Inscribed Honiton lace bobbins

 

In my blog of 19 June I looked at Honiton lace bobbins and explained why they are finer than East Midlands bobbins and don’t require spangles to weight them. Most Honiton bobbins are plain, but some are inscribed and decorated by incising their surface, in a similar way to scrimshaw, and then filing the incisions with coloured sealing wax. The bobbin on the right, in the image above, shows the typical triangular shaped incisions filled with red wax. The central area depicts a sailing ship with sails and rigging and a circle with simple markings possibly to represent the sun or a face. Round the top of the bobbin, three letters are inscribed, separated by triangles; these are presumably the initials of the owner or the giver. The inscription on the second bobbin is much more complex and more finely worked. It includes the initials SM at the top and the date 1817, but the name Elizabeth Matthews is inscribed in a spiral down the shank of the bobbin, which suggests that SM gave this bobbin to Elizabeth as a gift. Between the lines of the spiral are a ship, an anchor, a bird and a diamond shape, all linked with small patterns made up of tiny triangular shapes. This bobbin has also been coloured with both red and dark blue or black sealing wax. These bobbins are typical of inscribed Honiton bobbins in that they both include initials and ships, which were often so realistically drawn that the type of vessel can be identified. Other motifs used were animals, such as fish or birds, human figures and mermaids, stylised flowers, hearts and patterns of lines, bricks or triangles. If you are interested in finding out more, a good source of images is H J Yallop’s book The history of the Honiton lace industry, in which he includes several pages of these symbols.