These alterations, in course of time, found their way to England, there being much intercourse between their brethren here established and those remaining in Flanders. The lace continued to get finer and closer in texture, the flax thread being required so fine that it became necessary to spin it in damp underground cellars. That the workers in England could not compete successfully against the foreigner with their home-made threads we find over and over again. They also altered the Brussels designs, and instead of the beautiful fillings and openwork stitches substituted heavy guipure bars. The vrai réseau or pillow net ground succeeded the bride towards the end of the seventeenth century. During the eighteenth century the flowers were made separately and worked in with the net afterwards, or rather the net was worked into the flowers on the pillow. The best réseau was made by hand with the needle, and was much more expensive. The advantages of making the net separately soon declared themselves, and it formed an extensive branch of the trade. The mode of payment seems tedious but primitive in its simplicity; the net was spread out on the dealer’s counter, and the worker covered it with shillings; as many as it took to cover it she had as the value of her work. “A piece bought previous to the introduction of machine net, 18 ins. square, cost £15. At the commencement of machine net, in 1808, it could be bought for as many shillings, and in 1851 for as many pence.”[[23]]
Trolly lace comes next in order; it was quite different from the Honiton type, and resembled many of the laces made in the Midlands at the present time. It was made with coarse British thread, heavier, larger bobbins, and worked straight on round the pillow. The origin was undoubtedly Flemish, but it is said to have reached Devonshire at the time of the French Revolution through the Normandy peasants, driven by want of employment from their own country, where lace was a great industry in the eighteenth century. Be this as it may, lappets and scarves were certainly made of Trolly lace at an earlier date; Mrs. Delaney, in one of her letters (1756) speaks of a “trolly head.” Trolly lace, before its downfall, has been sold at the extravagant price of five guineas a yard.[[24]] The origin of Trolly is from the Flemish Trolle Kant, where the design was outlined with a thick thread.
The most startling change in the lace industry occurred after 1816, when the introduction of machine net caused the vrai réseau[réseau] to go out of fashion. The cheap mechanical net took the place of the hand-made ground, throwing hundreds of hands out of work in a few years, and upsetting the social economy of the district. Application on machine net became universal, and the prices decreasing, the workers lost heart, and gave up their good old patterns, taking to inventions out of their heads, and frequently down to the present time copying some frightful design from a wall paper!
Queen Adelaide, in answer to a petition sent up by the lace makers, ordered a dress made of Honiton sprigs on machine net, in which every flower was to be copied from nature. It was executed at Honiton.[[25]] The bridal dress of Queen Victoria, which she ordered from Devonshire, was carried out at Beer, and cost £1,000. It was made in the guipure fashion, the sprigs being connected by openwork stitches on the pillow. The trade from that time revived, as lace came once more into fashion, the guipure being the description made, the sections of the pattern united on the pillow, or sewn on to paper and joined by the needle with the various lace stitches; purling is made by the yard, for the edge.
The lace schools of this time were a great feature, there being many in every village, and as few other schools existed, boys in addition to the girls of the place attended and learnt the industry.[[26]] The usual mode of procedure was this. The children commenced attending at the age of five to seven, and were apprenticed to the mistress for an average of two years, who sold all their work for her trouble; they then paid 6d. a week for a time, and had their own lace, then 3d., and so on according to the amount of teaching they still required. The young children went first from 10 to 12 in the morning to accustom them to work by degrees. At Honiton the full hours were 8 to 8 in the summer and in the depth of winter, but in spring and autumn less on account of the light; as candles were used only from nutting day, the 3rd of September, till Shrove Tide. The old rhyme runs:—
Be the Shrove Tide high or low Out the candle we will blow.
At Sidbury it was de rigeur that directly a girl married, however young, she wore a cap; but till then the lace-makers were famous for their good hair being beautifully dressed. When school began they stood up in a circle to read the “Verses”; if any one read “jokily” they were given a penalty, and likewise for idleness—so much extra work. In nearly all schools they were taught reading from the Bible, and in some they learnt writing.
The Honiton pillows run rather smaller than those for Buckingham lace, and do not have the multiplicity of starched coverings—only three “pill cloths” over the top, and another each side of the lace in progress; two pieces of horn, called “sliders,” go between to take the weight of the bobbins from dragging the stitches in progress; a small square pincushion is on one side, and stuck into the pillow is the “needle pin,” a large sewing needle in a wooden handle, used for picking up loops through which the bobbins or “sticks” are placed. These last are mostly turned box-wood, small and light, and no coloured beads or “gingles” at the end, as that would make them too heavy for the fine threads. Some of them are of great age. Mrs. Treadwin found an old lace-maker using a lace “turn” for winding sticks, having the date of 1678 rudely carved on the foot.
The pillow has to be frequently turned round in the course of the work, so no stand is used, and it is rested against a table or doorway, or formerly, in the golden days, in fine weather there would be rows of workers sitting outside their cottages resting their “pills” against the back of the chair in front.
Ever since the Great Exhibition of 1851 drew attention to the industry, someone or some society has been trying to encourage better design and better manufacture; but the majority of the people have sought for a livelihood by meeting the demand for cheap and shoddy articles—that dreadful bane of modern times. Good patterns, good thread, good work, have been thrown aside, the workers and small dealers recking little of the fact that they themselves were ruining the trade as much as machinery; tarnishing the fair name of Honiton throughout the world among those able to appreciate a beautiful art. Fortunately there were some able to lead in the right path, and all honour must be given to Lady Trevelyan, who, at Seaton and Beer, about 1850–70, designed and superintended the working of naturalistic flowers and sprays; also to Mrs. Treadwin at Exeter, who started reproducing old laces, and with her workers turned out excellent copies of old Venetian rose-point, Valenciennes, or Flemish. Mrs. Treadwin was a woman of culture and taste who had the best interests of the trade at heart.