Peasants at the Woman's Exhibition 1900

Ethel Blount exhibited a number of pieces at the 1900 “Woman’s Exhibition” held at Earl’s Court.  This exhibition took part as part of the women's liberation movement.  She is recorded as Mrs Godfrey Blount exhibiting:

"373 Bell Pull in Peasant Tapestry  

374 Panel in Peasant Tapestry

377 Portiere in Peasant Tapestry"

The bell pull, a bell to summon a servant, is an indication of the social class to which the Haslemere Peasant Arts aimed their market.   

The introductory article to the Exhibition by Imre Kiralfy (Woman’s Exhibition, 1900, Earl’s Court, London, S.W.: official fine art, historical and general catalogue, Spottiswoode & Co.) provides an interesting insight to the women’s movement at the time:

“During no period in the world’s history has the progress of woman’s work been so remarkable as in that of the present century.  Although this advance is fully realised, and several attempts have been made to illustrate the progress of woman’s work, there has never been an Exhibition dealing adequately with this great subject.  The advance of woman in the fine arts, in education, in refined and beautiful workmanship, in inventions, her studies and devotion in nursing, and her softening influence, which has penetrated into almost every profession, elevates the nineteenth century in the memorable record of the world’s history.  It is an apparent fact, particularly when we turn to literature, that the work by woman during the last hundred years greatly exceeds anything accomplished by her in all previous times.  UI is, therefore, but fitting and just that woman’s work should be represented in a worthy manner, at the close of this century, by a commemorative Exhibition, the first of its kind ever held. 

…Nothing is more interesting than to trace, through all its vicissitudes, the lengthy course of laws and customs which have slowly raised woman from a condition of abject slavery to a position of social and civil equality…

…The day is passed when Woman, inspired by the necessities of a barbaric or warlike age, could repudiate the weakness of her sex, and contend with man on the field of battle.  Christianity and civilisation have taught her to renounce such ideas, and to assume another and a more glorious duty..

The new mission is symbolised by the name of Florence Nightingale, its originator, its apostle, and its example.  Words can scarcely express the great debt of gratitude we owe to this lady, who, by her generous and heroic labours, has given up her whole life to the promotion of humane work, to the amelioration of the condition of our soldiers, to the improvement of hospital organisation.

….Royalty has had many bright representatives in history, but it remained for this century to give birth to the noblest of all – Victoria, the greatest and most honoured of Sovereigns.  …Her monumental work and mighty influence have not only benefited the one-fourth of the women on earth over whom she rules, but all other nations over which it is spread.  No sooner had she ascended the throne than a complete revolution for the advance in education, science, and culture took place which resulted in the great progress of literature, arts, industries. And legislation which have glorified her reign and made her era unparalleled in history.”

Committee Members,
Woman's Exhibition, 1900, Earl’s Court, London, S.W.:
official fine art, historical and general catalogue, Spottiswoode & Co.

The prominence of duchesses, marchioness, countesses and ladies on the committee list is quite striking.  In the introduction to the Applied Art Section Tessa MacKenzie wrote “Women have at all times worn Tapestries, and here we have an example of a remarkable Tapestry design as well as executed by a woman, i.e. Mrs Frida Hansen, and an example of the work being done in Bushey by Miss Clive Bayley….

It is therefore satisfactory to realise that there is a greater field for woman’s capacity than she has, till of late years, had, and the present Exhibition may justly be looked upon as having opened the eyes of the world to her ability to succeed wherever she competes with men.”

It is disappointing to not see Ethel’s Blount tapestry being highlighted in this article.  However it is useful to have the names of tapestry work by other artists of the time.  Frida Hansen (1855-1931) was a “Norwegian textile artist in the Art Nouveau style…several of her weaving designs considered among the best made in  recent European textile art.” (Wikipedia).  Miss Clive Bayley was from The British and Irish Spinning and Weaving School.  The Art Journal (1899) reported that Bayley’s work “strikes one as a genuine attempt at art of a homely kind.  The most ambitious effort of the children working there is a reproduction in tapestry of one of Fra Angelico’s frescoes.  Failing the possibility of obtaining for the purpose designs by competent artists, this is about as good a source as Miss Bayley could have gone to.”

