Honiton Lace Veil

In 1993 my fiancée’s mother invited me to use a lace veil – which had been used by members of her family since 1866 – as part of my wedding outfit. I had not planned to use a veil, but I realised wearing this veil linked me to my new family: I became part of the veil’s story. Below I examine the features and sub-texts of the lace veil.

Lace is “a decorative openwork fabric in which the pattern of spaces is as important as the solid areas,”[1] and has been made since at least the sixteenth century using thread. Until the development of lace making machinery in the late eighteenth century all lace was handmade. The family lace veil was created in the mid nineteenth century using handmade bobbin part lace from cotton thread appliqued to machine made net. The veil is unique: no other garment would have the part lace pieces made or appliqued in exactly the same way. The veil is 185cm by 175cm in size, the piecework is intricate, the colour has matured from white to ivory, and the veil is lightweight and soft to touch.

Photo of Family Veil

The veil has been used on at least sixteen occasions, over six generations from 1866 to 2015. The names of women who are known to have used the veil over 149 years are listed below.

List of women who are known to have worn the lace veil

Year	Gen	Name – the owner of the veil also indicated.	Direct (D)/ Marrying a Direct/ Friend
1866	1	Isabella Dixson (Owner)	D
1890	2	Isabella Hibberd	D
1893	2	Helen Hibberd  (Owner)	D
1916	3	Helen Barbour	D
1923	3	Eva Barbour	D
1926	3	Gwenyth Harry (owner)	D
1934	3	Freda Barbour	D
1952	4	Joy Crofts	D
1956	4	Ruth Crofts (Owner)	D
1979	5	Linda Taylor	Marrying
1983	5	Pamela Kinnear	Marrying
1985	5	Meryl Joyce (Owner)	D
1986?	5	Joanne Maples	Friend
1993	5	Rebecca Hilton	Marrying
2014	6	Rosemary Devereaux	D
2015	6	Amy Devereaux	D

Unfortunately this list is not conclusive. There may have been other occasions on which the veil was used, particularly by Isabella Dixson’s new sisters-in-law or others in the late nineteenth century. The veil has also travelled widely, being used in Sydney, Brisbane, Mymensingh in India, Perth and Canberra, plus being kept by Helen Harry (nee Hibberd) in New Zealand for many years.

Ownership of the veil is vested in the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter, connecting the past to the present, and also connecting the people who wear it. Thus it is unique not just in design, but also in its own story.

Family folklore is that the veil is a piece of Honiton Lace, but this would be difficult to categorically authenticate without analysis of the thread. Textile specialists can easily identify the technique used for lace making, but it is hard to determine the location or year in which lace was made. Lace makers at the Powerhouse Lace Study Centre confirmed that the technique for this lace was handmade bobbin part lace, which is a feature of Honiton Lace.[2]

Honiton Lace has been produced in East Devon in England since at least the late sixteenth century. It is probable Flemish refugees brought lace-making skills to the area, as there are similarities between Honiton Lace and other Flemish laces. By the seventeenth century lace was a major industry of East Devon. The lace is made by pieces that were either laced together or mounted onto net grounding (before lace-making machines the net grounding also was handmade). The pieces are made using bobbins: four bobbins create a simple edging, but an intricate spray of leaves requires up to 32 bobbins. Lacemaking is a complex and time-consuming process, even for people with years of experience.

The Honiton Lace trade was waning in the early nineteenth century, mainly because lace-making machines were introduced, making lace cheaper and faster to produce. The first lace-making factory in East Devon opened in 1810, and by 1822 employed 1500 people. Honiton Lace survived the introduction of machine lace because it was piecework and able to be mounted onto machine-made net: the value added to the grounding by handmade piecework was significant. Demand for Honiton Lace increased significantly from 1840 when Queen Victoria’s wedding outfit used Honiton Lace for the flounce and veil. Local materials were used with the aim of promoting English industry to the wider world. The revival in the lace industry lasted into the early twentieth century and while Honiton Lace can be purchased in the twenty-first century, it is predominantly made as a leisure activity.

Leora Auslander wrote that: “objects not only are the product of history, they are also active agents in history,”[3] and the veil has three important sub-texts besides being a lace veil valued by a family. The veil: is part of a wedding tradition; is a product made for women by women; and was imported into Australia from England.

