‘Kiss me quick’ lace bobbins

These two lace bobbins both fall into the category that T L Huetson labelled ‘saucy’ inscriptions in his authoritative book on lace and bobbins. One is inscribed Kiss me quick and the other Kiss me quick [my] own true love. There are lots of variations of these sentiments such as Kiss me quick my lovely darling and Kiss me quick and dont be shy. Huetson also records a pair of bobbins inscribed Kiss me in the dark and Love doo it again. He suggests that the owner of the last two may well have blushed over her lace as she read them! The bobbin on the left was probably made by the bobbin maker the Springetts describe as the ‘Blunt end’ man who worked in the middle of the nineteenth century near Bedford. That on the right is most likely the work of Jesse Compton who lived at Deanshanger and was making bobbins in the first half of the nineteenth century. Jesse Compton has an interesting history. He was the son of a Wiltshire farmer and in his early twenties travelled to Lincolnshire, but was arrested for vagrancy and after a public whipping and time in prison he was sent back to Wiltshire. However, he seems to have stopped off in Buckinghamshire where he married and settled down as a labourer, becoming a turner and bobbin maker in later life. He and his wife had six children the oldest of whom also became a bobbin maker.