Together with Needle and Thread: Legacies of Louisa Pesel

Together with Needle and Thread: LEGACIES OF LOUISA PESEL

CONTENTS

PAGE 4 Introduction

Claire Wellesley-Smith

PAGE 6 ‘I am a Yorkshire woman…’

The life and work of Louisa Pesel

Caroline Perry and Tracey Williams

PAGE 10 Location map of Bradford

PAGE 12 ‘A little part of Belgium on British soil’

The Belgian Institute in Bradford

Caroline Perry

PAGE 16 A recipe for pancakes

Taken from Entente Recipes.

PAGE 18

Constructive, Colourful and Curative: The work of The Bradford Khaki

Handicrafts Club

Tracey Williams

PAGE 24 Stitching together with inspiration from Pesel

PAGE 26

Bibliography

PAGE 27 Acknowledgements

ABOVE -

Inspired by ‘Model for pincushion in coloured canvas Russian design’ University of Leeds Special Collections. Stitched by Elisabeth Macdonald

Together with Needle and Thread: LEGACIES OF LOUISA PESEL

INTRODUCTION

Together with Needle and Thread: LEGACIES OF LOUISA PESEL

Together with Needle and Thread: Legacies of Louisa Pesel, was based at Hive and outreach locations in the city and supported by a Culture and Heritage grant from Bradford Metropolitan District Council. The project focussed on the Bradford connections of Louisa Pesel, (1870-1947) born in Manningham and significantly her work with vulnerable communities in the city during the First World War. The project used archive materials in sessions with volunteer community researchers to explore the connections between Pesel’s work and how textile craft is used in contemporary wellbeing projects. This research included analysis of multiple sources including newspaper accounts, archive work at The University of Leeds and a talk by a Belgian social historian to share findings from Belgian archives. The project also worked in two community settings including Sharing Voices and Oasis Community Hub who work with the refugee and asylum-seeking community. Both locations for this work were in Manningham and had a strong connection to Pesel’s life story. These workshops drew on Pesel’s work with Belgian Refugees and soldiers during the First World War, the kinds of creative activity she saw as beneficial and an unpublished manuscript, Handicrafts that Heal, written shortly before her death.

The project pulled together personal stories of community and place and added them to the increasing body of research that connects creative activity and wellbeing. In the context of the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic our participants were interested in making links between a story of Bradfordians at the start of the twentieth century and how this connected with our contemporary issues.

Participants at Hive used a popular format of Pesel’s, the embroidery sampler, to make autobiographical textiles about their own life experiences. The work of the Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club was explored in detail and offered a way of reflecting on the armed forces community in the city and their experiences of returning to civilian life. Bradford has a proud legacy of work with refugee and asylum-seeking communities and has been a City of Sanctuary since 2010. The themes of this heritage project have connected an earlier example of compassionate welcome that offers us another way of reflecting about current migration stories and the communities involved.

This is the first publication to focus on Pesel’s relationship with her city of birth and maps significant locations in her story. It has been co-produced with our community researchers who have written about her life in the city and her connections to the Belgian Institute and the Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club.

Claire Wellesley-Smith

Cover detail – Historical Designs for Embroidery (Batsford, 1956)

Youmay never have heard of Louisa Pesel, yet this Bradford born woman was an inspirational writer, teacher and advocate of embroidery.

Born in 1870, she was the eldest of five daughters born to Frederick and Isabella Pesel. The family home was in Manningham, Bradford, initially at 11 Mornington Villas but later at Oak House (now the Dubrovnik Hotel), an area inhabited by powerful and influential families. Frederick was a stuff [textile] and later oil merchant, stockbroker and Justice of the Peace. The family were wealthy and well connected across Bradford and the wider district. It could be argued that they were paragons of late nineteenth/early twentieth century philanthropy being actively involved in political, charitable, social and educational issues of the time. They were strong advocates of women’s rights and education, and Isabella active in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. She also helped establish the Ladies Coffee Tavern in Bradford which provided a safe, welcome alternative to the public house for women. Isabella was also a member of the Bradford Ladies Educational Committee which established the Bradford Girls Grammar School (BGGS) which all her daughters attended. Louisa was later elected Secretary of the Old Girls Union there. The Unitarian Chapel, Chapel Street, played a big part in their lives. Frederick was a trustee and warden for over 30 years and Louisa was a Sunday School teacher.