Firstly, when Queen Victoria married in a white dress, she did more than revive the lace industry; she impacted the way weddings were conceived and conducted, and she popularised the white wedding. A white wedding had connotations regarding moral and social value of marriage, particularly for the woman, who was expected to be respectable and well behaved. There were other changes taking place during the nineteenth century. People were more likely to marry for mutual attraction and emotional bonds; marketing of the wedding ceremony started taking place – engagement rings went from an option to the norm, people gave gifts to the newlyweds – and the social aspects changed, the wedding service went from being a communal event held on Sunday, to a service held privately with the isolated family group. The clothing worn by the bride and groom also changed. Prior to the mid nineteenth century, brides and grooms wore their ‘best’ outfit. After Queen Victoria’s wedding most brides continued to wear their best dress, which was not necessarily white, but would wear a white veil. It was the veil that set the bride apart from the rest of the attendees, and so it became an important symbol. Only the wealthy could afford a white wedding, and so white weddings became an aspiration of the growing middle class. By the turn of the twentieth century, dresses also were white, and the white wedding was entrenched.

Secondly, the veil is a product made by women for women. Honiton Lace originated as a cottage industry, but quickly developed a manufacturing hierarchy, with merchants at the top, employing designers, lace makers and finishers. The wages were low – less than a farm labourer – and so lacemaking became a job for women working in their homes. In the early nineteenth century at least one merchant paid employees via tokens, which could only be used in the general stores owned by the merchant, further diminishing the value of the wage.[4] The lace was expensive, and so lace makers could not afford to wear the lace. Wealthy women exploited working class women in the name of fashion, a theme that runs through the history of the fashion industry.

Thirdly, the veil was made in England and imported to Australia in the mid nineteenth century. The veil may have been purchased in late 1865 at David Jones, a large draper's shop that would become an important department store, who were advertising wedding outfits which had been “imported ex mail steamer Strathdon and Walter Hood… [including] a beautiful collection of ... veils in Honiton.”[5] Notwithstanding the possibility of this being the place of purchase for this veil, the advertisement demonstrated how Australia followed European tradition and sought to replicate English values.

Unfortunately, the veil cannot tell its own story. It is not able to record details, so even its origins are not confirmed, although details of users can be constructed to a certain point. The fact that the veil has been kept for 150 years shows its importance to the family. There are other veils from the same period that have been retained, but this veil could never be replaced.

Endnotes

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[1] Rosemary Shepherd, Lace Classification System (Sydney: Powerhouse Museum, 2003) 2.

[2] The Powerhouse Lace Study Centre was consulted about the lace on 17 January 2015. Volunteers staff the Centre and they are not textile specialists but have an interest in the historical pieces held by the Centre. While earlier newspaper articles described it as Brussels or Limerick Lace, it is assumed that the oral tradition about the veil is correct and the veil represents Honiton Lace.

[3] Leora Auslander, “Beyond Words,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 110, No.4 (October 2005) 1015-1045. DOI: 10.1086/ahr.110.4.1015.

[4] Pamela M. Inder, Honiton Lace (Exeter: Exeter Museums Publications, 1977) 8.

[5] "Advertising." The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) 9 Dec 1865: 9. Web. 26 Sep 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13122954>.

Beaford, Devon

Ian’s family has an interesting connection to Beaford. I would almost call it ‘strong’ but no one in his direct family has lived there since Catherine and John Heard (John Heard died there on 26 August 1859, unfortunately I can’t find a record for Catherine).  However, both Catherine (nee Folland) and John Heard had family connections going back for generations. I have transcribed all of the baptisms in Beaford parish church from 1729 to 1837, and the surnames of Folland and Heard are the two most common surnames in the register. From 1729 to 1808, of the approximate 1000 baptisms, with over 250 different surnames, 52 were for infants with the surname Folland and 56 were for infants with the surname Heard. I have established a relationship to either Catherine or John’s family for almost all of these entries. I’ve put a list below for interest of the most common names in Beaford.

The family was in Beaford prior to 1729. I possess the earlier Beaford records, from 1653 to 1729, but they are much more difficult to read, and because they had already been transcribed and put onto FamilySearch, I did not “re-transcribe,” although I often refer to them. On the first page of these records is the baptism of Alice Malles in 1653, who subsequently married George Heard in Beaford in 1679, and it is from this couple that I can trace most of the other entries for the surname Heard in Beaford.