Frida Hansen tapestry,
Fantasiblomster, portiere, 1903
The National Museum, Oslo

Frida Hansen tapestry,
Melkeveien, 1898
The National Museum, Oslo

Miss Clive Bayley's tapestry loom,
The British and Irish Spinning and Weaving School,
The Art Journal, 1899

Gertrude Jekyll and the Haslemere Peasants Part 4

There are a few more links that I would like to highlight between Gertrude Jekyll and the Haslemere Peasant Arts movement.

A quick recap: Gertrude Jekyll's interest in collecting peasant art is indicated by her loan of exhibits to the 1902 Peasant Art exhibition at Charterhouse School organised by her friend Rev Gerald Davies, who was to later sell his collection to the Peasant Arts Guild (and is now held by Haslemere Educational Museum), and written in this post.  Her love of bygone days and the simple peasant lifestyle is expressed in her Old West Surrey book mentioned in my last 3 posts on this subject (Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3). 

Godalming's suffragette banner, designed by Gertrude Jekyll
image from People's History Museum

Jekyll also had an interest in the suffragette movement, which I cannot see too widely documented.  The most I can find is that Jekyll is noted as being in the audience in October 1910 at a NUWSS Brighton demonstration, according to Elizabeth Crawford (The Women's Suffragette Movement in Britain and Ireland, Routledge, 1913).

Godalming museum hold an embroidered 'Godalming' suffragette banner which Jekyll designed.  Whilst the design holds little similarity to the work of the Peasant Arts movement, it is of interest because Haslemere's suffragette banner was woven by the St Edmundsbury Weaving Works which was based at College Hill, Haslemere (before re-locating to Letchworth Garden City).   The St Edmundsbury Weavers advertised their business in conjunction with the Kings, Blounts, Luther Hooper and Arthur Romney Green as the 'Handicrafts of Haslemere'.

Gertrude Jekyll's Godalming Suffragette banner,
on display at Godalming Museum

detail of Gertrude Jekyll's Godalming Suffragette banner,
on display at Godalming Museum

 The Surrey Times (20 June 1908) highlighted the Haslemere banner as being particularly beautiful and carrying the slogan 'Weaving fair and weaving free England's web of destiny'.

Handicrafts of Haslemere leaflet c.1902
reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum

Whilst Haslemere Educational Museum hold a photograph of a 1908 suffragette march where the banner was carried, it's impossible to identify the banner from the photograph.  Presumably it's either the first dark coloured banner in the parade or the tall white banner further behind, the circular looking design is perhaps representing a 'web'?  Crawford (ibid.) notes that the Haslemere NUWSS was founded in 1908, she also reports that "in July 1913 a bomb, presumed to have been the work of suffragettes, was left at Haslemere station but failed to ignite".

Suffragette march, Haslemere High Street 1908
carrying the Haslemere suffragette banner
reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum

1908 was a popular year for suffragette marching, the website exploringsurreyspast reports that "in May, 1908, The Surrey Advertiser reported the Suffragettes on Tour, with Lively times at Godalming. The meeting ended with the ladies having to flee through the back door of Thorns Restaurant in Church Street and escape by means of ladders over a high wall into the Deanery House garden. They went to the railway station, but were ordered out, then made their way to the Burys and Bridge Street. Here they took shelter in the police station for an hour before going back to their van."

Suffragette march, Godalming c.1908
with Gertrudge Jekyll designed suffragette banner
photograph on display at Godalming Museum

Barefooted Aristocracy: The Blounts and the Healthy & Artistic Dress Union

Those of you who have read my previous post 'The Corset' may know that I had found a reported connection between Ethel Blount and the Healthy & Artistic Dress Union, a radical movement of it's time.   I have now confirmed these connections from looking at some original Healthy & Artistic Dress Union documents which are held at the Women's Library.  I was disappointed that I found no articles written by Ethel Blount for the movement, but instead I found that both 'Godfrey Blount, Esq' and 'Mrs Godfrey Blount' were on the Healthy & Artistic Dress Union committee.  They joined the committee and the union around July 1904, and were both still on the committee in October 1906 which is the last copy of The Dress Review I could find.

from The Dress Review, January 1904

The objects of the Union were stated in their literature as "to promote such improvement in dress as shall make it consistent with health, comfort, activity, and graceful appearance, yet shall not involve any obvious departure from recognized conventional modes."  From reading their journal, The Dress Review, it is possible to identify a few key issues that the Healthy & Artistic Dress Union were addressing at the time: promoting the wearing of shorter skirts, sandals and not wearing hats or corsets.