Louisa’s interest in stitching is evidenced from an early age by her involvement with the Unitarian Chapel Sunday School Sewing Society and her teaching needlework and making garments at BGGS. In 1890, she moved to London, ‘… realising that, if I was seriously interested in embroidery, I must study it, both in theory and in practise.’  She studied drawing, design and decorative stitchery under artist Lewis Foreman Day at the National Art Training School. On his recommendation Louisa moved to Greece to become designer and later Director of the Royal Hellenic School of Needlework and Lace. Her work gained recognition from both British and Greek royal families. She travelled widely visiting Egypt, India, France, and Switzerland collecting embroideries as she went. Returning to England to care for her elderly parents, she became an Inspector of the Board of Education and later, at a lecture at the Bradford Arts Club, established the West Riding Needlecraft Association. In 1910 the Victoria and Albert Museum commissioned her to produce a number of samples of historic English embroidery stitches. Keen to share her knowledge of embroidery and textiles she wrote and co-authored several books and lectured both at home and abroad, for example in Bradford at the Friends Meeting House and at BGGS, ‘with students arming themselves with needle and coarse thread for making notes of stitches.’

‘I am a Yorkshire woman’

The life and work of Louisa Pesel

Caroline Perry and Tracey Williams

UPPER IMAGE: Louisa Pesel c.1910 University of Leeds Special Collections

LOWER IMAGE: Datestone for Oak House, 1884

BELOW:

OPPOSITE PAGE -

RIGHT:

In recognition of her work she was awarded the golden chatelaine by the Worshipful Company of Broderers in June 1914. This was later presented to the Embroiderer’s Guild by her family ‘in the hope that it will commemorate all that she did to re-awaken interest and joy in the craft that was her lifelong interest.’ Her work in Bradford during the First World War is the focus of two other essays in this publication.

In 1920 Louisa was elected President of the Embroiderers Guild and lectured to the Royal Society of Arts. After her father’s death Oak House was sold and Louisa eventually settled in Hampshire. She was a keen gardener with a particular interest in irises. In recognition of her work she was awarded both an RHS medal and Foster Memorial plaque and also co-authored a book about this flower. During the 1930s she was actively involved in a significant project to produce cushions and kneelers for Winchester Cathedral for which she was later appointed Mistress of Broderers. This work received renewed attention in 2019 through a fictionalised account by Tracy Chevalier in her novel A Single Thread. During the Second World War Louisa continued her war effort by sending sewing kits via the Red Cross to prisoners of war, many of whom became her friends.

She died in 1947, having never married, and left an archive including an unpublished manuscript, patterns, samples and a scrapbook of her work to The University of Leeds.

Carved initials of Frederick Robert Pesel, Oak House, Manningham

ABOVE

Chapel Street Unitarian Chapel, Bradford

BELOW: Oak House, Manningham c.1920

1. Oak House, Oak Lane, Manningham - built for and residence of the Pesel family from 1884-1922.

2. 11 Mornington Villas, Manningham - birth place of Louisa Pesel in 1870.

3. Bradford Girls Grammar School, Hallfield Road, Manningham. Opened in 1875, the school moved to its current location on Squire Lane in 1936.

4. The Belgian Institute, 26 Manor Row (later demolished).

5. The Midland Hotel, site of the 1917 conference which discussed the founding of Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club.

6. The Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club, Forster Square Buildings, leased from the Midland Railway Company (later demolished)..

7. Cathedral Church of St Peter. BKHC altar cloth made partly by soldiers is displayed here.

8. Chapel Street Unitarian Chapel. The Pesel family were very involved in chapel life (later demolished).

9. Morley Street Baths. Arrival place and temporary accomodation for the first groups of Belgian refugees in 1914.

10. Abram Peel Hospital, Leeds Road, which treated soldiers with neurasthenia some of whom later attended the BKHC.

little part of Belgium on British soil’: The Belgian Institute in Bradford

On4 August 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and by November 1914 most of Belgium was under German occupation and Belgians were fleeing the country. Of the two million who fled, 250,000 came to the UK and over a thousand made their way to Bradford. On Thursday 15 October the first 218 Belgian refugees (77 men, 93 women and 48 children) arrived by train. The refugees were met by a welcoming committee of the great and the good of Bradford and crowds lined the streets and cheered and shouted their support. The refugees were from all walks of life, young and old, fit and wounded, former wealthy businessmen, specialist tradesmen and general workers. They were initially conveyed to the Central Baths where dormitories had been set up to provide temporary accommodation until more permanent arrangements could be made.

