How Safe is your Safe? Security Scandals of the Victorian Era

Alison Lloyd's newsletter #54

Let me drag you down cobblestone alleys in the midnight hours, into the devious Victorian world of burglary and break ins. We’re not talking Oliver Twist pick-pocketing here. No. This newsletter looks at the history of state-of-the-art security. And heist hi-jinks worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

I’m currently writing a historical novel set mostly in a jewellery shop. Biographies of pre-twentieth century jewellers are hard to find, so I turned to newspapers in my research. Jewellers advertised in nineteenth century newspapers like everyone else. But they appear occasionally in the news columns too. Here’s one story local to me:

A case of shop-breaking of a daring character is reported to have occurred at South Richmond early this morning. About a quarter to five o'clock Mr W. Wookey, who keeps a jewellery and tobacconist establishment at 338 Church Street, was awakened by hearing a loud crash. He was in bed at the time, and at once ran down to the front of his shop… The wooden shutters had been broken away by a jemmy, and [the plate-glass] had evidently taken a heavy blow to break. There was not the slightest trace of anyone about, but… jewellery of a very miscellaneous description, including a gold and several silver watches, and a number of Alberts, with brooches, bangles, etc., to the value of about £30, had been removed. Several watch chains were strewn over the footpath, and from the general appearance of the place it seemed that the robbers must have made very hasty disappearance…
The Herald, Melbourne, 23 September 1889

That was a pretty crude smash-and-grab. It has faded into obscurity, unlike the great train robbery of 1855. In that year £12,000 worth of gold bars were lifted from inside their safes, while travelling between London and Paris. The 1855 robbery was made into a movie starring Sean Connery in 1978. You can probably find it online somewhere to watch, so I won’t spoil the story for you.

Evidently Mr Wookey, and my fictional jeweller, needed better security. So what was available in the Victorian era? I discovered that the nineteenth century was the heyday of security inventions. They were very busy, the Victorians.

A Quick Pre-Industrial Recap

Once upon a time, from the Iron Age onwards, households rich enough to own valuables kept them in hefty chests like this:

Medieval coffer, early 16th century, Flanders. Victoria & Albert collection

As the European banking system developed, so too did the security measures used in the Western world. This is a locksmith’s model from eighteenth century France, used to demonstrate their strong room technology to potential customers.

Master’s lock, for sale at M.S. Rau Antiques

But private individuals, and smaller businesses, needed a more compact way of securing their goods. So the hefty chests turned into even more solid safes. This hobnail safe is designed so it can’t be drilled or blasted open. It looks tough as old boots. Yet it also has a stylish air of mysterious impenetrability. It would look great in a heist movie.

19th century wrought iron safe. Sold by Robin Kowalski.

Brute strength won’t break it. But know-how will.

The Great Safe Stand-Off

The Great Exhibition of 1851, held in the Crystal Palace, London, showcased the best in industrial design. The company founded by Joseph Bramah, (inventor of flush toilets and the fire hose), exhibited his ‘safety lock’, which had been unvanquished for 70 years. Chubb and Sons brought their innovative ‘detector lock’. This lock jammed up when tampered with. An advertisement printed beside the original instalments of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House read:

My name is Chubb, that makes the Patent Locks; Look on my works, ye burglars, and despair.

Love it — could have been written by Dickens himself.

But a brash Bostonian, Alfred C. Hobbs, sailed across the Atlantic to the Exhibition. He challenged Chubb and Bramah to watch him publicly pick their locks. The Chubb lock took him about 25 minutes the first time, and seven minutes on round two. The Bramah lock was tougher. That one took Hobbs 52 hours over a fortnight, using his own tools. But he did it, and caused a furore. Not even the most prestigious, well-defended establishments felt safe anymore. From a philosophical angle, what this security arms race suggests to me is that technology can’t fix problems that originate in the human heart (theft, in this case). Technology just ups the stakes and the expense.

