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Basket Makers
Image Right Blind Basket-makers (The Graphic, Baldry) by Hubert von Herkomer 1871
A Basket maker is someone skilled in weaving baskets - usually making wicker and reed products. Sometimes known as basket-weaver
Basket weaving, basketry, or basket making is the process of weaving pliable materials into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basket makers and basket weavers.
Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials—anything that will bend and form a shape. Examples include pine straw, stems, animal hair, hide, grasses, thread, and fine wooden splints - willow.
This is a universal project. Please add GENi profiles of Basketmakers and those involved in associated occupations to this project. (See list below)
Basketry is classified into four types, according to Catherine Erdly: [Erdly, Catherine. "History". Basket Weaving. Retrieved 2008-05-08.]
- Coiled basketry - using grasses and rushes
- Plaiting basketry - using materials that are wide and braidlike: palms, yucca or New Zealand flax
- Twining basketry - using materials from roots and tree bark. Twining actually refers to a weaving technique where two or more flexible weaving elements ("weavers") cross each other as they weave through the stiffer radial spokes.
- Wicker and Splint basketry - using reed, cane, willow, oak, and ash
Related and alternate occupations;
- Basketman who made baskets and furniture from wicker, and also employed to empty the basket of coal being offloaded from the colliers into the barges
- Osier Peeler - one who removed bark from willow rods or osiers which were used in basket weaving, usually women and children (also known as withy peelers)
- Pad Maker – made small baskets used for measuring
- Ripper/Rippier – one who sold fresh water fish at the markets or maker and seller of baskets
- Straw Plaiters
- Swell Maker – one who made shallow baskets
- Trugger – one who made long shallow baskets - found in Sussex
- Wicker-worker
- Willow Plaiter or Weaver - one who made baskets
History
The ancient Britons made baskets from the time of the Romans - many were exported to Rome. Baskets are made either of rushes, splinters, or willows. Willows are also called osiers or sallows according to their growth. They thrive best in moist places. Osier beds were divided into plots six, eight, or ten feet wide, separated by by narrow ditches. Osiers was usually cut when three years old, but yellow barked osiers were left a year longer.
After the osiers were cut, those intended for white-work, (e.g. baskets used for washing), were stripped of their bark or rinds while green. They were then dried and put in bundles for sale. Before they are used for basket work they were soaked in water, making them flexibility. The basketmaker would usually sit on the ground, unless the baskets were too large for him to reach their upper parts whilst sitting.
Hampers and other coarse work were made of osiers without any previous preparation except soaking. Some expert workmen made a variety of articles - work-baskets of different descriptions, table mats, fruit baskets for desserts, etc.
Basket weaving is one of the widest spread crafts in the history but because of the perishable natural materials lused the articles decay naturally. Without proper preservation most of the history of basket making has been lost and is simply speculated upon.
The oldest known baskets have been carbon dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years old, discovered in Faiyum in upper Egypt. Other baskets have been discovered in the Middle East that are up to 7,000 years old. The most common evidence of a knowledge of basketry is an imprint of the weave on fragments of clay pots, formed by packing clay on the walls of the basket and firing.
During the Industrial Revolution, baskets were used in factories and for packing and deliveries. Wicker furniture became fashionable in Victorian society.
During the World Wars, thousands of baskets were used for transporting messenger pigeons. There were also observational balloon baskets, baskets for shell cases and airborne pannier baskets used for dropping supplies of ammunition and food to the troops. [Lynch, Kate. "From cradle to grave: willows and basketmaking in Somerset". BBC. Retrieved 2008-05-09.]
References, Sources and Further Reading
- History.org Frontier trades
- Woven Communities - Basketmaking Communities in Scotland
- 19th Century Basket making in New England
- WIKI Basket Weaving
- "The Young Tradesman" ©1839
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