Hair of the Dead: Victorian Keepsakes

 by Jennie Hill

This bracelet (on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum) belonged to author Charlotte Brontë.
At the centre is a sparkling amethyst, the strap around it made from the intertwined hair
of her then-dead sisters, Emily and Anne Brontë.

We’ve all heard of the old-fashioned idea of lovers giving each other a lock of their hair, but the Victorians took this concept to a whole new level. A lock of hair will keep its colour for decades, even centuries, so it was seen as the most logical part of a person to keep as a token of remembrance – then known as memento mori. But we are not talking about a simple lock of hair in a locket, oh no, the Victorians turned the hair of their loved ones into intricate pieces of jewellery and art work.

Hair art and hair jewellery had been around throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but it was during the Victorian era, with its high infant mortality rates and a queen made mourning into a fashion, that this strange custom became mainstream. Taking a lock of hair and weaving it into knot designs for use in a broach was the most popular form of Victorian mourning jewellery. Rings, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces all became quite common in the later portion of the century, patterns for which appeared in ladies’ magazines. Making ‘hairwork’ was a proper middle-class, feminine task, grounded in a consumer culture. It was a way to remember and celebrate your family as well as decorate the home.

(From the collection of John Whitenight and Frederick LaValley. Photo by Alan Kolc. Courtesy of the College of Physicians of Philasdelphia and the Mütter Museum).         

This may seem morbid to us today but one must remember we are talking about a time when death was not removed from everyday life but a constant companion and heavy mourning was in vogue. The act of creating a piece of hair jewellery was a sentimental one; it showed skill in the feminine art of needle work as well as respect and devotion to the hair’s owner. 

It was not only the hair of the departed that was used, locks were commonly exchange and used between friends to signal one’s sincere friendship and, paradoxically, to stay in style. Husbands would go to work wearing watch fobs fashioned from their wives’ hair and ladies filled their autograph books with snippets from their friends.

Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society. The dark brown parts of these earrings are made from female human hair, using a pattern from Mark Campbell's popular book, The Art of Hair Work, 1875).

It was not just jewellery that was made from hair; whole pieces of art work were constructed. Wreaths, such as the one pictured here, would be made from the hair of several family member woven together. A popular use of a hair wreath was to frame a photo of a beloved family member. Another was to weave the hair into a decorative family tree. Elaborate hair work was shown at the Great Exhibition (1851) and a full length, life sized portrait of Queen Victoria made entirely of human hair caused a sensation at the Paris Exposition (1855). Sadly no photos of this piece survive.

So what do you think of this custom? There is still time to weave some very personal gifts for Christmas and with haircuts in short supply, perhaps you could kill two birds with one stone!