Wednesday, June 7, 2023

The History of Bedfordshire Lace Blog Part 1: The Arrival of Lacemaking in Bedfordshire

The story that Queen Catherine of Aragon encouraged lace making in Bedfordshire first appeared in print in Mrs Palliser’s History of Lace (1865). Mrs Palliser, writing of traditions handed down in the county villages said that a ‘good queen who protected their craft, the annual festival of workers combined with Queen Catherine’s imprisonment at Ampthill and the teaching of lacemaking to the peasantry for subsistence’. The folk tradition cannot be ruled out, but it seems unlikely it refers to pillow lace-making, as this style of lace only really began in Europe in the latter half of the 16th Century. It is also possible the ‘good queen’ referred to was a later queen, possibly Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV, who did make a point of wearing English lace.

Map from https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/lace-making/

It seems most likely that lace came across the sea with people settling in Britain from Europe, particularly refugees forced to flee their homelands due to unrest or conflict. Between 1563 and 1568 many lace-makers arrived from the continent, seeking refuge from religious persecution in the Netherlands and France. Thomas Wright attributes the uptake of lacemaking in Bedfordshire to Flemish immigrants from Mechlin settling at Bourne End in Cranfield in 1568.

The Huguenot by Sir John Millais painted c.1852 depicts the St. Bartholomew Massacre of 24 August 1572 ordered by King Charles IX of France. Over 100,000 Protestants were killed and many fled to England as refugees. When the clock of the Palais de Justice shall sound upon the great bell, at day-break, (on St Bartholomew's day) then each good Catholic must bind a strip of white linen round his arm, and place a fair white cross in his cap.

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The Huguenot by Sir John Millais © The Higgins Bedford, P.260

Here, a young Catholic woman is entreating her Protestant lover to wear the white linen sash, but he is gently resisting and refusing to deny his faith to save his skin. At his feet nasturtiums grow, a token of sorrow, while ivy, the emblem of constancy, clings to the wall behind the lovers.

BMLMany of the lacemakers who escaped were from Lille and found their way to Bucks and Northants where they joined the Mechlin workers from Flanders. We can now find a combination of the two laces of Mechlin and Lille designs and net grounds across those  three counties.

 

 

 Late 18th Century border lace in Lille style Buckinghamshire Point-ground lace with Pineapple motif, Lester Lace, ©The Higgins Bedford BML.162

 

The Lille Buckinghamshire Point-ground style above is typical of the type of lace made across the Three Counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire for much of the 17th to 19th Centuries.

17th century lace buyers are recorded at Cranfield, Kempston, Harrold, Marston Moretaine, Stevington and Turvey. The structure of the lace-making industry made the lacemakers reliant on dealers who employed the makers, keeping 2 to 300 at work at any one time. The dealers supplied the threads, but also the patterns in most cases. Most of the dealers travelled to London once a week to sell their lace to retailers and buy supplies. Weekly turnover of dealers in 17th century ranged from £20 to £50.

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Mrs Eliza Evans, Born 1862, lacemaker, Cardington/ Marston © The Higgins Bedford BEDFM 127

Conditions were not easy, with limited light in the cottages provided by a single candle and flash bulb with water inside to reflect the light from the flame. Men, women and children (boys and girls) in rural villages in Bedfordshire would make lace in throughout the year, but particularly in the quiet winter period to help bring in additional money and put food on the table.

Mary and William Linger, Spring Lane, Stagsden © Bedfordshire Archives ref: Z50-142-86

Lace Schools were set up to teach children how to make lace and give a basic education, although often not a great deal of reading and writing went on and this was left to the Sunday Schools to teach.

As early as 1596 Eaton Socon parish records document that Goodwife Clarke paid 2d a week for teaching lace to each child and children received what they earned. Children were also taught in the work houses. Jane Harris, an inmate, was paid 1s a week for teaching children at Eaton Socon in 1719.

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Lace School at Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, August 1914, BEDFM 2000.341

Thomas Batchelor’s book from 1808 tells us that ‘Children are taught to make lace at about six or seven years old; and they occupy so much of their attention of their school mistress , that the expense of teaching them amounts to 3s per week, for a month or six weeks, according to their capacity. After they have learned the rudiments of their art their ordinary schooling is 6d a week. By age of 10 earnings were around a third of an adults which ranged from 5 to 9s.’

