow are evidently the ‘Songs of the Lace-Makers’ mentioned in the Northamptonshire Glossary, as assisting ‘the young workers;’ and are thrown aside with other childish things on leaving the Lace school”. *in the book is a lovely illustration of an elderly lacemakers and young girl working at their pillows. I have left out the Tellings in the interest of space. If anyone would like them please contact me privately. Diana in Northamptonshire. - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
RE: [lace] Fwd: Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago - Lace Tells Reference (Long Post)
Hi Devon, Jeri and fellow Arachnids, Thank you Devon and Jeri for your very interesting (long) email on this book and on lace tells. Joepie From: Devon Thein<mailto:devonth...@gmail.com> Sent: 03 November 2017 16:19 To: lace@arachne.com<mailto:lace@arachne.com> Subject: [lace] Fwd: Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago - Lace Tells Reference (Long Post) >From Jeri -- From: jeria...@aol.com To: www.l...@arachne.com<http://www.l...@arachne.com> Sent: 11/3/2017 10:50:14 AM Eastern Standard Time Subject: Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago - Lace Tells Reference (Long Post) Subject is the sub-title of a book published in 1890 by Seeley and Co., Limited, Essex Street Strand. Main title is "On the Banks of the Ouse", written by Emma Marshall. This is a little-known work of fiction about life in 1790 (Jane Austen era 1775-1817) that some might like to read not only for the reference to Lace Tells but also for other lace-related descriptions of that time, and by my sharing, this will be in our Arachne archives. <... ..> Submitted by Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
[lace] Fwd: Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago - Lace Tells Reference (Long Post)
>From Jeri -- From: jeria...@aol.com To: www.l...@arachne.com Sent: 11/3/2017 10:50:14 AM Eastern Standard Time Subject: Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago - Lace Tells Reference (Long Post) Subject is the sub-title of a book published in 1890 by Seeley and Co., Limited, Essex Street Strand. Main title is "On the Banks of the Ouse", written by Emma Marshall. This is a little-known work of fiction about life in 1790 (Jane Austen era 1775-1817) that some might like to read not only for the reference to Lace Tells but also for other lace-related descriptions of that time, and by my sharing, this will be in our Arachne archives. Being fiction, it is not scanned to the Arizona site. One of you will probably find an address to share where anyone interested can read a scanned copy of the book without spending what I did for the original. Comment, please, so gmail users will know about this posting and read in our archive. Quote starting on page 56: Drusilla Allen's cottage was, as she had told Cuthbert, not far from the Round House or town prison, and between it and the house occupied for so may years by the poet Cowper. Drusilla's cottage had a large room, with oak rafters, which served for the living-room of the family. The door was generally open, and the women who sat at the lace-pillows were near it, for light was precious, and the small lattice-windows did not admit much of either sun or air. By the wide hearth a sickly, elderly woman lay propped up with pillows, scarcely able to move hand or foot, crippled with rheumatism and wholly dependent on the exertions of her daughter, Drusilla. There was the child, too, of a widowed sister to support -- a fair-haired, blue-eyed little maiden, whose bright presence Drusilla could ill have spared. Her sister was supposed to take her part in keeping the house tidy, wait on her mother, and perform all the little offices in the household which Drusilla's work prevented her from sharing. Early and late the lace-makers were at their pillows. Olney was then a lace-making town. We are told that there were lace schools, where twenty or thirty children were taught by "old hands", whose monotonous singing of songs, called "lace tellings", might be heard at any hour of the day, as travellers passed the cottages, whose doors, like Drusilla's, were mostly open. On this bright summer morning Drusilla was seated at her pillow, with three workers round her. One of these, a young girl, was employed to turn the bobbin wheel and fill the bobbins with thread. The others were wholly engrossed with their pillows, supported partly on their knees, and partly by a pillow-horse, a kind of wooden stool with three legs. There was no lace-maker in Olney more expert than Drusilla, and there was always a rivalry amongst the young women to be employed by her. The lace-workers, too, prided themselves on the smartness of their pillows; the rows of pins had bright-coloured heads, made of beads, and the bobbins were gaily spangled; sometimes carved with the initials of the possessor; often glittering with coins and beads. These bobbins were very highly prized, and sometimes descended in one family as an heirloom. Submitted by Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
