Making Lace in Devon: an Environmental and Social History From Handicraft to Mass Production

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Join us at the third Exeter University History Department/Friends of RAMM Annual Lecture with Professor Helen Berry, Head of the Department of History at the University of Exeter. Professor Berry specializes in British history from 1660 to 1830, from histories of production and consumption in Britain during the eighteenth century, to how global trade and economics shaped personal experiences, families and communities. RAMM has one of the finest collections of ‘Honiton’ lace, made by hand in East Devon and in other parts of the West Country from the seventeenth century to modern times. In this talk, historian Professor Helen Berry considers how the production of handmade lace by women and children changed from being a cottage industry located primarily in maritime communities with the arrival of cheaper mass-produced industrial lace. In the process of industrialisation, working people’s lives and communities changed. The demand for high-quality handmade lace was preserved only in certain areas, supplying rich consumers at times when (as in the making of royal wedding dresses) the fashion for handmade lace revived. In the long term, lacemaking was just one example of how a sustainable handicraft became a luxury industry, built on mass production that was costly in both human and environmental terms. Information about accessibility is available on our Access page.