Another contemporary newspaper story describes the lengths a mid-Victorian London jeweller went to:

First of all each tray of goods was placed upon a little steel tramway which ran under the counter and slid the cases into the strong room, a dial in the wall registering the number that passed in or out. At 7pm, an alarum rang and the door of the strong-room shut by itself…opening the door again at 9 every morning, except Sundays, Good Fridays and the usual other holidays…
The works of the clock had a calendar barrel which arranged all these dates for a year, and was altered every 1st of January by the inventor of the apparatus, named Schwarz. The room itself was built of cast-iron brick; it had no windows… The clock which opened and shut the door was not visible, and how it was got at to wind or alter it was only known to the inventor and the head of the firm. It kept absolute time, and they said it could never stop without warning…
Now you wouldn’t think, continued my informant, that the boldest burglars in the profession would waste two thoughts on such an impossible task as breaking in there…
The Mercury, Hobart, 3 January 1885

But did they? I’ll reveal all in due course…

Picking a Safe for my Story (that’s Picking as in Choosing)

First I’ll show you the safe I chose for my story. Obviously the strong room above belonged to a major establishment with high-tech precautions. My jeweller is a single artisan with a more modest shop, so I wanted a more modest safe.

Not a pretty parlour safe like this:

Lovely Victorian burr walnut cabinet with safe. For sale at Antiques Atlas.

But a combination safe. Alarmed by the Great Exhibition controversy, a young American locksmith named Linus Yale had a go at picking his own company’s locks. Too easy. He decided that keys were a liability, and instead turned his attention to improving combination (or dial) locks. I haven’t found a decent picture of a smallish nineteenth century Yale safe. This could be because safes were liable to get melted down for their metal during various wars. I decided on this one:

Cast iron Belgian safe c1850. Sold at First Dibs

It’s got a touch of classical elegance, which I think suits the artistic side of my character.

Back to the clockwork-protected strong room. Was it breached? Yes. This is how:

On December 31 (a Friday), the firm received a letter (forged) from a well-known customer, begging them to take charge of a safe containing some jewellery and a quantity of papers… In the evening, a little before closing time, the safe arrived in a van. It was duly deposited in a corner of the strong room…
On Saturday morning Mr Caret and Schwarz went into the strong-room to alter the calendar barrel of the clock, according to annual custom. They did not suspect that the old woman in the box was eagerly peeping from her concealment to see how the clock was opened…
A little before one on Sunday morning, she outs with her tools and breaks open the hidden clock machinery. None of her skeleton keys would tackle it, but a crowbar managed the job. She then found the connections with three bar-bolts which shot across the door. She unscrewed these and removed the bars just as her husband tapped at the door with his knuckles. She opened the door, doubtless with a feeling of triumph, but…like a clap of thunder, a second heavy door of solid iron, an armour plate 4 inches thick descended…
On Monday morning…what was our horror at seeing the legs of a man protruding from under the door of the safe, on which appeared for the first time in large letters the words
STOP THIEF!

The second door was apparently an extra, secret precaution put in by Schwarz, unbeknown even to the head of the firm.

However — there is a big ‘but’. I suspect the whole story is a heist, perpetrated on the trust of the reader. It’s supposed to have taken place at a famous jewellers’. But their name is a giveaway: Messrs Aytine & Caret. Looks French and fancy until you say it aloud… It might be a pseudonym to protect the establishment’s privacy. Most likely they’re as historical as the great Sherlock himself.

That’s all for this month. For me, I’m back to figuring out the combinations on my own fictional treasure trove.

I’ve been researching Victorian jewellery too. If you want to see a diamond-encrusted newsletter about nineteenth century gems, vote here:

You can also reply to this email, or leave a comment. I enjoy hearing back from you.

Wishing you a *safe* and happy summer. Or winter, if you’re down my end of the world.

Warning: Museum magic inside. Beware time warps.

Alison Lloyd's newsletter #53

Do you like museums? If you don’t, let me lure you in.

I didn’t like them much when I was a kid. They always seemed gloomy and echoing. Everything was behind glass, dead and untouchable. My memories of most of the museums we saw in Europe are as dim as their lighting. If that’s how you feel about museums too, maybe this email can help you see differently.

The museum that changed my mind was the Historiska Museet in Stockholm. On the top floor, the garret had been made into a reconstruction of a poor family’s nineteenth century home. I remember being struck by how cramped, and shabby it seemed. So little light came through the garret windows. Thirteen-year-old me was moved. This was what the Industrial Revolution looked like up close and personal. This wasn’t a comfy life. I suddenly realised how materially rich and brightly coloured my life was. The museum was a powerful experience.

