This article was written by Janis Savage for publication in 'The Bulletin' of the International Organisation of Lace, Inc. and is reproduced here with permission of the author.
In the second half of the 19th century a number of European countries were in a race to conquer and rule parts of Africa. Britain had annexed The Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa, causing the Dutch farmers (Boers) to trek north to keep their independence. They established 2 independent states, The Orange Free State and the Transvaal. However, after the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley, the Boers had to accept British rule again.
The First Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881), was a short rebellion of Boers against British rule in the Transvaal, that re-established their independence and was the only war that was lost by the British in the 19th century. The Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), by contrast, was a lengthy war. The British, once again, wanted to annex the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, due to the discovery of large gold deposits in the Transvaal. Within months the 2 capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria had fallen to the British but the Boers continued with their guerrilla warfare. The British response was to destroy the Boer farms and round up all the women and children and put them in concentration camps to prevent them from providing food and shelter to the fighting men.
Emily Hobhouse was born in Cornwall, England and, after the death of her mother, spent 14 years as a dutiful daughter, caring for her clergyman father. She was 34 when he died and after a disastrous three years in America, where she tried to persuade the Cornish miners in Minnesota to sign the pledge, got engaged to a most unsuitable man, bought a ranch in New Mexico and lost most of her fortune in a speculative venture, she returned to England alone.
In early 1900 she became aware of the situation in South Africa and the desperate plight of the women and children in the concentration camps. She set up The Distress Fund for South African Women and Children and, in December of that year, set sail for South Africa to supervise the distribution of the funds collected. She was able to purchase 12 tons of supplies and set off by rail to visit some of the camps. She was horrified at the conditions in the camps that she visited but did what she could to provide the necessities to the women and alleviate their suffering. She lobbied the authorities for soap and better sanitary conditions and more suitable rations for the children. When she returned to England for more funds, she was ostracised by the British government, and the public, for supporting the enemy. She persevered though and raised enough money to return to South Africa in October 1901. When the ship reached Cape Town, she was not allowed to disembark and after 5 days she was carried forcibly to a departing ship and deported back to England.
She did not forget about the plight of the women and children though and, when the war was over Emily travelled again to South Africa in 1903, to provide what relief she could to the women and children released from the camps and returning to their ruined homes. 30,000 farmhouses had been destroyed and out of 110,000 inmates, 26,251 women and children and 1,676, mostly elderly, men had died in the camps. When the prisoners-of-war returned from camps in other parts of the British Empire, they had to start their lives over again from scratch.
In December of that year, she returned again to England with the idea of starting a lace making industry for the Boer women and girls. She considered that lacemaking was a refined and educative occupation, demanding patience, extreme cleanliness, absolute thoroughness, delicacy of workmanship and an appreciation of design. With her usual thoroughness she started to acquire hand-made lace examples from shops and collectors of lace and then went on a fact-finding visit to Venice, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges and Ireland. It was while in Ireland that Alice Stopford-Green, an activist in the Irish Nationalist movement, persuaded her to switch her allegiance from lace to spinning and weaving, a more practical activity, and, furthermore, would make use of South Africa’s staple product, wool. So, the first spinning school was planned.
In February 1905, Emily and Margaret Clarke from a wealthy Quaker family, sailed back to Cape Town with fifty crates of spinning wheels. Mrs Isabella Steyn was the wife of the President of the Orange Free State and supported Emily’s efforts. Her father, a pastor at Philippolis, donated a small house and workroom but the two women had a hard task to set up their school as they were both amateurs at spinning, but with help from well-wishing locals they persevered and by March had their first 6 pupils. The number of pupils increased to 16 and they eventually produced an acceptable product. Emily then decided that it was time to open a school in Johannesburg, and moved there. Miss Picard,from England, a trained teacher of spinning took over the running of Philippolis and improved the quality of their work. Emily’s appeal for more spinning wheels brought a shipload from Switzerland, Germany and France until eventually there were 16 spinning schools in the Transvaal and 12 in the Free State.
An exhibition was held in Johannesburg in 1906 and in Cape Town in 1908 where rugs, tapestries and blankets were for sale as well as bales of Philippolis tweed, although, those who had suits made from the tweed, including members of parliament and Jan Smuts himself, found it rather scratchy, they considered it their duty to wear it to support the schools. The cloth could never be as smooth as English Tweed as South African sheep had a short staple hair so it could not be spun as smoothly as the wool from the long haired English sheep.
