Mourning apparel in the Victorian Era
During the Victorian Era wearing proper attire was one of the most important aspects of mourning. If a widow were to step outside of her house without a mourning veil during the first year after the death of her husband, it implied that she either did not know the rules or was so unfeeling that she did not need to grieve. Either caused talk and raised eyebrows. Keeping up on mourning fashion and etiquette was a full time job, and failing in that job created social issues. Thankfully, the middle class housewife had help in the form of mourning emporiums. Two of the most famous were Jay's Mourning Warehouse and Peter Robinson's Court and Family Mourning Warehouse, affectionately known by shoppers as Black Peter's. Both Jay's and Black Peter's offered to attend the bereaved at home with "lady fitters and the latest patterns and styles and a large selection of ready to wear merchandise." This was a great comfort to women who recently lost a family member. With the help of shop assistants, they were assured that all the goods necessary made it home with them. Mourning fashion was dominated by what was occurring in court circles and mourning warehouses took their cues from Queen Victoria and the fashion magazines that encouraged women to conform to idealized versions of middle class respectability.
Queen Victoria and the cult of mourning
Mass media created a window into the life of Queen Victoria and her family. The little monarch’s popularity waxed and waned during her long reign, but public interest in her life did not. Queen Victoria represented respectability and security in a world that often had little of either. Her daily presence in the lives of middle class women created the idea that there was an intimate and personal connection between the Queen and her subjects. When her husband, Prince Albert, died unexpectedly in 1861 those subjects felt the loss with her. The Prince's death created a lasting wound in the heart of the Queen from which she never fully recovered and she began a long process of mourning that lasted for the rest of her life. Middle class woman, used to looking to her example in matters of etiquette, followed her lead. Mourning rituals and rules had always existed, but they became more complicated during the second half of the 19th century. Proper completion of many of those rituals almost always necessitated a trip to the local mourning emporium where helpful staff were happy to sell middle class women all the accoutrements necessary for proper grieving.
The uniform of grief
Perception was everything to the Victorian middle class woman. Women were judged by the contents of their parlor, the cleanliness of their home, and the clothing they wore. Wearing the proper clothing was never more important than when it involved mourning. Widows had at least two years of structured mourning to fulfill before they were allowed to move on. The first stage of mourning was full or first mourning. This lasted for a year and a day and consisted of wearing dull black dress, usually made of paramatta, and covered in crape. Attending social events was forbidden, although church service was allowed as were family visits. However, proper widows donned a full veil of crape whenever they left the house. The next stage was second mourning, which lasted six to nine months. In this stage dresses made of silk were re-introduced and full crape was removed from gowns. However, women were expected to continue to wear crape tucks, which consisted of crape material gathered into bunches at intervals, on their dresses. At this point jewelry was allowed as long as it was mourning jewelry. Following the lead of Queen Victoria, many widows never left this stage. Instead they continued to wear black silk dresses and black mourning caps lined with white lace. Half mourning was the final stage and lasted three to six months. During the stage the widow wore muted colors such as violet, navy, and dark green. Any jewelry could be worn at this stage.
"The first degree of mourning is of course that of a widow: the dress is always of paramatta entirely covered with crape to within an inch or two of the waist, the crape being in one piece, not in separate tucks, for the first nine months. If after this period it requires renewing, it may be put on in two deep tucks, with about an inch space between them, but must come up as high on the skirt as before. The sleeves are tight to the arm, the body entirely covered with crape, and deep lawn cuffs and collar are worn.".
"The first degree of mourning is of course that of a widow: the dress is always of paramatta entirely covered with crape to within an inch or two of the waist, the crape being in one piece, not in separate tucks, for the first nine months. If after this period it requires renewing, it may be put on in two deep tucks, with about an inch space between them, but must come up as high on the skirt as before. The sleeves are tight to the arm, the body entirely covered with crape, and deep lawn cuffs and collar are worn.".
Mourning: not just for widows
The rules of mourning did not just apply to widows. Following proper protocol was important to anyone who lost a relative. The list of how long each relative should be mourned was long and complicated and often changed based on closeness of relationship The standard length of mourning for a parent was a year, the same for the parent of a spouse. A sibling required a commitment of six months while tree months for an aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew sufficed. A great uncle or aunt only needed two months of mourning while a cousin was limited to six weeks and a second cousin only three weeks, unless there was a special relationship which extended mourning time. This does not take into account complimentary mourning, which had a whole different set of rules. For example, if a mother's married son or daughter lost an in-law then the mother wore complimentary mourning for six weeks and half mourning for six more. Length of time spent in mourning varied. Confused yet? Just imagine keeping track of all the rules during a time when death rates were higher knowing that a misstep meant raised eyebrows and whispering. There were even rules governing what type of material mourning dresses were made of and how many inches between tucks of crape were necessary. In addition, many housewives were responsible for making sure their family and servants were properly clothed during mourning. No wonder mourning was such a big business and required so much thought and effort. Most middle-class women relied on magazines and mourning emporiums to help guide them through the minefield of proper mourning etiquette because, as they all knew, wearing the wrong thing opened a woman to judgment from friends and relatives.