(No pics of it sorry. Thirteen-year-old me was many, many installations ago.)

The World’s First Museum

Last week I went to a talk by museum curator, which got me thinking about the history of museums, and what they are for. Did you know the world’s oldest museum was curated by a woman? Babylonian princess Ennigaldi-Nanna was the daughter of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire. (He gets a mention in the Bible book of Daniel.) Between 530-500BC, the princess collected ancient artefacts, labelled and catalogued them. They were rediscovered in an archaeological dig in Iraq in 1925. Ennigaldi-Nanna was high priestess of the moon god Nana. Her interest in antiquities was most likely part of her father’s efforts to revive Babylonian religious traditions.

Left: an 8th century BC Nimrud ivory carving of the goddess Ishtar, from the National Museum of Iraq. While not Ennigaldi-Nanna, it gives you an idea of what she may have looked like. Right: A 2006 photo of the ruins where the museum was unearthed.

The Oldest Existing Museum

The oldest museum still existing is the Capitoline Museum in Rome. In 1471 Pope Sixtus IV donated a collection of ancient bronzes to the people of Rome, and in 1734 Clement XII opened it to the public.

Stunningly grand. Overwhelming, even. The building was designed by no less an artist than Michelangelo. This kind of museum, I suspect, is designed to make you think ‘Rome is great!’ The awe factor is dialled up to max.

Curating A Different Kind of Museum

My favourite museum experiences are more relatable, like the room in the Historiska Museet. I discovered last week that installation was a mini example of a ‘house museum’. Professional curator Suzanne Barry, who works for the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (Australia), manages the conservation of rooms and objects.

Curator Suzanne and the Trust usually pick a period for which they have evidence, then make the room as true to that time as they can. Not just true to the period generally, but true to that house in that period. They talk to descendants, take paint scrapings off walls and furniture, read old books on household management, and comb through documentary evidence like letters, receipts and accounts. (Of which the Victorians produced copious amounts, because without texts, emails and phone calls, all long-distance discussions went on paper.)

Here's one result of her efforts: on the left is an 1869 sketch of the hallway in Vaucluse House, in Sydney. The sketch was done by Rebecca Martens, daughter of the painter Conrad Martens and friend of the family. On the right is the restored hallway. Some of the furniture and fittings are original – like the candlestick and the busts.

Left: Vaucluse 1869, by Rebecca Martens, Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales. Right: Current hallway at Vaucluse © State of New South Wales through Museums of History NSW

The current room is a convincing likeness, and it tells a story. The chair is there for callers to wait in, because the owner of the house, William Wentworth, was a prominent man in his Sydney society. Funny how there’s a distinct echo of the Capitoline look — no doubt Wentworth was out to impress. (Or there’s something about black and white tiles that goes well with pomp and statuary.) But the hallway doesn’t lead to an outside door, because the family was hit by an economic downturn, and they never quite finished the house the way they meant to.

(You can read about the Wentworths in my Valentine newsletter, Love and Pie Crusts.)

Musing on Museums

Beyond preservation, Suzanne Bravery says a curator ‘facilitates public access to the past’. An unusual job description, when you think about it! While the language is proper and governmental, the idea is like magic and time machines. It makes me think of Claire in Outlander, walking through the portal of the mysterious standing stones into a previous century…

A scene from the TV series of Outlander. If you haven’t read the bestselling novel, it’s romantic and funny (although I found the end creepy and not very credible).

The Historiska Museet says ‘the knowledge of history provides keys to other worlds. We tell stories about dramatic life events, power struggles, love, celebrations and everyday life.’¹

I think this connection to another world is what gets me in a well-curated museum. Like reading a good book, we’re immersed. We feel like we’ve stepped into someone else’s life. It’s a bittersweet feeling — you can see/hear/touch their stuff, but you can’t see/hear/touch them. The people and their time are gone. House museums tantalise your imagination, awake nostalgia… and almost satisfy it. But not quite. There’s a kind of sadness in knowing that time’s been and gone.

