Mourning Garment

Girl's mourning coat of black sateen, 1921. Museum no. MISC.85-1986 (click image for larger version)

The 1920s have a reputation as a modernising era when many things changed - but the centuries-old custom of wearing black to express sorrow at the death of a relative or friend was still current in many countries.

In July 1921 Amy Brock's husband Will, a soldier in the British army serving in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), died of heat stroke in Basra. Amy was skilled at all kinds of needlework, and made a coat and dress for their six-year old daughter Eileen to wear to mourn the father she would never see again. Despite her grief at her husband's death, Amy took care to make the clothes as pretty as she could. She embroidered the coat with forget-me-not flowers to signify the child's memories of her father, and the dress with her own favourite embroidery motif, a butterfly, which symbolises renewal. In return, Eileen was busy making a mourning necklace of black and gold-coloured glass beads for her mother to wear.