Oxlade Family History
Occupations
Lacemaking
My Great-great grandma Phoebe Oxlade was a lacemaker in Fingest, Buckinghamshire, England, as was her mother in law Caroline Powell (the wife of Richard Harvey) & grandmother Elizabeth Hester (the wife of William Braisher or Brazier) .Phoebe taught her daughter Eliza Harvey,my Great-grandma.When it came to passing on the skill,Eliza, whose only daughter died aged 13,& who must have been an awkward old cuss,would only teach the elder of her granddaughters, who did not wish to learn.My mother ,being 2nd eldest wanted to learn, but Eliza refused.
Dave Pells
I just thought I'd drop a bit of modern history into the pot. My first cousin, Lesley, who now lives in Downley, Bucks learned to do lace making a few years ago. It's as if the family tree has come full circle. She has mostly done small things like bookmarks - very fine and beautiful work too! Our mutual Great-grandmother,Clara Oxlade (wife first of Ernest John Rogers, then Frederick Thomas North) used to make her own 'net' curtains using lace she had made herself. I can only imagine the hours it took. Lesley's and my grandfather turned the bobbins Lesley uses to make her lace.
Stangely, Lesley is the eldest grand-daughter (she beats me by only 3 weeks), but she had lessons only recently so the skill was not passed down through the generations. Only the "desire" perhaps.
May (w/o David Lanchbury) http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lanchbury/
For those with a strong stomach, you can read the history of teaching little girls, (and they tended to be very young) lacemaking, at http://www.mkherita ge.co.uk/ cnm/index html
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