All the same, these museums make me feel richer. They let us see the world, and sometimes our own lives, from the different, bigger perspective of the past. Even if they smell musty and you can’t sit down on the chairs, I still love them.

If this email has whet your appetite, here’s a global ‘Top 100’ of house museums: https://www.ft.com/content/691e4d2e-d77a-404e-bee3-0fc080ef9ddb it lists famous homes from Gandhi’s (#77) to Louis Armstrong’s (#16).

That FT list is Europe- and US-centric so here’s a comprehensive list of historic Australian homes. To which I’d add the gorgeous Johnston Collection — it keeps its address secret (!) but its in East Melbourne and you can book a visit. It’s where I went for the curator’s talk.

The entrance to Fairhall, a historic home which houses the Johnston Collection

Thank you for your visit today, ladies and gentlemen! I hope you enjoyed the tour. 😉

Do you have a favourite museum experience? As always, I love to get your responses. Thank you, by the way, to the people who told me they listen to the audio - it’s back again this month, for you!

1. Credit to Google Translate. The website is in Swedish.

Open up for Easter reading Goodies

Author Alison Lloyd's Scroll newsletter #52

Just before you slip away on holidays, here’s an Easter story for you. From me, historical fiction fresh out of the oven, to go with your hot cross buns.

If you’re not into hot cross buns, that’s ok, because the story is not sweet and fluffy. I love realistic historical dramatizations. This is my take on how the first Easter was a moment of truth for Simon Peter, likeable and impetuous follower of Jesus. (No graphic violence I promise.)

Sorry there’s no audio newsletter this month — I have a cold 😞. If you miss the audio let me know, because I’m not sure how many people actually listen.

Your comments and likes are very encouraging — I notice them all. I enjoyed the replies to last month’s post about lace. Especially the reader who told me about her love for lace saris. I didn’t know they existed!

Here’s the story:

Peter and Jesus in ‘The Chosen’ TV series. I looked for a classic painting, but the old masters all portray Peter as an old man, which he wasn’t in the gospels. This image is more accurate, and who doesn’t like a good hug?

Smoke in My Eyes

A short story based on the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 14

When your words come back to bite you, it hurts.

I told him I’d never leave. I meant it completely. I’d never had a friend like him. The kind of man who could make you believe in something bigger than yourself. A guy you’d follow into battle. The sort you’d die for.

He filled our ears with hope and possibilities. But don’t get me wrong — he was a rocky ride. If you talked big, said something stupid or selfish, even something sincere, he hardly opened his mouth but you knew you got it wrong. Where do you go to find someone who always tells the truth? There’s nowhere else. I knew that.

Supper that night felt like there was a storm brewing — the weather about to change, far off flickers of lightning, the hairs on your arms rising. If I’d been out fishing I’d row to shore like my backside was about to be whipped.

We all knew something was up, him most of all. The way he broke the bread, poured out the wine, it was solemn as a temple sacrifice. But the thing about him, always, is this rock-bottom peace. He’s always certain that there’s a Big Plan, like a secret the universe has been waiting to drop, and he wants you to see how good it is. So he has time for people whatever’s going down.

Yes, I know I’m talking about him in the present tense. So would you, if you’d seen what I’ve seen.

After the meal we went out into the night, up the Mount of Olives. Staying indoors seemed a better idea to me. As we were pulling up our hoods, he told us they were about to get him, and we would all scatter. He didn’t say we should scatter. Just that we would. Like he knew us better than we knew ourselves.

I didn’t agree. I didn’t think I was a coward. I knew what I cared about, and I cared about him. He was my best friend. We’d stick with him. Band of brothers and the hero stuff. That’s a powerful drug, and I had more of it sloshing inside than red wine.

I contradicted him. ‘No way. Even if everyone else runs,’ I said, ‘I won’t. Ever.’

He raked up his next words from somewhere deep. ‘By the time the rooster crows, you’ll disown me three times.’

He was right that they were coming for him. I was muzzy with sleep by the time the chief priests’ guard arrived on the Mount. That’s my excuse for not standing with him when they dragged him off. But I pulled myself together and followed. At a distance, not too close. I told myself it was better that way, that I could run off and get help, or help him escape, if I was still free. I didn’t ask myself get help from whom. Because who in all that Rome-infested city was going to save him?

