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1819 Pelisse Coat: A Modern Reproduction »

The Life of a Needlewoman in the 19th Century

February 18, 2009 by Vic

young-girl-of-spirit-constance-hillIn December 1859, Florence Nightingale wrote this letter of recommendation to Parthenope Verney:

My dear [Parthenope Verney]

It occurred to me after writing yesterday if you are going to set up a needlewoman under the housekeeper, Mary Jenkins, Bathwoman, Dr. W. Johnson’s, Great Malvern, has a niece, living at Oxford, a first-rate needlewoman, eldest girl of a very large family, who wants or wanted a place. If she is at all like my good old friend, her aunt, she would be a very valuable servant. Perhaps her needlework would be almost too good for your place. I believe she is a qualified “young lady’s maid,” though when I heard of her, she had never been “out,” i.e., in service. Perhaps she has a place. I think it answers very well in a large house to have as much as possible done at home, as little as possible “put out.”

This domestic job as needlewoman – mending, embroidering, making clothes – sounds benign compared to the custom of the Regency and Victorian eras to overwork seamstresses. While plying the needle was a common domestic activity (Jane Austen was known to possess a particular talent in this direction), working class seamstresses were appallingly overworked and underpaid, especially during the heyday of the Industrial Revolution. Many women toiled for long hours in poor lighting conditions, with some going blind from their employment. An apprentice seamstress in a milliner’s shop worked under slightly better conditions, but during the Season when demand for new and fashionable dresses was high, these women would also be pressed to work into the wee hours of the night to complete an order.

The above illustration of Jane Austen sewing comes from Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her Friends by Constance Hill. In Chapter XX, Constance makes the following observation about Jane Austen’s skill as a needlewoman:

Her needlework was exquisite. We have seen a muslin scarf embroidered by her in satin-stitch, and have held in our hands a tiny housewife of fairy-like proportions, which Jane worked at the age of sixteen as a gift for a friend. It consists of a narrow strip of flowered silk, embroidered at the back, which measures four inches by one and a quarter, and is furnished with minikin needles and fine thread. At one end there is a tiny pocket, containing a slip of paper upon which are some verses in diminutive handwriting with the date “Jany. 1792.” The little housewife, when rolled up, is tied with narrow ribbon. “Having been never used and carefully preserved, it is as fresh and bright as when it was first made.

For more on this topic, click on my other post The Life of a Seamstress.

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Posted in Fashions, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency World, Servants, Sewing, Victorian Era | Tagged 19th Century Seamstress, Needlework and sewing, Needleworman, Seamstress, Sewing, Working class | 5 Comments

5 Responses

  1. on February 18, 2009 at 18:34 Amy @ Passages to the Past

    There is an award waiting for you on my blog!


  2. on February 18, 2009 at 19:12 Just the Best of Jane Austen « Coffee Tea And We

    […] Today, Jane Austen World is sharing on needlework […]


  3. on February 19, 2009 at 07:47 A Homely Heroine

    This is a really interesting post, it’s so easy to forget that sewing wasn’t just a pastime for the gentry-folk. have you read Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton – it contains a small sup plot in which Mary is an overworked dressmaker apprentice, and stays up all night helping her friend sew funeral clothes for poor neighbours, and the friend is losing her sight. Sounds very dreary, but its a good book ; )


  4. on April 14, 2009 at 23:14 Jennifer Forest

    I found ‘Mary Barton’ by Elizabeth Gaskell very interesting. After reading and re-reading Jane Austen I became fascinated by women’s experiences in her time and later into the Victorian era. Elizabeth Gaskell’s books were great for that, in a way many other Victorian writers didn’t focus on women so much (though I’ve found her books can be a bit hard to find!) Sewing really was such a key part of women’s work, for women right across society from apprentices, to dressmakers, to servants and to gentlewomen who sewed clothes for their family or the poor.


  5. on November 5, 2010 at 17:43 John Bibby

    One relevant fact (I’m surprised it was not mentioned): Florence Nightingale (b.1820) and Parthenope Verney (b.1819) were sisters.



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