Shop assistants at the ready to fill your mourning needs
Death was a profitable enterprise for mourning emporiums. Jay's and Black Peter Robinsons were the two most well know shops on Regent Street, but they were joined by Pugh's Mourning Warehouse, Nicholson Brothers, and many other small shops that catered to the needs of the bereaved. These retailers went to extreme measures to draw customers into their stores. and away from the competition. A staff member at Peter Robinsons recalled:
...Black Peter's brougham, always at the ready, harnessed, to dash off at a message from a house of mourning. The coachmen were in black from head to foot with crape hat bands and arm bands, and whips with crape bows. Two lady fitters, also clad completely in black, sat in the brougham, equipped with patterns and designs.
Black Peter's also installed a telephone in 1892 to facilitate quick visits to homes with recent death. The number was London 3557 and it did not matter to anyone that few customers had a way to call the store. Peter Robinsons was not alone in using extreme tactics to sell goods. Jay's hired RIchard Davey to write A History of Mourning.. He covered funeral and mourning practices from the Ancient Egyptians down to the 19th century Victorians. He ended by calling Jay's, "a mart unique for both the quality and nature of its attributes. They buy directly from the manufactures and supply it to their patrons with the very smallest modicum of profit." The Nicholson Brothers also created a book on mourning etiquette that they handed out to customers. None of these practices were undertaken with any thought other than driving sales. It was in the best interests of the emporiums to keep mourning rituals complicated in order to sell goods to the middle class who felt obligated to purchase them in order to keep up appearances.
Latest mourning fashions as seen in
The Season Lady's Illustrated Magazine
Magazines often put drawings of the latest fashions with detailed analyses of the dresses. An 1887 issue of The Season Lady's Illustrated Magazine included several drawings of mourning attire for the grief stricken, yet still fashionable, shopper.
"As shown, the drapery caught up over the plain cashmere skirt is composed of five widths of crape and four of cashmere each 19 3/4 inches wide and 1 yard 13 inches long. The front of the bodice closed at the side is trimmed with a plastron of cross bands of crape sewn to a sharp point in the middle. Close rows of dull black wooden beads margin the outer edge of the plastron.. Cap-shaped capote trimmed with crape veil hemmed wide at both ends, turned over half the length and arranged in two deep pleats at the sides and hanging down below the waist."
Mourning etiquette, advice, and magazines
Magazines often included articles on mourning for confused readers. They were written for women and offered helpful hints and advice on following protocol. Often these articles called into question the judgment of any woman not following proper mourning rules.. The writer of the piece excerpted here went so far as to claim that society might fall because of selfish women who refused to following the rules of mourning. This kind of advice was often needed by middle class women who were confused by the rules regarding mourning, Rules that were often further complicated by businesses who had a vested interest in keeping middle class women coming into their mourning emporiums.
(opening and closing paragraphs, for full text please see attachment at the end of this section)
"We are constantly receiving inquiries respecting both the depth and duration of mourning which it is correct to wear for relatives of different degrees and we think, therefore, that it may not be uninteresting to the majority of our readers if we publish a short article on the subject, as all are tolerably certain at some time or another to be called upon to mourn the decease of some relative.
"We could draw the attention of those objectors to a fact, often quoted but worth nevertheless of reiteration, that one of the marked signs of the times prior to the Great Revolution was the display of the heartlessness of the French aristocracy who first curtailed the orthodox period of mourning for their nearest relative and then discarded the outward signs of woe altogether. When we hear the remarks of those who imagine that mourning is unbecoming to them, remarks which may be only thoughtless, but which, in the judgment of sensible bystanders, stamp their utters as entirely devoid of all feeling, we wonder with a shudder whether these, too, are signs of the times to be followed by as awful a retribution."
A call for common sense in mourning
There were groups who were appalled by the spiraling expense of participating in the mourning customs of the Victorian Era. They called for a return to common sense as the list of clothing and merchandise necessary to mourning increased. In 1889 Frederick Lawrence, secretary of the Mourning Reform Association, was quoted in Jackson's Oxford Journal arguing that:
. . no special mourning attire, no crape, no funeral trappings, no costly or durable coffin, no carriages except for the old and weak, no bricked grave or vault, no unnecessary show, no feasting, no treating, no avoidable expense. The immediate friends and neighbours can make the occasion of a death, rather than a wedding, an opportunity for tendering personal service, and making useful presents and gifts of money. The charitable rich can convert their family vaults into earthen plots, set an example of simplicity and economy in every details of funeral ceremonial, use floral decoration sparingly, and make provision of suitable cemeteries a special object to be aimed at in the near future.
Despite the calls for moderation, mourning rituals continued to be a major part of life in the Victorian Era. Many middle class households subsisted on a strict budget and guides on how to live on
£200 were extremely popular. Yet the middle class never considered curtailing the expenses related to purchasing mourning goods even though they often stretched the household budget beyond the breaking point. The thought of not presenting a persona fully immersed in mourning was horrifying to someone who believed that love and attachment were proven by such displays. Additionally, buying such goods gave middle class women the appearance of propriety and prosperity. In a culture where appearance was vitally important there was no way a middle class housewife wouldn't stretch her budget to ensure she and her family followed proper mourning protocol. Articles in women's magazines did pay lip service to the idea of not over spending on morning goods, but they often went on to share etiquette tips on procedure and proper dress. Such advice almost always warned that not participating could lead to judgment. Middle class women got the message and continued to copy the practices of the wealthiest members of society regardless of cost. The businesses that sold mourning goods knew this and used advertising to sell the idea that buying the right kind of merchandise created middle class respectability.
Further Readings
A History of Mourning
https://archive.org/stream/historyofmournin00daveuoft#page/2/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/historyofmournin00daveuoft#page/2/mode/2up
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