Schools rapidly increased in the early part of the 19th Century, Marston Moretaine (population in 1801 of 792 residents) had 9 schools in 1819 where 80 to 90 girls and boys made lace. The youngest worked 4 or 5 hours a day, older children 6 to 8 hours and young women 12 or 15 hours (numbers from The Commission on the employment of children). Numbers in the schools ranged between twelve and twenty-five for most schools.

  

 The History of Bedfordshire lacemaking Part 2: The Lester Lace story

Thomazin Lester, who was born in Cambridgshire in 1791, was one of seven lace dealers listed in Bedford in 1831 (Pigots directory) and had been building up his business for some years. The first we find of him in Bedford records is when he marries Elizabeth Fox at St. Pauls Church in 1818. Elizabeth was born in St. Cuthbert’s parish in 1796 and it is possible that she may have been a lacemaker. In 1817 there are records of Elizabeth having been ‘received into full communion of the Bunyan Meeting’, and a year after their marriage Thomazin joined his wife in this connection with the church. Later in 1836 he became a deacon at Bunyan Meeting Church, Mill Street.

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Thomazin Lester, © The Higgins Bedford, CHAG.PN475.3

Elizabeth and Thomas had two daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth and 2 sons, Charles and Thomas. Two other daughters sadly died from illness. Thomas was joined in his business by his sons Charles Fox – the eldest who mainly focussed on the Berlin Wool side of the business and Thomas James (1834 – 1909) who joined the firm at the age of 28. Thomas Lester Lace refers to the family firm rather than the individual.

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Charles Fox Lester, © The Higgins Bedford, CHAG.PN475.4

Charles Fox Lester was the eldest brother and partner, who started working for the firm in the 1950s. Charles was in charge of the Berlin Wool side of the business.

The 1830 petition of lace manufacturers listed 150,000 lacemakers in the three counties, the 1851 census shows a dramatic decline with 26,670. This was caused by the impact of competition from Nottingham machine-made lace in the 1840s. It imitated hand crafted designs and sold at lower prices than the hand-made lace. Many lacemakers left the industry for the straw plait industry which was paying around 5 to 6s in 1837, compared to lace which was only 3s a week.

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Thomas James Lester, © The Higgins Bedford, CHAG.PN475.2

Thomas James Lester (1834 – 1909) was the youngest son of Thomazin Lester and started working for the firm from 1862.  The success for the lace competitions at the Chicago Exhibition of 1862 and Paris exhibition of 1867 may be the result of his son’s input into the business.

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C. & T. Lester, Lace Manufacturers, 115 High Street, Bedford, From 1877, © The Higgins Bedford CHAGPN475.5

The Peters rate books show us that Thomazin lived in Harpur Street in the early 1930s. By 1839 he was living in Tavistock Street, owned land in Offa Street and houses in Dame Alice Street and the High Street. In 1840 he moved to 99 The High Street (currently the location of the Oxfam charity shop) and ran his business from here.

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Sample book connected with Thomazin Lester, © The Higgins Bedford BML.1

This sample book was originally an account book of the surveyors of the highways at Olney from 1783 – 90 and has been re-used by Thomazin Lester as an album for small samples of lace mounted on dark blue, blue or grey card and pinned to the written pages. All samples are the earlier Buckinghamshire point-ground lace; most are worked with Lille style ground, ranging from around 1800 – 1850. It is possible Lester acquired it from an Olney merchant.

At the Great Exhibition, held at Crystal Palace in 1851 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Thomas Lester was awarded a prize medal at the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations for ‘Specimens of Bedfordshire pillow lace, being an improved arrangement of an infants lace dress; improvd lace fall piece to avoid joining at corners; lace fall complete; length of wide white lace for falls; length of white and black trimming lace; length of flouncing lace.’ His main production of lace ranged from narrow borders to wider laces and the award was given for his wide white and black laces.

