Workday Wednesday - Nottingham Lace

Last week I attended an event at Debbie Bryan's shop in the Lace Market area of Nottingham. Called Communities Interrupted - Preserving Oral Histories of Laceworkers, it was an opportunity to record memories of lace workers & share family stories. 

I took along the beautiful Nottingham lace bedspread, which had been passed on to me by my Great Aunt Joy. The bedspread is around 100 years old now and was made from a design by Joy's grandfather,William Bucknall who worked for Fleirsheim & Co. 

Everyone received a lovely warm welcome from Debbie and some rather delicious chocolate torte. The stories were fascinating to hear and were recorded by Nottingham Trent University for their archive.

The event was partly filmed by Notts TV for their evening news bulletin:

And it was also streamed live on YouTube; I've started the clip from just before the beginning of the discussion on my bedspread - please excuse the poor sound:

Apologies - the videos have since been made private for the members of the group.

I had confirmation that the bedspread was probably a one-off piece, designed for display, which is what Joy had thought and it may have been made on a raschel frame.

I've added some close-up photos of the bedspread. i think my next move will be to find out some more information on William Bucknall.

Military Monday .. Horace Thomas Bourne

I've added another relative to Lives of the First World War.

Horace Thomas Bourne is only very distantly related to me, I included him in my tree when I was looking at the Bourne/Bourn/Burn family and trying to sort out the variants as they change so frequently. According to Ancestry he is the grand nephew of the wife of my 1st cousin 4x removed - I think I'll take their word for that!





He was born in Measham, Derbyshire in 1896, the son of Thomas Bourn and Annie Elizabeth Parritt.

During WW1 he served as a private in the Leicestershire Regiment and had two service numbers; 1689 and 240239. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal and attained the rank of Lance Corporal before being demobbed on the 11th February 1919.

He married Annie Broadhurst in 1922, settling near Leeds and died in 1957.

I haven't researched his family, or what exactly he did whilst serving with the Leicestershire Regiment as he isn't a close relative, but I thought he should still be noted on the website here.