#9388, Catherine HERBERT

3rd daughter of George Augustus Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke by his second wife Catherine, only daughter of Simon Romanovitch, 3rd Count Woronzow.

Perhaps the most significant Scottish aristocratic widow to offer craft patronage was Catherine, dowager countess of Dunmore, daughter of the earl of Pembroke, (see #9391 for 9th Earl of Dunmore) who was widowed in 1845 when her only son was just four years old, and like Lady Speirs, undertook to run the family estates until he reached adulthood. The Dunmore property comprised large tracts of land in both Stirlingshire and the Isle of Harris, the latter purchased by the 5th earl, Lady Catherine’s father-in-law, in 1834, though it was subsequently sold off in parcels between 1867 and 1919. The dowager countess rarely visited Lewis, but from a distance took an interest in the affairs of the islanders in the wake of the famines of the mid-1840s. Relief schemes and the usual endeavours to encourage emigration were attempted, but, though they had limited real impact on the problems of the island, most of her more direct interventions were focussed on women and their potential for producing fine craftwork. She founded an embroidery school in the late 1840s, though this did not flourish.

She next sought to develop the output of knitted stockings made in the home, and in this undertaking she grafted her efforts onto those of another genteel woman with connections on the island, Mrs Frances Thomas. Mrs Thomas, from Edinburgh, was the wife of a naval officer who spent many years in the 1840s and ‘50s as captain of a survey ship in and around the Western Isles. His wife accompanied him on most journeys and they kept a small house on Harris. Mrs Thomas was aware of the miserable conditions of the islanders, and to help them during the harsh 1840s both taught and encouraged the production of knitted stockings for sale. So good was the output that Harris stockings, using local wools and natural dyes, were awarded first prize at the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886 and, it was claimed: from Ceylon to Labrador the Harris stockings have become “a boon and a blessing to man” especially to solitary bachelors, by reducing caring to a minimum.

By the 1890s, Mrs Thomas’s stocking knitters in full-time employment numbered over 400 women and she was also closely involved in another island craft industry, the production of Harris tweed in partnership with the dowager countess of Dunmore. The Dunmore input was seen initially in the production of Murray family tartan in Harris tweed and the manufacture of tweed suits for Dunmore estate workers. The dowager countess then used her elite connections to promote Harris tweed as a suitable cloth for outdoor wear for sporting gentlemen. She and Mrs Thomas introduced mechanisms to improve the quality and consistency of home made output and some of the best weavers were taken to Alloa on the Dunmore Stirlingshire estate for further training in intricate pattern-making by skilled lowland weavers and designers. Lady Dunmore’s encouragement of Harris tweed marked a transition from estate-focused patronage for mostly local consumption to a more vigorously commercial approach directed at wider markets. Retail outlets were established in Edinburgh and central London in the 1860s and tweed and tweed makers were frequently displayed at the international exhibitions. By the late 1880s and the founding of the Scottish Home Industries Association under the patronage of the Princess Louise, marchioness of Lorne, Harris tweed was a well-known success story that other noblewomen sought to emulate in other forms of handcrafted textiles.

The tweed market was so substantial that fraudulent English-made stock was sold under the trademark ‘Harris Tweed’, giving rise to a successful Board of Trade prosecution in the London courts in 1906, instigated by the duchess of Sutherland on behalf of the Scottish Home Industries Association. The real ‘Harris’ tweeds are to be distinguished from the imitations by the softness of texture, and length for length they are not so heavy. At the same time, there is an oily feeling on the surface, and a smell of peat, which can easily be recognised by those who have lived in districts where peat is used as fuel. Their virtues are rain-resisting qualities, beautifully blended colours, strength and elasticity in wear. The real Harris tweed yarns are manipulated by hand, and are therefore superior and softer than the imitations. The Scottish Home Industries Association, like the similar body in Ireland, was devoted to organizing the commercial sale of home made rural craft textiles, mostly aimed at the high fashion market and had an identity that was built on aristocratic and gentry associations with the highlands and romantic Scottishness.

In a speech given during a tour of the Western Isles in 1907 on behalf of the SHIA, the duchess of Sutherland, presiding over a concert in Stornoway, praised the noble and genteel women patrons who had acted as pioneers in supporting the Harris Tweed industry in its early days. "Before the Scottish Home Industries Association was established on its present basis there was on a small scale a success of sentiments achieved by the late Lady Dunmore, who was the guardian angel of her people, and by the late Lady Rosebery, who would often talk to me of her desire to help the poor people in the islands, and who, I am sure, if she had lived would have closely associated herself with the Scottish Home Industries Association. It was in thinking of her interest that Mrs Beckett, better known to you as Mrs Thomas, and who was until her death a director of the Scottish Home Industries Association, used to encourage me and my codirectors, who have given me so much time and labour in this work without one penny of remuneration, to make a brave fight to establish some lasting benefit for the spinners and weavers of the Outer Hebrides."

