Under the generic term of "workbox" the curios of the household associated with the industrial handiwork of former days may well be reviewed. There is no record of when receptacles for ladies' work were first introduced, although, no doubt, in very early days small oak boxes, carved, and bearing the owner's initials, and other indications of ownership, would be the chosen receptacles for the numerous oddments which are required in the practice and pursuit of every home handicraft, and especially those connected with plying the needle. There was a time, however, when the fabrics used in the making up of clothing were home-made, when the seamstress and the needleworker stitched and embroidered upon cloths spun if not actually woven by the housewife and her handmaidens. In the barrows containing remains of people of the Stone Age, and the peoples of the early Bronze Age, among the few ornaments and personal adornments buried with them were spinning whorls—the curiosities which remain to us of the earliest known form of textile craftsmanship.

Spinning Wheels.

In old pictures and woodblock engravings some curious illustrations are met with showing Englishwomen using the distaff. St. Distaff's Day was formerly the 7th of January, for it was then that the women resumed work after the Christmas festivities were over. The distaff and the spindle belonged to an age little understood now, and the occupations of the women of that date are almost forgotten. The spinning wheel was the outcome of the simpler distaff and spindle, and although the spinning wheels we find among the most interesting of household relics look primitive indeed compared with the complex machinery seen in the spinning mills to-day, those dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries must have been considered ingenious contrivances when compared with the older models, just as the latest types of sewing machines show a wonderful advance from the early machines invented in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Very clever indeed were many women in manipulating the spinning wheel, and there seems to have been some competitive contests for notoriety among country women, who found a pleasing though perhaps at times tedious occupation in spinning the wool for the local weaver who wove the home-made cloth. It is recorded that in 1745 a woman at East Dereham spun a single pound of wool into a thread of 84,000 yards. She was far outdistanced, however, a few years later, when a young lady at Norwich out of a pound of combed wool produced a thread computed to measure 168,000 yards.

To secure a fine spinning wheel is the ambition of collectors, and many ladies point with pride to the old relic placed in a position of honour on an oak chest of drawers, or, perhaps, standing on a coffer in the hall. An exceptionally fine wheel is shown in Fig. 72; it is one of many secured by Mr. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin. Another illustration is taken from a sketch of a spinning wheel in the Hull Museum (see Fig. 73). It appears that early in the nineteenth century Hull encouraged the training of domestic spinners, and at that time supported a spinning school. Apropos of that institution reference may appropriately be made to Hadley's "History of Hull," in which the historian, in reference to Sunday Schools, which had then quite recently been founded, says: "From the Sunday School reports for this year [1788] it seems they did not take. To whatever cause this may be attributed, it by no means warrants the aspersions thrown upon the town on that account, which has with equal ardour and wisdom espoused that useful establishment of Spinning Schools, in preference to a preposterous institution replete with folly, intolerance, fanaticism, and mischief." In explanation it has been remarked that, "Evidently wheels were plentiful in Hull and Sunday Schools a novelty." To-day we can reverse the statement, for schools are plentiful but spinning wheels are rare!

Collectors eagerly secure anything in the way of a genuine antique wheel, although the fastidious have the choice of two distinct types—those worked by hand and those operated by a treadle. Sometimes a spinning wheel made for the foot could be worked independently by the hand, just in the same way as modern sewing machines are made for hand or treadle, and sometimes a combination of both methods. The very general use of the spinning wheel is accounted for by the fact that this useful machine was met with in every cottage in the days when homespun yarns and wools were prepared by hand, and they were also found in the mansion and the palace, where they served to amuse the ladies of the household.

There are many varieties of spinning wheels, among them the old oak spinning wheels used in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the more decorative used until quite late in the eighteenth century, from their ornament and lightness, apparently used more for preparing the material for fancy work rather than for really utilitarian purposes. Some highly decorative spinning wheels inlaid with mother-o'-pearl and ivory have been brought over to this country from Holland and other continental countries, perhaps the most decorative being those made by French workmen in the Chinese style, the wood being lacquered blue and ornamented with gilt.

Mr. John Suddaby, who presented the spinning wheel we have illustrated to the Hull Wilberforce Museum, named after William Wilberforce, paid a high tribute to the famous philanthropist, who he declared to be associated with the spinning schools of the town. The old wheels of early date were gradually improved until they were rendered obsolete by the greater inventions of machines which could be worked by steam engines, thus originating the factory system of textile production.