The other eleven had disappeared – Judas forever, God have mercy. I followed down to the courtyard of the High Priest’s place. There were messengers going out, and priests coming in, and hangers-on milling about cursing the cold. So I sidled through the gates as if I was somebody’s servant, rubbing my hands and blowing on my fingers.

A fire was burning in the courtyard, the smoke twisting sideways, burning my eyes. A cute little servant girl was stoking it from a pile of thorn branches, flirting with the soldiers.

‘Come over here, handsome,’ she said to me. ‘Warm yourself up.’

‘Thanks.’

I joined the soldiers by the fire. I felt the warmth on my hands and my face, watched the flames gnaw on the bones of the thorn bushes.

‘I think I know you,’ the girl said, watching me. I sat back from the light of the fire but the damage was done. ‘You were with him, the Nazarene in there.’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ My eyes prickled from the smoke. I got up and moved closer to door of the house.

It was a big meeting inside, a roll call of Jerusalem heavies. The door was ajar for fresh air, and I could hear the ruckus they were making. The priests were accusing him of things he’d never done — the case against him was crap, pardon the language, but it was. I could have told the high priest that. But I didn’t.

‘Hey,’ the girl said, pointing at me. ‘That fellow was one of them — part of the Nazarene’s group.’

I shook my head as if I didn’t have the foggiest. I wished she would shut up.

Inside, the hearing went on through the small hours. Mostly, Jesus kept his mouth shut and didn’t argue with the stuff they tried to pin on him. He didn’t need to – it was a heap of contradictions and a pack of lies, anyone could hear that. I said as much to another guy standing nearby.

But when the High Priest straight out asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ he couldn’t help himself.

‘I am.’

Honest to the bitter end.

That caused a barney. They won’t let him go now, I thought.

The guy next to me nudged my elbow. ‘He’s got the same accent as you. You’re a Galilean too. She’s right, isn’t she – you’re one of his?’

‘No way,’ I said. ‘Not me – I wouldn’t. Ever.’ The words took over my tongue, rolling off it like a runaway cart, ploughing downhill. ‘God strike me dead if I’m not telling the truth.’

For a second, I expected He would. The fire hissed and collapsed as a branch burnt through. Then, a messenger swung the door open, and I saw inside. Jesus looked at me, like he knew.

The smoke cleared. Bravado, good intentions, high ideals – I had them by the bucketful and they weren’t enough. I’d sold him out to save my skin. By a lie, like the toadies in the high priest’s house.

Sometimes, since then, people say I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. What did my words matter if he’d been stitched up anyway? They mattered — they were another nail in his coffin. If truth doesn’t matter, what have we got left? Only shouting in the dark and the smoke choking us all.

A rooster crowed. In case of any doubt, it crowed again.

My eyes burned. It was not the smoke.

Where’s the happy ending?

I’m kind of sorry to leave you there. That’s not the finish of the Easter story, of course! If you’ve ever broken a promise, or chickened out of being honest (me, definitely), there’s a happy ending you ought to read. You can read the rest here, including the reconciliation of Peter with Jesus. Or in any New Testament.

If you’d like more Easter reading, I wrote a semi humorous poem last year:

And here’s a look at Victorian Easter customs:

Have a very happy Easter/Passover/holiday!

If you found this online or via a friend and you’d like a free monthly read, hit the button below.

The Twisty History of a Royal Art you probably Own

Author Alison Lloyd brings you history with heart - newsletter #51

Here’s a riddle, for women’s history month this March:

What art form was:

…banned, taxed and smuggled

…appears in paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Van Dyck, but we don’t know the names of its creators

…relies for artistic effect on what’s not there, as much as what is

…was once a mark of wealth and royalty…

and is now in millions of homes, in an industrialised form?

(CLUE: try looking in your wardrobe.)

Want to know the answer?

It’s LACE.

Why would you want to read an email about lace? It’s beautiful, for one. And second, it was an art form created by women, appreciated by men.

History’s first lace appears on a portrait of a man.

Left: Detail of ‘Madonna and Child with Saint James and Saint Dominic’, by Hans Memling, 1485-1490. This painting is also known as the ‘Jacques Floreins Madonna, after the Florentine merchant who commissioned it. The men are thought to be Floreins family members. So they could be wearing Italian lace in a Flemish painting. Right: Italian reticella lace sampler, showing the steps of the making process; Met Museum.

