Today has been quite cold and this afternoon I had to go and drop some paperwork into one of the schools I’m hoping to get Boy the Elder into, which, I felt, necessitated me looking like a grown-up. I confess that I was rather pleased to get out my winter coat.
One of my jet buttons
I have had this coat quite a long time but I always feel smart and sharp in it. It’s a really nice shape but it came decorated with rather plain buttons. Whilst rummaging around at the antique market, I came across these really beautiful 1930’s jet buttons and so I took the old ones off and replaced them with the jet. The coat was transformed and I always enjoy looking at the buttons when I’m wearing the coat. I remember my grandmother having jet jewellery and it seemed old fashioned and yet glitteringly and morbidly compelling at the same time. Those necklaces always smelled of Pontefract Cakes because she kept them in the same drawer. Don’t ask.
Jet is a semi-precious stone which, when polished, takes on an intense waxy lustre of the deepest opaque black. This is where we get the term ‘jet-black’` a description which has been found in literature since the eleventh century. The rich black colour never fades, and the shine which can be achieved is such that polished jet was even used as mirrors in medieval times
Jet comprises an unusually pure and hard form of fossilized wood from an ancient and relatively abundant species of monkey puzzle tree. It occurs as thin lens-shaped seams within a series of shale rocks, known as the upper Lias, which were laid down in the early Jurassic period 175-185 million years ago.
It has been collected and worked into beads, buttons, earrings, and belt-sliders for thousands of years and has been found in Bronze Age burial sites throughout the UK. Once Bronze Age craftsmen discovered that the act of polishing jet caused it (by virtue of its electrostatic property) to be able to ‘magically’ attract chaff, straw, and sawdust to itself, jet became valued not only for personal adornment, but also as a powerful bringer of good fortune.
The occupying Romans made extensive use of jet, with Roman jet workshops situated in York sending worked jet ornaments and jewellery to all parts of the Roman Empire. After the Roman armies left in the 4th century AD, the use of jet declined and it was not until the Vikings settled in the 9th century AD that jet once more came to be more widely used for jewellery and small carvings. For the next thousand years it was used mainly for ecclesiastical jewellery such as crosses, rosaries, and rings.
As jet of the finest quality can only be found near the historic fishing town of Whitby which is situated on the North Yorkshire coast, it is fitting that Whitby was at the centre of that most remarkable period in the history of jet, the Victorian era.
Although as many as ten jet workshops were operating in Whitby by 1815, it was not until the mid-1800s that the jet industry became really well established, and the opening of the railway combined with the Victorian love of seaside holiday souvenirs made it even more popular.
However, it was the Victorian vogue for jet mourning jewellery which contributed most significantly to the growth of the Whitby jet industry. Victorian fashion was predominantly class-led, with Queen Victoria herself ultimately setting the example. It was the deaths of the Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert in 1852 and 1861 respectively which really stimulated wider public demand for jet mourning jewellery.
The Whitby jet industry was at its height in 1873, at which time approximately 1,500 men were employed in some 200 manufacturing workshops. Raw jet was not only being avidly collected from local beaches, but was being commercially excavated at a number of inland locations in the North York Moors area, with mines extending as far inland as Bilsdale and Osmotherly.
Jet workshop
However, in spite of the efforts of miners to procure increasing amounts of raw jet, demand became so great in the 1870s and 80s, that some manufacturers resorted to using inferior ‘soft’ jet sourced either locally from geological layers in the cliffs rather than the Lias shales, or from France and Spain. Items worked from ‘soft’ jet began to craze and crack soon after they were sold. In addition to these problems of quality control, fashions in the latter part of the 19th century – particularly the Art Nouveau period – dictated the wearing of much smaller pieces of jewellery.
Contemporary jet jewellery can still be purchased in or one can buy Victorian style pieces and there seem to be plenty of shops in Whitby and online that sell it. I wear an awful lot of black and I would love to collect it but I can’t collect everything. Can I?
