Victorian Lockets Often Held Hair
A locket is a small hinged case worn on a chain. Nineteenth-century mourning jewellery gave it a specific purpose.
A locket is a small hinged case worn on a chain, usually holding a picture. Victorian mourning practice gave it a stranger function: lockets frequently held a lock of the dead person's hair, sometimes woven into intricate patterns. Hair does not decay, which made it the most durable keepsake available before photography became cheap.
- A hinged pendant case. *A silver locket.*
- Mourning jewellery. *A mourning locket.*
- Locket as a modifier. *A locket chain.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | locket | A gold locket. |
| Plural | lockets | Two lockets. |
| Related | pendant | A jade pendant. |
| Related | lock | A lock of hair. |
| Related | jet | Whitby jet. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The locket held a photograph.Its usual contents today.
- Victorian lockets often held hair.Mourning jewellery.
- Whitby jet was the material of mourning.Black and light.
Victorian mourning customs
- Jet — black fossilised wood from Whitby, the approved material
- Hair work — hair woven into jewellery as a keepsake
- Full mourning — a year and a day of black for a widow
- Half mourning — grey and mauve permitted afterwards
- Queen Victoria — wore mourning for forty years after Albert's death
From Old French *loquet*, a latch, a diminutive of *loc*, a lock or latch, from a Germanic root.
Why did lockets hold hair?
Because hair does not decay, making it a lasting physical memento at a time when photographs were still expensive.
What is Whitby jet?
Fossilised wood from the Yorkshire coast, black and very light, which became the standard material for Victorian mourning jewellery.