Among the sundry curios associated with the spinning wheel are handsomely carved wood distaffs of boxwood, curiously turned spindles; and now and then a pewter vessel of circular form, puzzling in its identity, turns out to be the rim cup from the distaff of an old spinning wheel.

Materials and Work.

Old workboxes appear to be very numerous. The older ones were mostly of wood, but the external decoration seems to have been a matter of taste, some preferring inlays. In early days moulded plaster ornament, richly gilded and coloured, was much favoured, and in still earlier times deep relief carvings in the oak of which the boxes were made. In the Stuart and later periods ladies worked the exterior ornament in silks and satins and embroidery. Among the workboxes in the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a painted box in distemper and gilding, the subject chosen for the ornamentation of the lid being the story of David and Bathsheba, round the sides being floral devices. This decorative workbox has drawers and compartments, a sliding front facilitating their use.

In the same collection there are workboxes overlaid with straw work in geometrical patterns relieved by colour. Straw-work decoration was much favoured at the commencement of the nineteenth century, its origin being traceable to the French military prisoners in this country during the Napoleonic wars between the years 1797 and 1814, when many officers and men were detained at Porchester Castle, near Portsmouth, and at Norman Cross, near Peterborough. The grasses, of which the boxes were covered, were collected and dried by the prisoners, who obtained the different shades and tints which render this class of work so effective by steeping them in infusions of tea, according to a note by Dr. Strong, who visited the barracks at Norman Cross.

The workboxes, so rich in gilding and relief, came from Italy, when, as early as the year 1400, caskets were covered with a species of lime which was moulded, the gesso, as it was called, on a gilt ground of white compo, giving it a very rich effect. Leather was used with good effect, too, for the ornamentation of workboxes, red morocco being much favoured in England early in the nineteenth century. Fig. 76 illustrates three very beautiful little fitted boxes with inlaid ornament and straw work.

Little Accessories.

The contents of an old workbox are many and varied. Among the odds and ends it is no uncommon thing to find relics of lace-making, by which so many cottagers have been able to maintain themselves for generations.

There is something very remarkable about the manufacture of pillow lace, in that it is carried on in the villages of Buckinghamshire just as it was two or more centuries ago, and the pillow and the bobbins are almost identical in form and design—indeed, the patterns of the lace have changed little, for the workers cling tenaciously to the old designs, Flemish in their characteristics, just as they do to the old bobbins.

Some of these little spools or bobbins have been handed down from mother to daughter as heirlooms, and many of them carry a romantic story, if it were but known. Just as the Welsh lovespoons and the Sunderland glass rolling-pins were given as love tokens, many of these bobbins are the result of patient labour, their decoration having often been the work of days; ivory, bone, wood, and metal being cut and shaped, gilded and stained, in order to provide the favoured one with a bobbin unlike any other and quite distinctive in design. In the making of pillow lace, pins, cleverly placed so as to form the pattern, were inserted into the cushion, and the threads on a dozen or more bobbins deftly twisted in and out and tied round the pins. The glass beads, many of the older ones of odd shapes and colours, hand-made, made the first distinction, and their weight helped to keep the light turned wood bobbins in place. It was the bobbins which were ornamental, and some of the older ones—those made in the eighteenth century—are very decorative, and now much sought after by collectors. Those illustrated in Fig. 74 have been selected from a large collection for their representative types: (A) is the oldest; the ornament is of pewter let into the wood, it has a very small spool; (B) is ivory, the incised parts stained green; (C) is bone, the incised pattern filled in with gold beaten into a thin plate; (D) is also of bone with a band of brass and coloured inlays; (E) walnut wood, turned in the deep grooves are six loose silver rings, some of the heads are of brass gilt; (F) the most modern type, such as may be seen in use in Buckinghamshire to-day, the present revival of the hand-made lace industry being due to the efforts of the North Bucks Lace Association. Of such handwork Cowper wrote:—

The lace-maker, and the housewife who occupied her leisure moments in lace-making, left behind many collectable curios. The worker of samplers and those advanced in the higher arts of needlecraft had also their little work necessaries. Very clever indeed were the workers of silk-embroidered pictures, and the instruments they used were fine and delicate, different indeed from the coarser needles of the knitter and the meshes of the netter. In later years the workbox became more substantial, and less attention was given to the exterior, for the interior fittings of the workbox became beautiful, and a wealth of art was shown in the carving of the ivory accessories, and the pearl tops of the thread and silk reels and winders and the curious little wax holders. There were cleverly contrived measuring tapes, and beautiful little baskets of ivory and wood, some filled with emery, others serving the purpose of receptacles for pins and needles. From these evolved the needlebooks and the more modern companions.