With the schools now running successfully and the administration of them being taken over by government officials, Emily was reluctantly planning to return to England. The high altitude and the heavy work schedule that she had set herself had ruined her health.
She did not intend to retire though and revived her plan to start a lace making school. Before returning to England she was invited to spend a holiday at the Rood family farm in the district of Ermelo. This was where she met the young nineteen-year-old Johanna Rood and was so impressed with her that she asked Johanna to help with the founding of a lace making school. When Johanna objected, Emily said to her “I am not asking you for your skills in lacemaking, but for your personality and character. It is young women like you who will work without fuss, that are needed.” So Johanna accompanied Emily to England in October 1908 and early in 1909 they travelled to Italy, to research the lace making industry.
They spent almost a year in Italy, seeking out places where they could learn to make lace and how to administer a lace industry. Their destinations included Venice and the Burano School of Lace where they learned to make lace with a needle and thread.. Needle Lace had been made on Burano since the 16th century, and under the guidance of the Countess Andriana Marcello, Burano became a centre for needlelace from 1903 until 1972. The school was reopened as a museum in 1988.
Next stop was Bologna. An earlier Aemilia Ars Company, founded in 1898, by the architect Alphonso Rubbiano, in a bid to revive the pre-industrial world, failed and closed down. However, the Countess Lina Cavazza founded the Aemilia Ars Cooperative of Lace and Embroidery in 1903 and it became very successful. She taught the little net stitch (Reticello) and set such high standards for the work and the administration that it was the natural place for Emily and Johanna to learn these skills. The early Aemilia Ars designs were taken from the pattern books published in the 16th century, as that was considered to be the high point of Italian style and taste. Alfonso Rubbiano stayed on to produce new designs for the embroiderers. Aemilia is an ancient region of southern Italy.
The First Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881), was a short rebellion of Boers against British rule in the Transvaal, that re-established their independence and was the only war that was lost by the British in the 19th century. The Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), by contrast, was a lengthy war. The British, once again, wanted to annex the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, due to the discovery of large gold deposits in the Transvaal. Within months the 2 capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria had fallen to the British but the Boers continued with their guerrilla warfare. The British response was to destroy the Boer farms and round up all the women and children and put them in concentration camps to prevent them from providing food and shelter to the fighting men.
Emily Hobhouse was born in Cornwall, England and, after the death of her mother, spent 14 years as a dutiful daughter, caring for her clergyman father. She was 34 when he died and after a disastrous three years in America, where she tried to persuade the Cornish miners in Minnesota to sign the pledge, got engaged to a most unsuitable man, bought a ranch in New Mexico and lost most of her fortune in a speculative venture, she returned to England alone.
In early 1900 she became aware of the situation in South Africa and the desperate plight of the women and children in the concentration camps. She set up The Distress Fund for South African Women and Children and, in December of that year, set sail for South Africa to supervise the distribution of the funds collected. She was able to purchase 12 tons of supplies and set off by rail to visit some of the camps. She was horrified at the conditions in the camps that she visited but did what she could to provide the necessities to the women and alleviate their suffering. She lobbied the authorities for soap and better sanitary conditions and more suitable rations for the children. When she returned to England for more funds, she was ostracised by the British government, and the public, for supporting the enemy. She persevered though and raised enough money to return to South Africa in October 1901. When the ship reached Cape Town, she was not allowed to disembark and after 5 days she was carried forcibly to a departing ship and deported back to England.
She did not forget about the plight of the women and children though and, when the war was over Emily travelled again to South Africa in 1903, to provide what relief she could to the women and children released from the camps and returning to their ruined homes. 30,000 farmhouses had been destroyed and out of 110,000 inmates, 26,251 women and children and 1,676, mostly elderly, men had died in the camps. When the prisoners-of-war returned from camps in other parts of the British Empire, they had to start their lives over again from scratch.