Louisa Pesel was a founding, influential and active member of the Refugee Relief Committee, sitting on all three sub-committees established to oversee the housing and support of the refugees. The Committee was sensitive to local authority rules that forbade any employment of refugees in local industries which meant competition with local workers. They needed to find a solution that allowed the refugees to work and earn within these restrictive regulations. The Committee also recognised that whilst the welcome of the people of Bradford was sincere and heartfelt and the refugees were relieved to have escaped the brutal conditions in Belgium, their aim was to return home. The Committee therefore decided to establish a Belgian Institute where refugees could socialise and work, a little part of Belgium on British soil. The Institute, which opened on 23rd November 1914, was at 26 Manor

‘A

Caroline Perry

Row and had a large assembly room for meetings and concerts, reading rooms, recreational rooms and workshops. Articles made in the workshops in out-of-class hours were paid at standard rates and after deduction for maintenance and pocket money the balance went to the credit of the refugee for repatriation.

Men were initially employed repairing boots for their compatriots or making furniture for the Institute and for their home country. The Belgian Government in exile, based in Le Havre, France, was furnished with items made at the Belgium Institute. Technical classes in woodwork and boot making, led by experienced and expert Belgian makers, were held under the auspices of the Bradford Education Committee. Refugee men were soon producing new boots and slippers, became adept model and toymakers, and made folding furniture and wooden trunks for use when they returned home. Women were engaged in dressmaking, millinery and knitting, refashioning used garments for themselves and those back home. Used bonnets were spruced up by varnishing them and adding recycled ribbons and artificial flowers. Louisa Pesel was a regular visitor to the Institute, providing advice and encouragement to the refugees.

As the war continued some of the refugees found local employment and others joined relatives or friends in other towns, but it is estimated that 600 remained. Of these some had been housed at Esholt Hall, seven miles north of central Bradford. The municipal Sewage Committee based there allocated three acres of its land for refugee use and under instruction from experienced Belgian gardeners, they successfully grew a range of garden produce. The Belgian high-yield horticultural methods were also shared with local farmers and producers in the wider Bradford community.

The operation of the Belgian Institute was monitored both by the authorities in London and by the Belgium Bradford Weekly Telegraph, 27/11/1914

A RECIPE FOR PANCAKES

Government, who contributed to the associated costs. Sir Ernest Hatch, Chair of the Government Commission on Belgian Refugees in a visit in 1915 declared that the Bradford Institute was, ‘a model for the rest of the country’ and it was imitated elsewhere with varying degrees of success. However, despite this financial support, additional funds were always needed and many fundraising activities and street to street collections were held across the district. For example, in December 1914 Louisa Pesel organised a two-day sale of Christmas souvenirs made by the refugees, the proceeds being used to buy material to be made into clothes for both the refugees and their Belgium compatriots. Assisted by M E Denis, a refugee at the Institute and formerly a

restaurateur in Louvain, she published a booklet Entente Recipes in English, French and Flemish (1914), the profits going to the Belgian Compatriots’ Clothing Fund.

Louisa’s influence on the running of the Institute was significant and recognised in an article in The Yorkshire Observer on January 30th 1915, entitled The Belgian Guests at Bradford – Lightening the Sorrows of Exile. The writer thanks various people who supported the Institute and ends, ‘Another worker ought to be mentioned – Miss Pesel – whose all-embracing activities defy comprehension under one set official title. Without her the Institute would lose much of its animating spirit.’