This early lace was made by cutting pieces out of linen, as in the sampler below. It’s called reticella — not that you need to know, but the words rolls off your tongue so richly I wanted to share it!

Queen Elizabeth I incorporated the new product into Tudor grandeur. The Elizabethans used wire was used to hold out their lace ruffs and show off them off.

Queen Elizabeth I; detail of one of the three ‘Armada’ portraits by unknown painter/s, 1588.

The circle of ruff extends from Elizabeth’s face like the Sun’s rays. She is shown as the centre and source of warmth, beauty, and goodness.
The Royal Museum, Greenwich

To which I would add — power, wealth, and control. That’s what this ornate geometric look suggests to me.

Before long, someone realised the cutwork technique was rather wasteful of linen, which was not a cheap product in itself. Craftswomen figured out how to make the patterns with no cloth, using just a needle and thread — punto in aria, ‘stitches in air’.

French cravat end, said to have been made for the 1697 wedding of the Duc de Bourgogne, Louis XIV’s grandson. Source: Met Museum

Detail of the cravat, showing the lord with his hunting gun, dogs, and birds.

Needlepoint laces (like the delightful Met masterpiece above) can have as many as 6,000 stitches per square inch. Obviously, they took ages to make. Once again, unknown lacemakers innovated with a ‘faster’ technology. The new bobbin lace still took half an hour to make an inch.

Johannes Vermeer, ‘The Lacemaker’, 1669

By the time Vermeer painted his famous lacemaker, Flanders had become the epicentre of European lacemaking. The damp, cool climate helped prevent the gossamer linen threads from breaking, so Flemish thread was the finest in Europe.

Lace was not considered effeminate in its heyday. Men wore it as much as women. Why was that, when lace is such a delicate fabric? Most likely because it was also extremely expensive. Anyone who had fountains of lace frothing at their neck and wrists also had fountains of money. Lace was a luxury and a status symbol.

Apparently, lace goes well with armour:

‘Portrait of the Princes Palatine Charles-Louis I and his Brother Robert’ by Anthony van Dyck, 1641.

Illicit Lace

Some governments objected to the expense of lace. In the mid seventeenth century, France banned foreign lace. In 1670 the government went so far as to ‘burn by the hangman a hundred thousand crowns worth of Point de Venise [Venetian lace], Flanders lace, and other foreign commodities that are forbid.’ Apocryphal stories have come down the centuries of lace smuggled under travellers clothes, and replacing returning corpses in coffins.

Colonial America wasn’t keen on lace either:

Taking into consideration the great, superfluous and unnecessary expenses occasioned by reason of some new and immodest fashions… [the Court] hath ordered that no person, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woollen, silk, or linen, with any lace on it, sliver, gold, silk, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of such clothes.
The Records of the Colony of Massachusetts, 1634

Neither the Court nor the French prohibition had much effect. The French Revolution had a drastic effect, on lace as well as the necks that wore it. Lace finally dropped out of fashion — it was too decadent, and therefore dangerous.

But when Queen Victoria married in 1840, she chose a dress that became iconic. She wore white satin, rather than gold or silver, with deep ruffles of English bobbin lace around her neckline and skirt. Singlehandedly, the redoubtable queen restored the popularity of lace. Although only for women. And that’s still how it is now.

Left: Queen Victoria’s wedding dress, as it is today, with the skirt lace off. Right: Queen Victoria in later years, wearing her wedding lace - skirt and veil.

Queen Victoria’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter-in-law, Kate Middleton, in her elegantly lacey wedding dress, 2011

Who were the lacemakers?

I tried researching the people behind the art. Somebody with amazing skills must have developed these technical innovations and stunning designs. But Google gave me no names. So who made the lace?