In December of that year, she returned again to England with the idea of starting a lace making industry for the Boer women and girls. She considered that lacemaking was a refined and educative occupation, demanding patience, extreme cleanliness, absolute thoroughness, delicacy of workmanship and an appreciation of design. With her usual thoroughness she started to acquire hand-made lace examples from shops and collectors of lace and then went on a fact-finding visit to Venice, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges and Ireland. It was while in Ireland that Alice Stopford-Green, an activist in the Irish Nationalist movement, persuaded her to switch her allegiance from lace to spinning and weaving, a more practical activity, and, furthermore, would make use of South Africa’s staple product, wool. So, the first spinning school was planned.
In February 1905, Emily and Margaret Clarke from a wealthy Quaker family, sailed back to Cape Town with fifty crates of spinning wheels. Mrs Isabella Steyn was the wife of the President of the Orange Free State and supported Emily’s efforts. Her father, a pastor at Philippolis, donated a small house and workroom but the two women had a hard task to set up their school as they were both amateurs at spinning, but with help from well-wishing locals they persevered and by March had their first 6 pupils. The number of pupils increased to 16 and they eventually produced an acceptable product. Emily then decided that it was time to open a school in Johannesburg, and moved there. Miss Picard,from England, a trained teacher of spinning took over the running of Philippolis and improved the quality of their work. Emily’s appeal for more spinning wheels brought a shipload from Switzerland, Germany and France until eventually there were 16 spinning schools in the Transvaal and 12 in the Free State.
An exhibition was held in Johannesburg in 1906 and in Cape Town in 1908 where rugs, tapestries and blankets were for sale as well as bales of Philippolis tweed, although, those who had suits made from the tweed, including members of parliament and Jan Smuts himself, found it rather scratchy, they considered it their duty to wear it to support the schools. The cloth could never be as smooth as English Tweed as South African sheep had a short staple hair so it could not be spun as smoothly as the wool from the long haired English sheep.
With the schools now running successfully and the administration of them being taken over by government officials, Emily was reluctantly planning to return to England. The high altitude and the heavy work schedule that she had set herself had ruined her health.
She did not intend to retire though and revived her plan to start a lace making school. Before returning to England she was invited to spend a holiday at the Rood family farm in the district of Ermelo. This was where she met the young nineteen-year-old Johanna Rood and was so impressed with her that she asked Johanna to help with the founding of a lace making school. When Johanna objected, Emily said to her “I am not asking you for your skills in lacemaking, but for your personality and character. It is young women like you who will work without fuss, that are needed.” So Johanna accompanied Emily to England in October 1908 and early in 1909 they travelled to Italy, to research the lace making industry.
They spent almost a year in Italy, seeking out places where they could learn to make lace and how to administer a lace industry. Their destinations included Venice and the Burano School of Lace where they learned to make lace with a needle and thread.. Needle Lace had been made on Burano since the 16th century, and under the guidance of the Countess Andriana Marcello, Burano became a centre for needlelace from 1903 until 1972. The school was reopened as a museum in 1988.
Next stop was Bologna. An earlier Aemilia Ars Company, founded in 1898, by the architect Alphonso Rubbiano, in a bid to revive the pre-industrial world, failed and closed down. However, the Countess Lina Cavazza founded the Aemilia Ars Cooperative of Lace and Embroidery in 1903 and it became very successful. She taught the little net stitch (Reticello) and set such high standards for the work and the administration that it was the natural place for Emily and Johanna to learn these skills. The early Aemilia Ars designs were taken from the pattern books published in the 16th century, as that was considered to be the high point of Italian style and taste. Alfonso Rubbiano stayed on to produce new designs for the embroiderers. Aemilia is an ancient region of southern Italy.
The Punto Maglie stitch introduced human figures into reticella-like laces.
Photograph by courtesy of Liliana Ciriolo, lacemaker, and the Punto Maglie Association
|
Lady Carolina de Viti de Marco in Starace had a passion for embroidery and with her two daughters, Giulia and Lucia, set up an embroidery school in 1905, the “Scuola Femminile de Casamasella”, where she used her knowledge of renaissance and baroque decorative motifs to create new designs to embroider. She is credited with inventing the Punto Maglie stitch which introduced human figures into reticella-like laces. She also set up an embroidery business at Casamassella. By 1907 there were 500 young girls, aged 15 to 20, who had graduated from her school, working at home, producing embroideries and lace for the export market. They made Reticella, Punto in Aria as well as bobbin lace and tapestries. In 1908 they took part in an exposition in London to great acclaim.
|
Although Emily was a semi-invalid at this time. she was still a famous personality with connections in high places, and through these connections she met Lucia Starace, daughter of Dona Carolina. Lucia was only 18, but was an excellent teacher of needle lace and she was soon invited to travel to South Africa to help to set up a Lace School.
