With the death of Prince Albert in 1861 grief became big business in Victorian society and a whole range of businesses sprang up to meet demand. They seem to have had pretty much every aspect of mourning covered. Seeing mourning pins in the cabinet of a local museum earlier this week had me stumped though as I had no idea such a thing existed nor what was different about them. Now I know that they were made of different materials to blend in with the colour of the mourning clothes you wore depending upon what stage you were at. Deep mourning called for plain black, but as you moved onto half mourning colours such as lilac and grey became acceptable. Pins were needed to keep shawls and other items secured, but it would have been deemed crass to draw attention with ones of gold or silver hues. This particular example are all black. Fascinating snippets of social history.
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