Vermeer’s lacemaker may have been one of his daughters, art historians think. Lacemaking seems to have been decently profitable and highly thought of at the time:

Of many Arts, one surpasses all. For the maiden seated at her work flashes the smooth balls and thousand threads into the circle... and from this, her amusement, makes as much profit as a man earns by the sweat of his brow, and no maiden ever complains, at evening, of the length of the day. Jacob van Eyck, 1651

Two hundred years later, the lacemaker’s life had changed radically. Lacemaking was mechanised early in the industrial revolution, along with the rest of the textile industry. Industrial lacemaking was carried out by men on huge machines. Machine lace wasn’t initially as good as handmade, but it was cheaper, and it drove down the price of lace overall.

A machine made lace panel, celebrating industrialisation, exhibited at the Paris Exposition 1900. Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/229108

The maiden’s ‘amusement’ of bobbin lace turned into sweatshop drudgery. Little girls were shut up in ‘lace schools’, from 6am until late at night. ‘Five is too young,’ one lace mistress told a government enquiry. At six years old she could ‘beat it into them.’ A Victorian novelist described one lace school as

a den of thin, wizened, half-starved girls, cramped over their cushions.
Charlotte Yonge, The Clever Woman of the Family, 1865

The girls chanted folk songs to keep up the rhythm and speed of their work. Many of the rhymes are as macabre as the brothers Grimm:

‘Where’s the lady of this house?’ said Long Lankin.
‘She’s in her high chamber,’ said the false nurse to him.
‘Where’s the young heir of this house?’ said Long Lankin.
‘He’s asleep in his cradle,’ said the false nurse to him.
‘We’ll prick him, we’ll prick him all over with a pin,
And that will make your lady come down to him.’
They pricked him, they pricked him all over with a pin,
And the false nurse held a basin for the blood to drop in.
Long Lankin

You can imagine the little girls taking out their misery on their lace pillows, pricking it all over with their pins.

Lacemakers in Bruges, nineteenth century

I did find the name of one British lacemaker, who won prizes for her naturalistic designs and exquisite craftsmanship. Emma Radford (1837-1901), ran a lace shop with her sisters in Sidmouth, in Devonshire. In 1878 she came second in a fan makers competition.

Left: detail of a lace handkerchief made by Emma Radford, in the Met Museum collection. Right: her prize winning fan, in the V&A collection. I love the ferns and ivy leave, including the way she has used thicker thread to outline and give texture.

I tracked down the street where she lived and worked, but no further information about Emma Radford, or any other historical lacemaker.

One of these shopfronts on New Street, Sidmouth, UK, once belonged to lacemaker Emma Radford and her sisters. The street probably looked less quaint and more rundown in Emma’s day, more like the Bruges street above.

Like the lace itself, the lacemakers’ stories are defined by absences. Their lives have disappeared into history, leaving only the intricate traces of their art.

Seventeenth century needlepoint lace, with a rich, sculptural look. Source

Love and pie crusts

A colonial love story | author Alison Lloyd's newsletter #50

Once upon a time there was a dashing captain and a pretty young woman…

Can you guess how this goes? Yes, this Scroll brings you historical heartbreak from colonial Australia, with one of the meanest, offhand break-up lines ever spoken. But don’t delete the email yet! Since 14th February is a day to celebrate love, that’s not where the story ends. There’s a second chance romance too.¹

Sincere Intentions

In 1822, 17 year old Sarah Cox was earning a living as a milliner’s apprentice, in Sydney. New South Wales was still a penal colony — convicts clinked along Sydney’s streets in chain gangs. But a recent Governor (Macquarie) had boosted the ramshackle colony’s respectability. Several new Regency-style buildings now graced the colony. Fortunes were being made in wool and whaling, and grand estates were under construction. As the colony developed, so did the colonial sense of self-respect and propriety.

Vaucluse House, Sydney, built 1803-1839. Picture: nsw.gov.au

Sarah’s family teetered on the edge of respectability. She was not a convict, but both her parents had been. Her parents weren’t married either. Sarah’s father had been separated from his first wife and children when transported, and he set up a new family in the colony.

In 1822 a Captain John Payne started courting Sarah. Captain Payne had business that often took him to Van Diemen’s Land, so he and Sarah wrote letters to each other.

Believe me Dear Sarah my Affections for you have not been sudden nor precipitant. I have fostered them some time within my breast… it is my sincere intention to make you a Companion of my future life…
I remain Dear Girl Your Most Affectionate
Jn Payne

Promises, promises. In 1824, Sarah found out her beau had instead married a rich widow.

