Lacemakers pins, fish bones and thorns

 

In his history of bobbin lace Thomas Wright records that early pins were being made in England in 1347, but pins made from brass wire were first made in about 1530. The 1543 Act for the ‘true making of pynnes’ limited the price of 1000 pins at no more than 6 shillings and 8 pence. Most pins used in England were imported from France until John Tilsby began making them in Gloucestershire in 1626 and the Pinmakers’ Corporation of London was established in 1636. The early brass pins made in England were made in two parts with a shank and twisted wire head that were joined by compression, however, the heads were not very secure and often came off. Pins with solid heads were not made until about 1835. Wright notes that many lacemakers added wax heads to some beads; red for a headside pin and green or gold for a footside pin. Other pins were decorated with the seeds of goose grass and were known as burrheads or ‘hariffe pins’. He also records (and includes photographs of) two pins with bone heads, shaped like small drums, inscribed with the names Ruth and Thomas in dots of colour in the same way as bone bobbins. T L Huetson, who also wrote about the history of lacemaking, claims that early lacemakers used fish bones and thorns in place of pins. As a lacemaker I find it highly unlikely that either would have been much use but he says he has some thorn pins that were given to him by an old lady who had been given them by a lacemaker many years before.