In Fig. 77 are shown several beautiful oddments taken out of an old workbox; they are all made of ivory, carved and fretted in such delicate tracery that it is a wonder that they have survived for a century or more without injury. Ivory work holders, in which ladies rolled their needlework when they went out to tea, were often beautifully carved; they, too, are charming additions to ivory workbox fittings.

Cutlery.

The cutler has contributed to the curios of the workbox. The knives and scissors, bodkins, and stilettos from an old workbox look strangely out of date when compared with those bought in the shops to-day. The chief thing that is so noticeable to the critical observer is the cutting of the steel and the hand ornamentation of those days. Some of the embroidery scissors were engraved all over with fancy patterns, and there are some remarkably quaint button-hole scissors, on which the owner's name or initials were often engraved.

Some time ago an old lady made a small collection of thimbles. It was not a very expensive hobby, but the variety she secured was truly remarkable. There were thimbles of bone, ivory, steel, brass, enamel, silver, and even gold. Some were chased and engraved, some stamped and punched. There were thimbles of huge size and others with open ends, the same that sailors use.

It is said that the thimble dates back to 1684, when one Nicholas Benschoten, of Amsterdam, sent one as a present to a lady friend with the dedicatory inscription: "To My frouw van Rensclear this little object which I have invented and executed as a protective covering for her industrious fingers." It is said the name in this country was originally "thumb-bell," so called because of the shape being of bell-like form. Of the thimbles of the wealthy it is recorded there are thimbles of onyx, mother-o'-pearl, and of gold, encrusted with rubies and diamonds—the seamstress has, however, to be content with useful if less costly "baubles."

Quaint Woodwork.

By way of contrast the outfit of the worker often includes wooden needles and occasionally utensils made of wood, but covered with evidences of love and tender regard for those who were destined to use them. The knitter seems to have been peculiarly fortunate, for knitting sticks and sheaths afforded the amateur carver ample opportunities of showing his skill; and, like the carved lovespoons, of which there is such a famous collection in the Cardiff Museum, the knitting sheaths and sticks seem to indicate that in a similar way the amorous swain gave vent to his feelings in the curious designs, mottoes, and names which he carved upon knitting sticks and kindred objects used by the lady of his choice. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are some beautiful boxwood needle sticks; one example is cleverly carved with emblems of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Another beautiful needle stick in the same collection is mounted with silver. On some of the woodwork used for similar purposes there are cleverly designed pictures, and these were not always associated with private use, for the clothworkers in many districts used quite fanciful tools, especially in the villages, where time was of small moment, and the long winter evenings could be occupied with cutting and carving the handles and framework of the tools which in everyday practice served such a useful and often wage-earning purpose. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a remarkable cloth-measure made of walnut, bearing date 1745, three-sided, one being covered over with letters of the alphabet cut in deep relief, thus serving a useful purpose in the home or as an educational standard. On the second side there are cleverly designed pastoral and hunting scenes, and on the third the arms of the Swiss cantons. Other portions of the measure illustrate the implements and tools used by clothworkers at that period.

Switzerland has long been famous for its wood carving, and many of the curios found in this country have come from the Swiss mountain villages. No doubt some of our readers have come across the old pin poppets which boys and girls carried with them to the village school half a century or more ago. The girls filled them with pins and needles, bodkin and stiletto, and the boys with pencils and pens. In Fig. 75 two curious old pin boxes are illustrated. The pins shown on the same page are, however, of much older date; they are, in fact, merely thorns; these interesting and authentic relics of the "common objects of the home," or perhaps more correctly described, of dress, are to be seen in the National Collection of Wales at Cardiff, the measuring stick shown in the photograph giving their size. The pin poppet, as its name denotes, was, however, intended originally for the requirements of the early needleworker who at the dames' school won renown in those great achievements—the samplers of old. These, however, do not exhaust the wood-carving curios of the workbox, but they may serve to remind collectors of what they may hope to discover in their hunt for household curios.

The Needlewoman.