Beaford Baptism Records from 1729 to 1807 (1000 entries)

Most common names: 24 names represent just over half (507) of the entries

Heard – 56

Folland – 52

Dyment (or variations) – 42

Bright – 39

Snell – 34

Marshall – 29

Johns – 27

Webber – 22

Handford – 19

Ashplant – 18

Ashton – 18

Pincombe – 14

Mill – 13

Moore – 13

Vodden – 13

Lock – 12

Saunders – 12

Squance – 12

Cole – 11

Dunn – 11

Baker – 10

Burd – 10

Jury – 10

Spicer – 10

I must admit that the connection has always made me interested in finding out much more about Beaford itself, and so I have collected information over the years regarding the town itself. That can be the subject of another blog!

Henry Walter Hilton (1842 - 1925)

I've almost finished my story on Henry. I'm sure that there is more to find, so it's a work in progress, but I thought it was complete enough to post. 

Henry Walter Hilton was born in 1842 in Pemberton, Lancashire, England. His parents were Anne (nee Leon) and Thomas Hilton, a carpenter. Henry was the second youngest of seven known children born to the couple.  His mother died shortly after the birth of the couple’s youngest child, when she was in her early thirties: perhaps seven children in twelve years was too much. Henry’s father remarried and had a further seven children. Around 1850 the family moved three miles north of Pemberton to Shevington. The census states they were living Copperas House, and it was believed that this is now Braithwaite Street – although there is also a Copperas Close nearby. Henry followed in his father’s footsteps and became a carpenter. Sometime in the early 1870s he emigrated from England to Australia: it may have occurred at the time that his father died.

Australia was in the middle of a gold rush and many people went to inland regions. It appears that Henry may have been one of these people as on 3 May 1874 when Henry Walter was 32, he married 18 year old Frederica Warner in St John the Baptist Church, 6 Church Street, Mudgee, NSW, Australia. Frederica was born in Beechworth, Australia. Her parents were both German born, but her father had citizenship of the colonies of Australia (he was a farmer and needed to purchase land). The couple made their home at Wellington where Frederica’s parents lived. Two years later they had twins – a boy and a girl – but they died not long after birth. Henry Thomas was born in 1878, followed by Sirtees Jacob in 1882 and then Frederick Warner in 1883. By Frederick’s birth the family had moved to Sydney and were living in Holden Street, Ashfield in Sydney. Henry attended the Council meeting on 5 June 1883 to request that kerb and guttering be done in the street, and advising that he would pay for one third of the associated costs. This request was granted.

Frederica died on Thursday 23 October 1884, leaving Henry a widower with three young children. Henry didn’t rush into a second marriage, which is slightly surprising, because it can’t have been easy to manage three small boys. It is possible that the children went to their mother’s parents for some time, but Henry did not have family support in Sydney. On 6 October 1890, six years after the death of his wife, Henry married Sarah Ann Martin, a widow, at the Registrar General’s Office in Sydney. Nothing more is known of Sarah, except that she was born in England, and her maiden name was Chalies. I suspect that Chalies wasn’t even the correct spelling of her name. At some point the marriage ended, but it is not known when or what the circumstances were.

At some point the family moved to Oxford Street, Mortdale and it was here on 7 August 1897 that Henry’s 15 year old son, Sirtees Jacob died.  Sirtees’ death certificate lists the cause of death as congenital heart disease and syncope.

In time, both of Henry’s sons moved away: Henry Thomas moved back to Wellington, where he lived with his uncle, Jacob Warner, Frederica’s brother; and Frederick Warner, became a builder, also moving to the Wellington district before returning to Sydney. Frederick married and had three sons, although ironically Frederick’s wife also died at a young age.

When Henry was 73 he married for a third time, at St Clements Church, Marrickville, Sydney to Jane Toovey (nee Tapp). They were together for the rest of Henry’s life.

Henry Walter Hilton died in 11 Rosser St, Balmain, Sydney, NSW, Australia, on 28 Jan 1925; he was 83. He was buried on 29 Jan 1925 in Woronora Cemetry, Sydney, NSW, Australia.