Promises and Pie Crusts were made to be Broken

‘Promises and pie crusts were made to be broken,’ Captain Payne told Sarah’s mother. Ouch. Broken-hearted and angry, Sarah wasn’t going to stand for that cavalier attitude. ‘I intend inforcing you to keep your promise,’ she wrote to Payne. ‘Indeed Sir I do.’

Sarah found an outstanding young lawyer named William Wentworth. A loud, tall, confident public speaker, he was willing to take on her case. Wentworth was much higher up the social scale than Sarah. His father was a ship’s doctor with aristocratic connections, and Wentworth had studied at Cambridge. But his mother was a convict, so he had that in common with Sarah. He was adventurous too — in 1813 he and a party of explorers became the first Europeans to cross the rugged Blue Mountains west of Sydney, thus opening inland Australia to colonisation.

Wentworth Falls, in the Blue Mountains, named after William Wentworth.

That wasn’t Wentworth’s only claim to fame. He established the colony’s first private newspaper, against the wishes of the Colonial Office. He also wrote the first publication by an Australian-born author.²

L: A sketch of William Charles Wentworth (1790-1872), by an unknown artist c1848; R: the frontispiece of Wentworth’s 1819 publication.

Making History

Wentworth obviously liked breaking the mould. He agreed to take Sarah’s complaint against Payne to court, in the colony’s first breach-of-promise case. In the nineteenth century, it was an offence to promise to marry someone and then not go through with it. Interestingly, this type of law suit was almost always brought by women.

In the highly publicised hearing, Wentworth argued:

“By your verdict, Gentlemen of the Jury, you will send her [Sarah] forth to the world free from taint. If such among you, as are fathers, consider what your feelings would have been, you will award that degree of compensation as will in some measure recompence (sic) her for the injury she has sustained.”

The jury returned a verdict in favour of Sarah Cox. They awarded her £100 damages. She was indeed sent forth ‘free from taint’, from the Captain Payne relationship.

Second Chances

However, Wentworth should have taken his own advice, as author Cecily Paterson points out. (Cecily’s blog, posting research for a historical novel, gives more detail.) Sarah scandalised Sydney by giving birth to Wentworth’s child six months after the trial.

If, in contrast to the Captain, Wentworth had honourably married Sarah after the court case, then we could wrap up this story in a big Valentine’s day bow. But real life relationships are often more complicated than we’d like. Wentworth didn’t marry Sarah — not until 1829, when she was 8 months pregnant with their third child. We don’t know what finally made him do the honourable thing. From his public statement of his feelings (coming up below), it seems to have been his love for her.

After their marriage, William Wentworth continued to notch up a long run of achievements. He was involved in drafting the 1853 NSW Constitution, and founding Sydney University. Sarah, however, was ostracised from public life. Visiting English Lady Jane Franklin described her as ‘very handsome, lady like and amiable, but of course not visited.’

That’s the nineteenth century version of cancel culture. Socially devastating.

Sarah Wentworth,1853, by William Nicholas.

Despite this, William and Sarah Wentworth’s marriage lasted until William’s death. They built a beautiful home at Vaucluse (see the pic above) and reared 10 children together.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, let’s give the last word to Wentworth. This poem was published in his newspaper in 1829, when he flew in the face of social norms to marry Sarah:

To Sarah
For I must love thee, love thee on
Till life’s remotest lastest minute
And when the light of fire is gone -
Thou’ll find its lamp had thee within it.

Happy Valentine’s Day ♡♡♡ If you have a partner, stoke that fire of faithfulness.

If you don’t, or you just like romantic short stories, here’s a link to the Valentine’s Day story I wrote last year.

You are welcome to send this email to a friend:

1. I came across this story in Courting: an intimate history of love and the law. Author Alecia Simmonds, a lawyer and academic, says it was written ‘from the archival remains of broken hearts’. It’s an excellent read — not as gloomy as it sounds. It won the Australian history prize in the NSW Premier’s History Awards last year.

2. He was patriotically Australian, and gave his work a cumbersome, but brash and cocky, title: A Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen’s Land, With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States of America. Unfortunately Wentworths’ vision for the future of Australia didn’t extend to indigenous peoples.