Show Notes
In a small corner of London lies one of the most evocative collection of textiles anywhere in the world. The fabrics – which are quite ordinary - are in the so-called billet books which recorded the identity and clothing of every baby accepted at the Foundling Hospital from the mid 1700s onwards.
What makes these books so moving is that often the birth mother left a scrap of cloth or ribbon when she gave up her baby. She held onto the other half so that if her circumstances changed, she could return to the Foundling Hospital, match the two pieces of cloth and reclaim her child. The result, two hundred and fifty years later, is one of the best collections of textiles samples worn by ordinary people in Europe the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.
It is hard to imagine today how we would feel if we had to place our own child in a foundling hospital, if this was part of our family history. One woman recently discovered that this is exactly what happened to her ancestor. She arrived at the Foundling Hospital in 1758 at just a few weeks old. But she lived to be 87 – an incredible age for that time – and became a mother and grandmother herself. Find out more in this episode.
For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/
And if you would like to find out more about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/
More from Haptic & Hue
The first group of people in the world to be called refugees were deeply tied up with the production of luxury cloth. In the 17th and 18th century a small corner of east London became a byword for some of the best woven silk in the world.
In a few day's time the Bayeux Tapestry goes on show at the British Museum in London. The famous embroidery that depicts the Norman conquest of England has returned to the country where it was stitched for the first since it was made almost a thousand years ago. It was created by defeated Anglo-Saxon women, commissioned by their Norman conquerors, and they stitched it to serve a very particular political purpose. We will never know their names but they made one of the most extraordinary works of art to survive from early medieval Europe. Down the centuries it has exerted a powerful hold over many imaginations: it was taken to Paris by Napoleon to rally his troops as he planned to invade Britain, and later eyed by Hitler for the same reason. But the Tapestry is much more than a beautiful object. It is a brilliant piece of communication and in this episode, with the help of Michael Lewis, Curator of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum, we look at the labour behind it and the story it was designed to tell. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/ And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/
A number of very special quilts have been arriving in North America over the past few weeks. A collection of more than 40 are being returned to Canada, 85 years after they were made in communities all over the country.
This month's episode is a little different: as many of you know we run a second podcast for Friends of Haptic & Hue called Travels with Textiles, in which we explore all kinds of textile topics that crop up in the news or that we come across in our travels and that we don't get the chance to talk about in the main podcast. Once a year we give you a special taste of what Friends of Haptic & Hue sounds like and invite you to join us.
This summer marks the 250th anniversary of America's founding as nation, born in a successful rebellion from the British crown. Events and politics tell us one tale, but textiles always give us another view. Much of the textile history of America is deeply painful – a story of enslavement and hardship in Victorian mills and garment sweatshops. But there is another side to this, because creating textiles for the home has always involved community, and throughout the two and half centuries America has been in existence, quilting, knitting, sewing and mending have been deeply social activities.