In addition to the textile craft schemes on her highland estates, Lady Dunmore was also the patron of commercial endeavours elsewhere. The Dunmore Pottery near Airth in rural Stirlingshire, run by the Gardner family, like many others throughout Scotland, was established in the late eighteenth century to take advantage of a seam of local clay that could be fashioned into domestic wares and tiles for local consumption. It remained a small and modest undertaking for decades, employing a handful of skilled potters before, in the third generation of family management, a talented individual, Peter Gardener who took over his father’s business in 1866, attracted the interest of the estate owners and the profile of the pottery began to rise, with female members of the Dunmore family taking the lead, including the dowager countess and her daughter-in-law, Lady Gertrude Coke,(#1721) daughter of the Earl of Leicester. Peter Gardner was a clever entrepreneur, particularly adept at exploiting local and international exhibitions to forward his reputation. He was also skilled in managing a product image that exploited aristocratic associations, much in the manner of that great pottery entrepreneur of the eighteenth century, Josiah Wedgwood. One of the first exhibition appearances to generate newspaper interest was at the Highland and Agricultural Society’s Inverness show in the summer of 1874, just a few years after he took over the family firm.

A new industry has been inaugurated on the estate of the Earl of Dunmore, Stirlingshire—namely the manufacture of pottery, after the celebrated Valerie pattern of France. The ware is brown, but it is extremely light. Its appearance, say in a tea service, might at first sight seem outré, but the fashion has, we believe, been set for it by its use in garden parties by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. The quality of Dunmore pottery attracted much attention, but equally important in generating prestige was the input of the younger countess of Dunmore, which included the design of some of the early pieces, as reported in an English provincial newspaper of the late 1870s in ‘The Ladies’ Column: By One of Themselves’: The blue and white Japanese china has long been a favourite addition to all pretty rooms of modern style. For variety of colour and excellence of manufacture I think the Dunmore pottery a valuable addition. Some of it greatly resembles the “Valerie ware” in appearance, but it is not porous as that is, and consequently lasts much longer and better.

The newest shape in this ware is that of a large melon, with a hole the top for the admission of a flowerpot. The shape was designed by the Countess of Dunmore, and the colours are either bright yellow or bluish green. Elite associations were not only articulated here by the link with female aristocracy, but were further highlighted in the same article by reference to one of the customers for these wares, for it was stated, "I hear that two dozen of these Melon-shaped vases are ordered for the saloon of the new Cunard steamship which is to run from Liverpool to America, with pre-eminently good accommodation for passengers." By the early 1880s, Peter Gardner had a retail outlet in Edinburgh’s New Town and the first of the Scottish international exhibitions, held in Edinburgh in 1886, provided a major opportunity to demonstrate his ‘Vases of artistic design, flower pots of various shapes and colours, garden seats and 21 pedestals of lovely appearance, mantelpiece, table, and other useful and ornamental goods of excellent finish’.

Gardener’s showcasing of ‘invention and skill’ was complemented by another feature of the display that generate comment, ‘The lady in attendance at this stand attracts a good deal of attention, she being attired in neat Highland costume.’ The costume in question comprised the Murray tartan to represent the Dunmore family and to hint at that other area of the dowager countess’s activities in the promotion of textile and specifically Harris tweed production on her western isles estates. Dunmore’s success was sealed when Queen Victoria, having visited the exhibition, ‘commanded’ Peter Gardner to attend Holyrood ‘with specimens of his goods for her Majesty to select from.’ Victoria’s choice of ornamental wares decorated with a crackled red and turquoise glaze subsequently led to these being marketed under the title ’Queen’s Vases’. Dunmore pottery was exhibited abroad as well as in Scotland, including the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, but it was the Glasgow Exhibition of 1888 that saw the biggest and most spectacular display, with the ‘Lady Dunmore Bowl’ garnering much praise. Female aristocratic endorsement of Dunmore wares was evident from the frequent appearance of such goods at charity bazaars, which were normally under elite patronage, with the aristocrats and their friends named and described in the press, along with the items for sale in stalls that were usually attended by the ladies in question, or by younger members of their families.

A typical event was the Poona Zenana Bazaar in Aberdeen in November 1881, held in the Aberdeen Music Hall to raise funds for a Church of Scotland education mission in India. No. 2 stall, situated immediately in front of the platform, contains some fine specimens of Dunmore pottery, presented by the Dowager Countess of Aberdeen, as well as a number of other kinds of pottery, the gift of Mrs Leslie Reid. The Dunmore Pottery closed in 1919 following Peter Gardner’s death and all goods remaining were sold, comprising ‘the entire stock of real OLD DUNMORE WARE suitable for BAZAARS, CHRISTMAS AND WEDDING PRESENTS; also some BEAUTIFUL ANTIQUE WARE.’ Though no longer made, these types of Scottish craft wares, like Paisley shawls, passed quickly to collector status, securing another connection with elite practices, where they have remained ever since.

The Trust is indebted for the above study to Mr Geoffrey Elborn

The 6th Earl & Countess had a daughter, Alexandrina Victoria (1845-c1911).  Care has to be taken not to confuse her with Victoria Alexandrina (1877-1925) #9355