Taken from Entente Recipes in English, French and Flemish, 1914

Constructive, Colourful and Curative: The work of The Bradford Khaki

Handicrafts Club Tracey Williams

InJuly 1917 the Abram Peel Hospital, Leeds Road opened in Bradford to treat increasing numbers of returning soldiers suffering from neurasthenia (shell shock). This was one of only a few specialist hospitals in the country. Despite feeling pressed into service by Dr Hawkesworth the nerve specialist in charge of the Abram Peel, Louisa Pesel did not want to waste any of her vast knowledge and experiences of embroidery. She later wrote, ‘good embroidery is indeed a great craft suitable for men as well as women’ and ‘a little simple information might be of much help and value, be they sick or well.’ In November 1917 she and Mary Wade, a neighbour (living at Oak Bank) and associate of the Bradford Needlework Guild, proposed establishing a handicrafts club for the soldiers at a conference held at the Midland Hotel. The proposal which included the use of rooms leased from the Midland Railway Company near the Khaki Club in Forster Square, was accepted with both women elected as Secretaries.

Unlike the hospital, the Club was cheerful, light, and well ventilated. Benefitting from fresh air the soldiers were able to walk from the Abram Peel to the Club, spending an hour and a half there each morning or afternoon. The men worked at trestle tables on various crafts from netting and basketry to hand loom weaving (two handlooms were lent by Shipley Technical College) making useful articles such as lampshades, string bags, belts and ties. However, Louisa believed that it was canvas embroidery that helped the soldiers the most. She quotes one saying, ‘I like cross-stitch best, because if my work is right, why then it is as good as anyone else’s.’ Building on Louisa’s work at the Belgian Institute, the soldiers were allowed to sell the articles they

made to the public (apart from the first one which they were allowed to keep), with the maker being paid the difference between the selling price and the cost of the materials. Such work was a lifeline for the soldiers who often had a long convalescence.

Dr Hawkesworth insisted on the importance of structure for the men (using both their hands and their brains) whilst Louisa felt that colour was important in helping with the healing process. Drawing upon her dye work at the Royal Hellenic School of Needlework and Lace, where she made ‘endless experiments in the blending of colour’, she found that soft colours had a curative effect whilst bold ones would often have a positive effect on mental wellbeing. She felt that this change in mental attitude ‘[was] often the first step towards complete recovery.’ Organised, keen and driven, Louisa had an ability to inspire others and get the best out of them. ‘Constant attention and self-discipline’ were important if mistakes were to be avoided. Teaching small groups of men simple easy stitches, working repetitive designs in a combination of colours produced wonderful results. She comments, ‘A simple thing carried out perfectly is better than some more ambitious attempt worked anyhow.’ Their careful and accurate work was both beautiful and useful: fine motor skills improved and their nerves were eased.  This use of occupational therapy allowed them to ‘distract the mind from the body and all its ills and ailments. In this way the body is left to heal itself.’ Their sense of common purpose and enjoyment led them to aim high as once they had mastered the basics, they went on to develop their own colourful designs - another important

Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club logo, featuring the Bradford Boar

Bradford Khaki Club annual report, June 1916

Louisa Pesel teaching at the Bradford Khaki Handicrafts Club. Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library (ITC 1835)

factor in psychological healing. Leeds University Special Collections houses the only known example of work made by an individual attending the Bradford Khaki Club - that of a Private Ratford.

In a biography written after her death her sister Laura recalls that when a visiting Medical Board congratulated the head of the hospital he replied: ‘Go see what Miss Pesel is doing at the Handicrafts Club, a lot of the improvements are due to her.’ He also recalled that ‘A new patient came to us and after the first morning he wanted to hand back his work. I persuaded him to carry on, as I said I knew I could help him as we had helped other men …. In three months he was so far recovered that he returned to his own job, that of a Bank Manager.’ Unbeknown to the Club, the importance of their work stretched beyond Bradford. For example, a visit by two Scotsmen who wanted to introduce ‘occupational therapy’ to their own town and had been told by the War Office that they should visit the Handicrafts Club to see their

excellent results. An exhibition of soldiers’ work was held in Edinburgh where the first three prizes went to soldiers from the Bradford Handicrafts Club. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer 28 July 1919 also reported that a selection of the men’s work was shown at the New Ideals Conference in Cambridge demonstrating what could be achieved with the right sort of instruction. The BKHC Altar Cloth can still be seen today hanging inside Bradford Cathedral.