In April 1903, The Dress Review reported "we hail with joy the return of the short skirt for walking.   In Paris, Brighton and even London (always behind in these things), most of the smartest women are to be seen in frocks quite clear of the ground; they (the frocks) are well out and the same length all around.  If the "smart set" wear them, there is hope that such incongruous sights as, for instance, a nurse with a trailing skirt wheeling a baby car across a muddy road, will soon be a thing of the past and a clutched up gown will be quite dowdy."

The Dress Review, cover illustrated by Walter Crane who was a Vice-President of the Healthy & Artistic Dress Union

In September 1903, they reported "the short skirt has evidently come to stay for out-door wear, and what a relief that will be for muddy autumn days.  The emancipation of the foot goes on.  There has been a great increase in the number of sandals worn on bare feet among our young people.  We saw an article in one of the daily papers on "Barefooted Aristocracy in the Park", and we rejoice to notice the spread of this custom, not only among the so-called aristocracy this year or last, but also among those poor little ones who were formerly laced up in boots all made of hard, bad leather, which not infrequently weakened their ankles for life; and among these patient little ones, who suffer so terribly from being in every sense of the word badly dressed...they also are happy in newly found freedom for their toes and ankles.  Perhaps next year we may even  see their elders following this good example.  We hear too that it is the fashion upon suitable occasions for ladies to go hatless (we believe they carry very gorgeous sunshades) and this surely is a step in advance, though a mere man was heard to say that women could not be happy lacking the joy of jabbing long skewers into their hats!  Bareheaded and barefooted sounds delightful."

from The Dress Review, September 1903

In the January 1904 issue, there is a specific parallel with the 'peasant dress' advocated by the Peasant Arts movement as M.A.Biggs urges that "the blouse, this should never be worn tucked inside the skirt, uless that skirt be very light indeed or well supported from the shoulders, so as to avoid an uncomfortable mass of material about the wrist, and an injurious weight resting on the soft viscera of the body.  Can we not again encourage the idea of wearing the blouse in tunic fashion, the lower part descending outside the skirt, so as not to interfere with the supporting lining or bands insider over the shoulders...this style might also be adapted as a kind of support to the bust if needed, resembling the outside stays of various peasant costumes."

Weaving and the Suffragettes

From researching about the suffragette connections, I have discovered information regarding weaving and the suffragette movement.  Whilst this is not directly linked to the Peasant Arts movement, it provides an interesting insight into what was happening with other weavers at the time, and also it allows me to use some nice festive pictures!

Altered original from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

 Haslemere’s Suffragette banner was made by the nearby St Edmundsbury Weaving Works at College Hill, Haslemere. The banner which was noted by the newspaper at the time for being particularly beautiful carried the slogan ‘weaving fair and weaving free England’s web of destiny’ (Surrey Times, 20 June 1908).   Whilst I cannot find a picture of this banner, their banner for the first garden city, Letchworth Garden City, where they relocated in 1908 is certainly striking.

St Edmundsbury Weavers baner, designed by  Edmund Hunter, 1909 from First Garden City Heritage Museum, Letchworth

St Edmundsbury Weaving Works was established in 1902 in Haslemere by Edmund Hunter, and in 1908 it moved to Letchworth Garden City to a purpose built factory.  According to the Garden City Museum the St Edmundsbury Weaving Works produced hand woven silks for church furnishings and theatre sets and coat linings for Burberry’s.  Demand for the linings became so great that the company introduced power looms and relocated to the purpose built factory.  The company made some items designed by C.F. Voysey which are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  Wright (Hindhead or The English Switzerland, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co, 1898) reported on the 1905 Handicraft exhibition held at Haslemere, “the result of the anti-machinery movement which had for sometime been on foot in the county” which included Godfrey Blount and was visited by “Her Majesty the Queen, who purchased several articles and gave orders for others”.  This was Queen Alexandra, Wright states that “from the St Edmundsbury silk-weaving looms…came the rich red silk hangings now in use in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace”.

