In the Cause of English Lace - Lace-making in the Midlands Past and Present (Hardcover)

Catherine Channer dedicated a lifetime to the cause of English lace. She was a talented lace-maker who, as a young woman at the end of the last century, lived in the Northamptonshire lacemaking village of Ravensthorpe where her father was vicar. Her commitment to the hand-made lace industry and its workers, and her first hand knowledge of each, are illustrated in her book 'Lacemaking in the Midlands Past and Present, written in co-operation with her friend Margaret Roberts. Although published over 90 years ago, this book has few modern rivals, and is reprinted her for the first time within a more extensive work by Anne Buck. Miss Channer outlines the development of lacemaking in Europe, in England and particularly in the East Midlands. Her personal insight and awareness of social change provide a convincing analysis, still significant today, of the state of the once flourishing industry and of the reasons for its decline. She dispels some prevailing myths, but also makes proposals for its recovery.