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‘I Was Always Fond of my Pillow’: The Handmade Lace Industry in the United Kingdom, 1870–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Joanna Bourke
Joanna Bourke
Affiliation:
Department of History, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK.
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Extract

The extent of the handmade lace industry in the nineteenth century is difficult to estimate. Most lacemakers were not given an occupation in the census. For instance, Belleek (in county Fermanagh) was one of the centres of handmade lace in Ireland. Of the fifty-one women active in the Belleek lace and sprigging class in January 1911, fifty-six per cent were given no occupation in the 1911 census manuscripts and four per cent were given occupations other than lacemaker. In Ireland, it is clear that the census statistics do not include the tens of thousands of women making lace for the home industries societies examined in this article. The statistics for lacemaking in England, Wales and Scotland (given in table one) are confused by the fact that no distinction is made between hand and machine-made lace.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , October 1994 , pp. 155 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

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79. Letter dated 21 May 1908, P.R.O.N.I. D2149/7. Sentence construction as in original.

80. Belleek Needlework industry (county Fermanagh), wage books, P.R.O.N.I. D2149/3/10 and D2149/3/3.

81. Royal Commission on Congestion for Ireland. Appendix to the Eighth Report. Minutes of Evidence (Taken in Kerry and Cork, 3rd to 19th July, 1907), and Documents Relating Thereto, p. 189 [Cd.3839], H. C. 1908, xli, p. 635, evidence by Captain Richard W. Cooper.

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88. Mies, Maria, The Lace Makers of Narsapur (London, 1982), pp. 33ffGoogle Scholar draws the same conclusion when discussing the introduction of the lace industry in India.

89. D.A.T.I. for Ireland. Twelfth Annual General Report of the Department, for 1911–1912, pp. 123–4 [Cd.6647], H. C. 1912–13, xii, pp. 653–4, report by Mr. McGann, inspector in west-central districts.

90. D.A.T.I. for Ireland. Fourth Annual General Report of the Department, for 1903–1904, pp. 6–7 [Cd.2509], H. C. 1905, xxi, pp. 272–3.

91. The St. Macartan's Co-Operative Lace Industry was one of the few remunerative lace classes, with 200 workers. ‘Dromore’, IH, 30 July 1904, p. 632 and ‘Co-Operation and the Improvement of the Home’, IH, 22 October 1904, p. 892.

92. Plunkett, , Problem of Congestion, p. 41.Google Scholar

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95. Appendix to the Sixty-Sixth Report of the Commissioners of National Education, for the Year 1899–1900. Section 1. General Reports on the State of National Education in 1899 by Inspectors and Others, pp. 58–9 [Cd.286], H. C. 1900, xxiii, pp. 312–13, report on the Limerick District by G. Bateman.

96. D.A.T.I. for Ireland. Seventh Annual General Report of the Department, for 1906–1907, p. 72 [Cd.4148], H. C. 1908, xiv, p. 669; ‘D.A.T.I. for Ireland, Council of Agriculture, Eleventh Meeting, Friday, 17 May 1907, Report of Proceedings’, pp. 80–85; ‘Minutes of Meeting of the Technical Instruction Committee, Thursday 19 April 1906’, p. 167, Cork Archives Minute Book U189; ‘Home Industries’, IH, 17th June 1905, p. 470; and Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland. First Appendix to the Seventh Report. Minutes of Evidence (Taken in Ireland, 16th May to 11th June, 1907), and Documents Relating Thereto, pp. 122–3 [Cd.3785], H. C. 1908, xl, p. 210–13, evidence by Rev. Philip O’Doherty, parish priest of Cumber-Claudy (counties Londonderry and Tyrone).

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