from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

Referring to presumably to Haslemere’ banner as seen at the Women’s Sunday suffragette march on 21st June 1908  in London where 200,000-300,000 people gathered in Hyde Park, one of the largest single demonstrations at that time.  Jutta Schwarzkopf devotes a chapter in her book Unpicking Gender: the social construction of gender in the Lanchasire cotton to ‘Weaving Fair and Weaving Free: England; Web of Destiny – Interweaving Shopfloor, Home and Street’.  Banners played an important part in the suffragette movement, being carried at marches and displaying detailed and colourful works of art, bearing emblems, names of campaigners and famous female figures and achievements.  

from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

In a pamphlet called "Banners and Banner-Making" written by Mary Lowndes meticulous advice is given upon the size and construction of suffragette banners, "the Artists' Suffrage League has invented a double hook, made on the lines of those used for Church banners, which is fixed to the upright pole at about one foot from the top and which prevents the banner from swinging round when carried; it can be obtained from the Secretary, price 6d."  The Women’s Library has an amazing collection of these, which includes one for Josephine Butler (1828-1906), who was recorded in a previous post: Greville MacDonald’s father, George MacDonald regarded her as a close friend.  She was a feminist particularly concerned with the welfare of prostitutes.  

from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

Banners were specially designed for the Women’s Trades and Profession Procession in 1909.  Although these banners were not confined to being woven as can be seen below.

from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

Schwarzkopf interprets the Haslemere banner as being produced by oppressed factory workers, which is at odds with the Haslemere Weaving Industry, but it is possible that the St Edmundsbury Weaving Works was less socially inclined, although it is noted that they gave staff paid holidays which was unusual at the time.

Women's Sunday March, 21 June 1908, from the Museum of London collection

Schwarzkopf reports that the weavers of the Haslemere banner: “used their work-related skills to produce an item the object of which was to proclaim to the public at large the extent to which they saw themselves as determining how their country fared economically. 

from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

Being employed in one of Brtiain’s key industries, they regarded her economic destiny as hinging upon both the volume and quality of the produce of their labour.  Yet their participation in the big London rally at the same time demonstrates that they felt their crucial role their country’s economy to be at odds with the recognition denied them as citizens. 

from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

 Significantly, on that march, they adopted a stand, not only as disenfranchised women, but also, in a marked display of self-confidence, as female weavers claiming the recognition they felt was due to them in their double role of skilled workers and women….the outstanding feature of the weavers’ banner was therefore its celebration of working women’s pride in their contribution to the well-being of the country articulated by the women themselves.”

A liberty goose delivering votes, from The Women's Library (London Metropolitan University), Suffrage Banners collection

 

Suffragette connections Part 7 - The Sisters

 Having examined some tangential suffragette connections, it is time to return to one of the most obvious connections that the Peasant Arts movement had with female empowerment: the leading roles assumed by Ethel Blount and Maude Egerton King, the sisters.

The Wheel and Spindle Club, Sandhouse, Witley.  Reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum

Above is a picture that I believe contains both sisters, however which is which is not clear!  Standing on the far right is definitely either Maude Egerton King or Ethel Blount.  The other sister may also be in the photo, perhaps sitting in the middle behind the wheel, looking downwards, as she appears to have similar facial features to the woman on the end.  King and Blount jointly ran the Wheel and Spindle Club (more on this below).

At the core of the sisters beliefs was the importance of home industry and the impact of this work upon spiritual well-being.  This is well demonstrated in Greville MacDonald’s first hand description of Maude Egerton King “she felt that the spiritual worth of spinning and weaving, of building chairs and tables, or of carving vessels or crucifixes for the home, was absolute…so the humblest home was to her more sacred than any church or shrine or altar” (MacDonald, Reminiscences of a Specialist, 1932).

Image from the exhibition 'Hand Made Tales: Women and Domestic Craft', The Women's Library, London

It is interesting to see the parallels behind Blount and King's views with those of today.  The current Women's Library exhibition, curated by Carol Tulloch is described as "a timely exhibition focusing on the role domestic crafts play in many women’s experiences. It draws on the connections between the current revival of domestic crafts such as sewing, gardening, and cooking and the historical roots of the domestic arts within the home."