Despite its success, an appeal for donations to continue the work was made on 31 May 1918. Louisa believed that although the use of crafts was called ‘curative’, ‘remedial’, ‘therapeutic’ or ‘educational,’ its value remained the same and that ‘the soothing value of doing something with the hands might also be good for any men and women returned from the war, who are not necessarily disabled.’ Her contribution to what we now think of as occupational therapy deserves to be recognised and is something of which Bradford should be proud.

Canvas work diagrams, 1956

Yorkshire Post, 17.12.1917 String bags made by Elisabeth Macdonald inspired by the work of BKHC soldiers

Stitching together with inspiration from Pesel

Stories from Pesel’s life in Bradford were shared with the Hive Chat and Craft group as they emerged. The geographic locations were familiar to many of the participants as were the textile techniques she employed in her work. Some of the group visited the University of Leeds Pesel archive which includes many samples of canvas work, made by Pesel and others. The group was encouraged to use the idea of a sampler worked on linen and include autobiographical details as part of the work.

The examples pictured here were made at the regular group meetings and at home. They include some direct references to Pesel’s designs and also to her life story - an iris is embroidered on one. They also offer personal stories, one about the participant’s life through reading and libraries, one an exploration of experiences of the mental health system, another sharing the experience of growing up in a military family. One participant writes, ‘I wanted to bring the whole work together by ‘blending’; using small wandering stitches to show that nothing exists in isolation.’ Another ‘… [my stitches] are ones made of soft wool, cotton and polyester. They were creative, gentle and calming and felt like a way to ‘speak’ in my time of mutism.’

Pesel’s work was seen by this group as a much-needed connection from the past and the ongoing importance of textile work for wellbeing. The need for groups like Hive’s Chat and Craft for continuing this legacy as a ‘source of pleasure, friendship and inspiration’ was also shared.

Clockwise from top left: Lynda Steele, Muriel Driver, Acalamayi, Tracey Williams

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradford Girls Grammar School, Jubilee Chronicle 1875 – 1925

Chevalier, Tracy. A Single Thread. Viking Press, 2019

Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey. Routledge, 2006

Map based on Ordnance Survey

Yorkshire Sheet CCXVI.NE, Revised: 1905 to 1906, Published: 1909

Pesel, Laura, A Memory of the First President of the Embroiderers Guild, Louisa Frances Pesel, 1870-1947, by her sister, Laura Pesel: University of Leeds Special Collections ITC 2016.130

Pesel, Louisa and Denis, Emile (eds.)

Entente Recipes in English, French and Flemish. Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd, London and Bradford.

Pesel, Louisa, Handicrafts That Heal (unpublished manuscript), 1947: University of Leeds Special Collections ITC 2016.130

Post Office Bradford Directory 1887-8

Soldier’s Sampler: Bequest: Pesel, Louisa: Leeds University Special Collections ITC 2009.21

West Yorkshire Archive Service, Bradford Chapel Lane Unitarian Church, records 1719 -1967 44D88

www.ancestry.co.uk: Census Returns

1871,1881,1891,1901 & 1911

wiki.irises.org American Iris Society

Iris Encyclopaedia

NEWSPAPER SOURCES

Bradford Daily Telegraph

Bradford Observer

Bradford Weekly Telegraph

Cambridge Independent Press De Stem uit België

Dundee Courier

Gentlewoman

Niews van de Groote Oorlog

Sheffield Daily Telegraph

Shipley Times and Express

Uttoxeter Advertiser and Ashbourne Times

Yorkshire Evening Post

Yorkshire Factory Times

Yorkshire Observer

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer

INSTITUTIONS

Algemeen Rijksarchief Brussel

Bradford Local Studies Library

The New York Public Library

Saltaire Archives

University of Leeds Special Collections

West Yorkshire Archives

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK:

Bradford Metropolitan District Council Culture Commission for supporting this project.

Sharing Voices

Oasis Community Hub

Hive Chat and Craft Group

Bart De Nil

Bradford Community Broadcasting, Ben Mason, Dubrovnik Hotel

Researchers: Carolyn Knowland, Susan Oliver, Caroline Perry, Cath Webber, Tracey Williams.

Community artist: Claire Rookes

Project co-ordinator: Claire Wellesley-Smith

Book design: Phil Jackson

Back cover image: Caroline Perry