The curiosities much prized to-day, the work of the needlewoman, or those who plied the needle chiefly for purposes of amusement or to give pleasure to those on whom they bestowed the products of their skill, are met with in many distinct forms. This is not a work on needlework, or we might tell of the various stitches which are indicative of certain periods. It is, however, admissible to mention some of the household curios, the product of such patient labour applied to the skilful manipulation of silks and threads and cottons and wools, of all colours and substances, embroidered or worked on canvas or other fabric.

The mistresses of the old English homes were very industrious. They worked crewel bed hangings and cross-stitch and tent-stitch upholstery in the seventeenth century, and in still earlier times richly ornamented linens and other fabrics with flowers and scriptural subjects. Writing in reference to Queen Mary, the wife of William III, Sir Charles Sedley said:—

And her example was followed by many in humbler circumstances. In later years women have wrought needlework and beadwork pictures, and have even threaded their needles with human hair when no silk could be found fine enough.

Of the permanent ornaments of the home—now valued curios—there are cases formerly used on a lady's toilet table, embroidered with floss silk and frequently dated. Some were made to hold devotional books, others were portable boxes, the covers of which were worked on white satin with coloured silks and beads, oftentimes scriptural scenes being depicted in silk; one very favourite scene in the seventeenth century was the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.

Many beautifully embroidered trinket boxes record the patience with which they were worked, and were undoubtedly a labour of love. Among the smaller objects, gifts from friend to friend, were pincushions, some of which bear dates in the seventeenth century. These were worked in coloured silks on canvas, the ornament often taking the form of a fruit or flower basket, birds and insects. The favourite material and colour for the back of such pincushions was yellow satin. A rather pleasing variety consisted of bag and pincushion worked to match, the two being united by a cord of plaited silk. Of purses there were many varieties, chiefly made of coarse canvas worked in cross and tent stitches with coloured silks and silver threads, couched or laid over silver thread, and then stitched to the canvas concealing it. There are also miniature pincushions worked in silk like the old samplers and brocade pocket books, some of which were woven in France in the seventeenth century. There are also holdalls and needle cases in embroidery and cross stitch. The favourite colours worked by English ladies in the eighteenth century were pink, orange, and light green. On these were often worked mottoes and rhyme. One will serve as a sample:—

Loyal mottoes were frequently worked, especially during the days when the Pretenders were carrying on their hopeless campaign. There is a subtle reminder of the desire to make known loyal feelings, intermixed with prudence in concealing them, in the quaint embroidered garter in the British Museum which is inscribed "GOD BLESS P.C."

To smokers were given embroidered tobacco pouches in green, pink, and silver; one charming old beadwork tobacco pouch in Taunton Castle is embroidered "LOVE ME FOR I AM THINE, 1631." There were necklaces and bracelets of needlework, and some of coloured glass beads, as well as the long watchguards worn round the neck, chiefly of the nineteenth century.

Old Samplers.

Old samplers may well be regarded as educational, belonging to the schoolroom as well as to the workbox. They were intended to teach needlework, and served as reminders of alphabets, sums, and mapping. Many worked in silk on yellow linen in the eighteenth century were quite elaborate pieces of needlework. Those of the seventeenth century, chiefly of linen, were much cruder and simpler in design. During the latter half of the eighteenth century samplers were mostly worked on canvas or sampler cloth, a material which was used almost as long as samplers were in fashion. Different stitches were employed; there was the early drawn and cut work, and then the silk embroidery showing the girl's acquirement of the darning stitch.

Some early tapestry maps are numbered among the educational curios in which samplers are so prominent. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society own two unique specimens of sixteenth-century tapestry, formerly in the possession of Horace Walpole. They measure about 16 ft. by 12 ft., the sections including Herefordshire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and a part of Berkshire. These remarkable maps are vividly coloured and show excellent pictorial scenes indicating villages, parks, and country seats. Such maps are rare, but now and then really interesting examples of needlework mapping are met with.

Collectors keep an eye on preservation, but they are keen on dated specimens, and those with ornate and quaintly picturesque borders. The condition adds to the beauty, but not always to the value, for many of the older and less well-preserved samplers are now becoming scarce. They have been retained by those who have no interest in antiques because they bore the name of some fair ancestress who lived and worked on her sampler more than a century ago, leaving it behind as a memorial of her skill in the use of a needle for future generations to admire. How many ladies of the twentieth century are preparing permanent records of their skill in needlework for those who are to come to hand on to generations unborn? is a question some may like to ponder.