Follow
Straw Plaiters
Image right A horse made of straw, XIXth century. Museum of Belarusian Folk Art
This is a universal project. Please add GENi profiles of Straw Plaiters to this project. Other related occupations include Hat Makers and Basket Makers - but these are separate occupations as Straw Plaiters were those who prepared straw for use in those industries.
Many women and young children were employed as Straw Plaiters in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Hertfordshire in the 19th century and before. This occupation had largely ended by the beginning of the 20th century when in 1907 the number of English plaiters was not more than a few hundreds compared with 30,000 in 1871.
Since the beginning of the 17th century the districts around Luton in Bedfordshire and the neighbouring counties were the British home of the straw-plait industry. The straw was cut as in ordinary harvesting, but allowed to dry in the sun, before binding. Straws were selected from the sheaves, and of the pipes of the two upper joints were taken for plaiting. The pipes were sorted into sizes by passing them through graduated openings in a grilled wire frame, and those of good colour bleached with sulphur fumes. Spotted and discoloured straws were dyed either in pipe or in plait. The plaiters worked up the material in a damp state, either into whole straw or split straw plaits. Split straws were prepared with the aid of a small instrument which had a projecting point which entered the straw pipe and split. The straws were put through a small mangle to flatten them. They were then braided to produce a woven strip which was sold on to the makers of hats, baskets etc.
The plaiting was carried out by women and children who were taught the skills in plait schools. At its peak in the early nineteenth century a woman could earn more by plaiting than a man could earn on the land.
The English industry was eventually killed by free trade from 1860 which allowed cheap imports of plait from Italy and later China and Japan.
History
The first record of straw hats in England comes from a 13th century illustrated manuscript which shows harvest workers wearing straw plaited hats. While straw was used in local crafts at an earlier date, the art of straw plaiting is said to have been brought to the area by James the First of England in about 1600, when some plaiters from Lorraine came to England where they were sheltered by the Napier family of Luton Hoo.
A clause in a Bill of 1689 was designed to encourage the wearing of woollen hats It resulted in a protest from those occupying around 100 square miles in the north-west of the Chilterns, who declared that a thousand families containing ‘fourteen thousand persons at least’ maintained themselves by making straw hats [REF 5]. There was a further petition in 1719
Corn Dollies
Corn dollies or corn mothers are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before mechanisation. - WIKI Corn Dollies
Getting Involved
Free to follow, request to collaborate
To join the project use the request link under "actions" at the top right of the page.
Visit
Geni's Project Plaza
Working with Projects
Wicked Wiki
Geni Wikitext, Unicode and images which gives a great deal of assistance.
See the discussion Project Help: How to add Text to a Project - Starter Kit to get you going!
Further Reading and References
- 5 The History of Straw Plait in Hertfordshire
- The children who plaited straw to increase the income of Dacorum’s poorest families
- Were your ancestors straw plaiters or hat makers?
- A map based on The case of the poor straw hat makers in the counties of Hertford, Bedford and Buckingham (1719) is included in C. M. Law, The Straw-plait and Straw-hat Industries of the South Midlands (A) Luton and the Hat Industry, published in The East Midland Geographer, volume 4, pages 329-341, 1968. Copy of first page of petition in L. L. Gróf, Children of Straw, Barracuda Books, Buckingham, 1987
- Thomas George Austin, The Straw Plaiting and Straw Hat and Bonnet Trade, Luton, 1871.
- J. Davies, Straw Plait, Shire Publications, Princes Risborough, 1981.
- The Straw Plaiters
- A History of Preston in Hertfordshire - Straw Plaiting
Further Research references
this project is in History Link 