The Method of Mourning Throughout the Rule of Queen Victoria

Online, April 5, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The moment Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert died in 1861, she established a new trend. Her deep mourning paved the way for oppressive rituals that funeral directors were to make last until her own death forty years later. The whole court was commanded to dress in mourning clothes and Victoria herself remained in full mourning attire consistently until three years later. Grieving on its own wasn't enough. Inner emotions were to be on full display throughout the full-on mourning that had now become trendy.

Seeing their Queen's lead, those who had the money to do so indulged in expensive funerals, erected ornate monuments at the grave and went along with the new etiquette of mourning. To go with specific dress came a whole set of laws restricting the way people could act. Popular household manuals gave comprehensive instructions about the proper etiquette to adopt for the different stages of mourning. Queen Victoria's less wealthy subjects had to get along with mixing all their clothes in a deep vat of black dye.

Children were comparatively exempt from the rituals and were not generally expected to wear mourning clothes, although sometimes girls wore white dresses. A lot of their mothers, on the other hand, were almost constantly in black, because of the many deaths that Victorian families suffered. The mourning period for men was shorter. Unrestricted by the curtailed social requirements, it was allowable for them to go back to work and continue their usual lives. They just wore black suits, or even just dark suits along with black gloves, cravats and hatbands.

For the women, however, mourning was a serious business. Although they could still attend church services, throughout full mourning they were never to be seen in places associated with entertainment or amusement. The longest period of mourning, which usually lasted at least two years, was after the death of a spouse. The expected periods then went down a level, depending on the relationship with the deceased. For first cousins, for instance, the period of grieving was only for a month.

Full mourning lasted for at the very least one year plus one day. During this time females were expected to dress in black crepe or in dull materials with no flash, trimmed with crepe. Bombazine was a popular material, being cheaper than non-reflective silk. Petticoats were made with black ribbon attached to their hems, in case they were glimpsed. The women also carried lace handkerchiefs with black borders, special caps, bonnets and veils, even large "weeper" cuffs on dresses for wiping the nose during times of intense grief.

Second mourning went for nine months. Although females clothes still had to be drab - generally gray - the crepe could be removed and the mourning veil was allowed to be lifted. A small amount of jewelery was allowed, but the limit of this was hard black jet. It was a custom for locks of the departed's hair to be incorporated into brooches, lockets or watch fobs.

By the half mourning phase, which lasted from three to six months, color was gradually introduced, with clothes going on to lighter grays, mauve and a small amount of white. Jewelery was no longer restricted to jet and any kind was allowed to be worn.

Whatever level of grieving they were in, people were required in order to purchase the required dress, or the materials to make them with, together with all other trimmings, the jewelery and head wear etc. Not surprisingly, a whole industry was created to cater for this new trend that became the fashion. Jay's of Regent Street opened in 1841 as a type of one-stop shop, providing everything the grieving widows could possibly need. Death was a lucrative business, as keeping mourning attire and crepe in the house after the mourning had ceased was considered to be bad luck.

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, the grieving fashion she had introduced began to disappear and the funeral director's rituals surrounding grief changed drastically once more.