This says something about Emily’s powers of persuasion. Not only had she persuaded the 19 year old Johanna Rood’s father to allow his daughter to go to Italy for a year, but she also persuaded 18 year old Lucia’s father to allow his daughter to go to South Africa for 2 years . Lucia’s father, Francesco Paolo Starace, was a very progressive and open-minded man and said she must follow her heart. And all this in a very Victorian world.
Emily was not well enough to travel back to South Africa so the 2 girls travelled with her to England and then took ship for Cape Town. At the Cape, Constance Cloete joined them to help start up the lace school. The first school building was a two-roomed barrack, obtained from The Orange Free State Department of Works. Koppies was a rural farming area with only a post office , a bank branch and a police station. It was only proclaimed as a town in 1910. Johanna was appointed the first principal. Due to the distances involved many of the girls could not travel to the school so Johanna and Lucia visited farmhouses on horseback, where they founded study groups. The pupils were taught to always sit with the sun coming over their left shoulder so as not to have a shadow over their work as they sewed. As the sun moved so they had to move as well. The pupils enjoyed the needlelace and soon became quite proficient at it. Lace samples were periodically sent to Italy for assessment and the Aemilia Ars committee was extremely impressed with the high quality of work , considering the short period in which they managed to achieve it. At first they used Aemilia Ars patterns of Reticella and Punto in Aria from Italy, but soon developed their own style. Eventually this became known as Koppies Lace.
Reticella handkerchief sachet from Koppies Lace School
Photo used with kind permission of the War Museum of the Boer Republics Collection (Bloemfontein, South Africa)
|
After 2 years Lucia returned to Italy. One of her best students, Joey Botha, then started to teach at the school. Lucia spent her whole life promoting the work by women in tapestry making and lace making while her sister Giulia concentrated on the weaving side of the business using wool from the sheep on their own farm. The embroidery school continued to operate until 1920 when many women gave up the embroidery, to work in the new tobacco industry for higher wages, but Lucia continued to make lace until she passed away in 1983 and the family home in Casamasella contains many wonderful examples of her work.
|
Back at Koppies, Johanna continued to teach and run the lace school. Emily Hobhouse remained interested in the work of the school, even though she was never able to visit it herself, and she sent many encouraging letters throughout the years. Johanna married in 1920 and continued her life’s work as Mrs Osborne until 1931, when she moved to Bloemfontein with her husband and children. Mrs Kriel and Mrs Klue took over her work and kept the school going until 1938 when it was forced to close down due to financial reasons. A collection of Koppies Lace is a prized possession of the Emily Hobhouse Old Age Home in Koppies, where many former pupils of the lace school, ended their days.
This is the famous Wag’n Bietjie pattern, designed by Emily Hobhouse from the local Wag ’n Bietjie (Wait a Bit) thorn tree.
Photo used with kind permission of the War Museum of the Boer Republics Collection (Bloemfontein, South Africa)
30 years after the closure of the school, the Lace Monument at Koppies was erected to honour the work done by Johanna. It was dedicated by Mrs Osborne on 9th November 1968. It stands in the grounds of the Dutch Reformed Church and represents the needlelace made at Koppies. The plinth is the pattern with a tall needle standing up in the centre with a length of thread curling it’s way down to the pattern.
Emily Hobhouse died in 1926 in London, almost unknown and in poverty, but her ashes were sent to South Africa, where she was considered a heroine of the country, and were interred at the foot of the National Women’s Monument in Bloemfontein with great ceremony. Her memorial service was the greatest ever given to a non-South African. On December 16th of this year, the centenary of the monument will be celebrated and The Witwatersrand Lace Guild had a lace convention and exhibition at the monument in October 2012 and will have another convention and exhibition there in December 2013 in conjunction with the centenary celebrations. .