Title:Fanny Hooton's box
Date:Apr 2023
Original Size: box 1m long, clothes some adult some child size
Notes: I was inspired by the demands on the Southwell Workhouse schoolmistress, and the amount she was expected to teach - and the work that the 8-13 year old children were expected to do. I have produced an installation using a combination of inherited and added items, particularly referring to The Workwoman’s Handbook (written by “A Lady” and published in Birmingham in 1838). (Fanny Hooton, schoolmistress at the Workhouse 1857-1873 may have been a great-great-aunt of my cousins’). This is part of it, based on an inherited wooden box, which had been lined with a December 1860 News of the World. In this box are inherited clothes in traditional styles: lace nightdress from about 1900, ochre child’s smock from 1920s, white/green child’s smock from 1950s, cap, petticoat and combinations mostly hand sewn but probably Victorian/Edwardian (rescued from the dressing-up box). There is also a “child’s simple plain frock” made from a man’s shirt following the instructions in The Workwoman’s Handbook, with some pieces of tatted lace in natural-dyed crochet cotton. These are just to show what Fanny Hooton might have had when she left the Workhouse to get married. These are mostly personal items, so are probably not for sale
Groups: Textile pictures and exhibition entries
Textile garments
Exhibited At: Midlands Textile Forum Identity
The Workhouse, Southwell, NG25 0PT
Original Artwork: Not available
Prints Available For: £2.0
Cards: £2.0
Postcards: £0.5