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Maltese Lace Mat made from cream silk in three pieces, late 19th/ early 20th Century, Lester Lace Collection, BML.400 © The Higgins Bedford

The above example of Maltese Lace in cream silk is similar to that seen on display at the Great Exhibition in 1851by Thomas James Lester. It inspired him to create his own new style of Bedfordshire Maltese Pillow Lace. His new type of lace was worked in cotton or linen thread rather than silk as his workers were used to this thread and the lace was easier to work more finely with the tension of the less slippery materials.

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Thomas Lester Business Advertising card, © The Higgins Bedford BEDFM 2000.730

Thomazin Lester died in 1867 and his death is recorded in the minute book of Bunyan Meeting Church: ‘Mr Lester one of the Deacons died in faith on 29 December 1867. He was chosen to diaconate in June 1836 and had faithfully served the church till the end of life … He was a man of deeply prayerful spirit and had almost Christ-like love for little children …Just before retiring he sat reading the Pilgrims Progress … before daybreak he passed himself through the gates.’

 

Thomas James Lester, following the pressure from the machine-made lace being produced in Nottingham from the 1840s onwards, started to design and commission his lacemakers to produce the new style of Bedfordshire Maltese Pillow lace from the 1850s and this helped to preserve some of the handcrafted trade for a few further decades.

Bedfordshire Maltese Lace was an ingenious innovation on Lester’s part as this type of openwork lace could not be created by the net-based machine-made lace that mimicked the Buckinghamshire point-ground work. He was ever the entrepreneur and systematically introduced this new style into popular designs, particularly for the upper to middle classes of society. This innovation probably extended the survival of the handmade lace industry in Bedfordshire by around 30 years before it inevitably declined as the machines began to be able to make this type of lace.

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Eagle design Bedfordshire Maltese Pillow Lace Cuffs, Lester Lace, ©The Higgins Bedford BML.126

This lace cuff with pair of Eagles is the motif for Bedford Borough Crest, it has a matching collar designed to be worn together.

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Stag table centre in Bedfordshire Maltese Pillow Lace © The Higgins Bedford BML.20

This table centre piece of a Stag in woodland made in Bedfordshire Maltese Pillow Lace from the Thomas Lester collection may well have been inspired by artists such as Edwin Landseer, known for his painting of animals, especially horses, but also stags – including famous and popular works at the time ‘the Stag at Bay’ and ‘Monarch of the Glen’.

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Bedfordshire Maltese Pillow Lace, scalloped design edging, Lester Lace design (with pattern above) BML.4 and 4a ©The Higgins Bedford

The success for the lace competitions at the Chicago Exhibition of 1862 and 1893, as well as Paris exhibition of 1867 is likely the result of Thomas James Lester’s input into the business in later years.

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Bedfordshire Maltese Lace collar, a competition winning piece, exhibited in the Chicago exhibition 1893, BML.339 ©The Higgins Bedford

In 1891 the total number of lacemakers had dwindled in the three counties to just 3,376. The Lace Association was set up this year and an exhibition was held at Northampton to try to reawaken interest and increase sales in lace. From this the Midland Lace Association was formed as a permanent organisation for collecting and selling lace for lacemakers at a better price than they could get from the dealers. In 1897 the North Buckinghamshire Association was formed. It later became Buckinghamshire Association, but included Bedfordshire.

By 1898 Thomas Lester had left Holly Lodge at 43 The Grove (designed for him by architect John Usher in 1869). He went to live at Kimbrook House, Stonely, Kimbolton where he died on 22 November 1909, age 75. Thomas Lester had retired from the business in 1903 when Miss Elizabeth Driver joined him as Lester and Driver until 1913 when it was taken over by Miss Haines who mainly sold materials and equipment for needlework and knitting.

Ostrich design cap, Lester Lace, © The Higgins Bedford BML.42

 

The Beds Times reported on Thomas Lester’s death:

‘He took a keen interest in the manufacture of real lace and by constantly producing new designs did more than anyone else had done or could do to keep the industry alive. In earlier years he was very successful in gaining medals and certificates of merit at all the principal exhibitions both at home and abroad, for beauty of design and excellence of manufacture.’

In 1947 Amy Lester bequeathed a collection of her grandfather’s lace to Bedford Borough council. It was displayed in 1949 as part of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Collection and today forms the Lester Lace collection at The Higgins Bedford.