Ethel Blount in The Story of the Homespun Web (1910) refers to the historical tradition of woman being “identified with her spindle as a man with his spear” and questions “is it so well for the world that women have given up their birthright of this lovely labour, and have left it to be done under the dark skies of factory hands?”.  Blount encourages readers to “accept the spindle, and all it means, nobly, remembering that you also are a part of Fate, spinning by your feelings and deeds the weal or woe of others”. 

Haslemere Weaving, illustration from Woolson, 'Revival of English Handicrafts: the Haslemere industries', The Craftsmen, January 1902

Having finished instructing the reader from the initial scouring of the fleece to weaving their first cloth, Blount declares “when you did but spin you were a spinster: now you are a wife, a weaver.  It has always been recognised as the higher, more worshipful position, and in old pictures it is ever the Queen who sits at the loom, weaving for her household, and he young maids and humbler folk who card and spin”.

The Peasants Arts movement was a close follower of Ruskin and Blount refers to Ruskin’s letter to young girls where he “asks them if they will be housewives or house-moths, Will they fret and consume things of life merely, or will they create and preserve? It is a question which may well be asked of our women to-day, for on their answer depends our civilisation. May they soon begin to choose to be housewives again, makers of homes as well as of cloth!" Blount envisages a women’s movement, not in line with Blatch’s need to vote, but need to weave “if but few can be found to try such a mode of life, let women take heart, and begin it by twos and threes, for more will assuredly follow in their footsteps.  What might not England be in even ten year’s time if women would turn their splendid energies and devotion to this re-conquest?” (Blount, The Story of the Homespun Web, 1910).

from Ethel Blount, The Story of the Homespun Web, 1910

This home-making enabled women to redefine themselves through design; Buckley connects this with linking their personal and political lives (Buckley, ‘On the Margins: Theorizing the History and Significance of Making and Designing Clothes at Home’, Journal of Design History, 11 (2), 1998).  Myzelev interprets such writing as claiming that “the movement, especially women’s efforts in reviving indigenous crafts, allowed them to emerge in the public realm, gain employment, and at times challenge the traditional binary division between male designer and female maker” Myzelev, Craft Revival in Haslemere: she, who weaves…Women's History Review, Vol 18, Issue 4, 2009). 

from Ethel Blount, The Story of the Homespun Web, 1910

An important part of Blount and King’s approach was to impart knowledge through teaching.  The Peasant Arts movement began when Maude Egerton King taught a few local women to weave at Lower Bertley, Witley in 1895 as part of a Home Arts and Industries Association (HAIA) class with some of their products being shown at the annual Home Arts exhibition in the Albert Hall later that year.  In 1898 there were four paid women weavers operating from the Weaving House in Foundry Meadow (Myzelev, Craft Revival in Haslemere: she, who weaves…, Women's History Review, Vol 18, Issue 4, 2009). 

The work conditions for employees were clearly very important to the Peasant Arts movement.  The Art Journal reported that “The Haslemere Weaving Industry, like that of the Peasant Arts Society, employs women and girls from the village, who are taught their craft, and who earn a home-industry wage at work that is pleasant to do, and done in pleasant surroundings.” (‘Haslemere Arts and Crafts’, Art Journal, 1906).

Peasant Arts leaflet header

Ethel Blount ran the Spinning and Weaving School at the Hall of St George in Foundry Meadow, a leaflet for the school proclaimed “This is work too which offers women an opportunity for self-expression, a want particularly felt to-day, when machinery has robbed their homes of so many vital and absorbing industries…The School is entirely disinterested, the promoters receiving no remuneration, and all profits going to further work.”

Ethel Blount and Maude Egerton King jointly ran the Wheel and Spindle Club which they established in 1912 at Sandhouse (the Kings large house in Witley).  Here they taught local girls aged between 7-14 years old to spin.  Blount and King reported on this venture that “To give a little girl the use of her hands is to bring a disinherited princess back into her kingdom” (‘Our experience of the Influence of Handicraft upon the Workers’, Peasant Arts Guild Paper, No. 10 , Ethel Blount and Maude E. King).