Situated in the fertile vale of the Otter, surrounded by wooded hills and combes, the quiet little town of Honiton slopes down a hill, crosses the river, and ends at the old Hospital of St. Margaret. The picturesque street seems to have a repose amid its beautiful surroundings commensurate with the peaceful industry that has made its undying fame; for thanks to its having been the head-quarters of the beautiful lace manufacture, the name of Honiton is better known than that of many a big city. That its renown should have overshadowed other places is doubtless owing to its being situated on the great coach roads from London and from Bath to Exeter and the ports beyond; travellers were brought to the spot, who would alight while their horses rested; they would then be offered a box of lace at the inn to select from, while the work-girls themselves looked out for the arrival of the coaches and pressed their wares on the occupants, who took away their purchases to other parts of the country as a speciality of Honiton.

Risdon^[12] speaks of it as “a great Market and Thorough-Fair, from East to West,” and Westcote^[13] writes:—“It is a great thoroughfare from Cornwall, Plymouth, and Exeter to London; and for the better receipt of travellers, very well furnished with Inns.”

Lace-making has been practically limited to that part of the county south of Exeter which lies between Dorset and the Exe. The industry found its way to Devonshire, if the generally accepted theory be correct, by the Flemish refugees flying from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. Lace was made on the pillow in the Low Countries about the middle of the sixteenth century, so by the date of the Alva persecution (1568–77) the people might have learnt it in sufficient numbers to start it wherever they set up their new home.

There is much probability to support this theory, and some names of undoubted Flemish origin did and do still exist in Honiton, as Gerard, Murch, Groot, Trump. On the other hand, if there had been any considerable number of Flemings in Devonshire they would surely have founded a Company of their Reformed Church, and no reference is found in the published books of the Archives of the London Dutch Church of any such Company in Devonshire; whereas references abound to places in the eastern counties and Midlands where Flemings were established.

It was not till we read of bone^[14] lace that it may be taken to mean pillow lace, made either with fish bones as pins or sheep’s trotters as bobbins. That bones were used as bobbins is stated by Fuller;^[15] but the fish bone theory is also possible; pins were very high priced at that time, and it would have been perfectly possible to use fish bones fine enough for the geometrical laces of the sixteenth century.

Queen Elizabeth was much addicted to the collecting and wearing of beautiful clothes, but no definite mention of English lace seems to occur in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts.

The earliest mention of Honiton lace is by Westcote—“At Axminster you may be furnished with fine flax thread there spun. At Honiton and Bradnidge with bone lace much in request”;^[16] and, referring again to Honiton—“Here is made abundance of bone-lace, a pretty toye now greatly in request”; and therefore the town may say with merry Martial—

The famous inscription on a tombstone in Honiton Churchyard, together with Westcote, proves the industry to have been well established in the reign of James I. The inscription runs:—

There have been traditions that Rodge was a valet who accompanied his master abroad and there, learning the fine Flemish stitches, taught some Devonshire women on his return home, and was enabled to make a comfortable competence by their work.

Rodge was not the only benefactor to the town connected with the industry; there are two others recorded in the seventeenth century. “Although the earliest known MS., Ker’s Synopsis, 1561, giving an account of the different towns in Devonshire, makes no mention of lace, we find from it that Mrs. Minifie, one of the earliest named lace-makers, was an Englishwoman.”^[17] “She was a daughter of John Flay, Vicar of Buckrell, near Honiton.”^[18] She died in 1617, and left money for the indigent townspeople, as did Thomas Humphrey, of Honiton, lace-maker, in 1658.

The advantages of the lace trade were realized by the time of the Commonwealth. Fuller,^[19] writing during that period, says of bone lace:—

The English were always ready to protect their own trades and manufactures, and various were the Acts passed to prohibit the importation of foreign lace, for the encouragement of home workers. In 1698 it was proposed to repeal the last Prohibition, and from the text of a Petition sent to the House of Commons, some interesting light is thrown on the extent of the trade at that date.

Here follows the numbers of the people in a few places which get their living by making of lace. Those quoted in Devonshire as interesting to compare with the present day are:—

The Dragoons suppressing Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1680 are stated to have despoiled the poor lacemakers greatly, and at Colyton broke into the house of a dealer in bone lace, Burd by name, and stole his goods to the value of £325.

The trade was still advancing when Defoe wrote in 1724:—

Later still we find the people at Honiton make “the broadest sort that is made in England.”^[20] Just previously, in 1753, the first prize was awarded by the Anti-Gallican Society, which encouraged home trade, to Mrs. Lydia Maynard, of Honiton, “in token of six pairs of ladies’ Lappets of unprecedented beauty.” This date seems to have been the zenith of the lace prosperity, and reverses soon after set in.

Two fires occurred in Honiton, causing much distress, and the second, in 1765, was of so devastating a character that the town had to be rebuilt. Shawe says, writing at the end of last century:—

The American war had an evil effect upon the lace trade; still worse was the French Revolution, and also the change of the fashion in dress; lace was no longer used in profusion in the ladies’ wardrobe, and the demand for it declined to a serious extent for the workers. Worse yet, however, was the introduction of machine net, the first factory being set up at Tiverton in 1815. Lysons^[21] writes just afterwards:—

No other reference to Bath Brussels lace is forthcoming; the reason of the name Bath is not apparent. The thread seems always to have been and is still a difficulty to contend with in English lace. It seems impossible to get the very fine, silky, pure flax thread in the home market. A greater part of the lace made at the present time is wasted labour by reason of the coarse cottony thread used.

The evolution (if it may be termed so) of Honiton lace is briefly this. The bone or bobbin lace before mentioned at first consisted of a small and simple imitation of the early Italian pillow laces—mere narrow strips made by coarse threads plaited and interlaced. They got wider and more elaborate as the workers gained experience. Specimens may be seen on three Devonshire monuments of the first part of the seventeenth century. Whether the lace of the district is imitated or not it is probably similar to what would have been made there at that time. On the effigy of a Lady Pole in Colyton Church, her cape is edged with three rows of bone lace. Another, which is in excellent preservation, is on an effigy of Lady Dodderidge in Exeter Cathedral, her cuffs and tucker being a good pattern of geometric design. The third is on an effigy in Combe Martin Church, 1637.^[22]

Bobbin laces soon became popular, as they were so much cheaper than the elaborate points; they became so eminently the speciality of Belgium as to make her the classic country of pillow work. Belgium was noted for her linens and delicately spun flax; in consequence, the Flemings departed from the style of their Italian masters, and made laces of their own fine threads; the fashion of wearing flat linen collars, in the early part of the seventeenth century, encouraged the new style. They worked out their own designs, and being fond of flowers, it naturally came about they composed devices of blossoms and foliage.

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 réseauréseau 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:—

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.

In the present work there is a straining after novelty with no capable designers at the helm. We ought, as a national duty, to encourage to our utmost any industry that can be worked in the rural districts. Let the Education Authorities frankly acknowledge that our Art Schools cannot turn out lace designers, and import one of our clever French neighbours to help the Devonian workers. It would, after all, only be a case of L’histoire se répète toujours since the days of Benedict Biscop, who imported vestments which gave the English their first lesson in embroidery.