A VINTAGE WILLCOX AND GIBBS TREADLE SEWING MACHINE, serial n...

Hammer

£150

A VINTAGE WILLCOX AND GIBBS TREADLE SEWING MACHINE, serial number A481848 which appears to come within the range of numbers for 1894, with a tin containing loose parts, along with a Wheeler and Wilson walnut, cased sewing machine, serial number 23834374 (condition report: cable separated, the finish is rusted) (2)

(provenance from client: We think this was brought over from America when my American maternal grandmother married my grandfather. I don't know whether this would make a worthwhile story, but thought it worth asking if you might be interested. I have a very attractive photo of her around the time she married, and a copy of their marriage announcement in The Times in August 1902. They produced children pretty regularly at 2 year intervals, boys in 1904 and 1906, followed by 2 miscarriages, then my mother in 1910, followed by three more girls in 1912, 1914 and 1916. In 1918 another boy was born, who sadly died and, even more sadly, so did my grandmother. She must have come from a fairly wealthy family - my mother remembers her having very stylish clothes and hats with ostrich feathers, but when she died it seems a lot of the money dried up ...I have always wondered if her American family didn't entirely approve of the marriage!,

My mother was aged eight when her mother died. My grandfather employed a series of housekeepers, none of whom seem to be been very successful or lasted very long with this large, young, bereaved family. My mother, as the eldest girl, took on the role of little mother, and from a very early age made the clothes for herself and for her younger sisters, using this sewing machine. At age 14 my mother left school to take on running the household, and the succession of housekeepers stopped.

My mother continued to make her own clothes for many years, well into her married life, and was still using the machine in the 1990s. She taught me to sew and make my own clothes. The machine has a chain stitch, and I remember, while working as a young secretary in an open-plan office in London, I once bent down to the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and the chain stitch on the whole of one side of my skirt just whizzed open, revealing my red petticoat! I dashed to the Ladies and had to borrow a coat to get home on the tube. It was a good lesson: be sure to finish off the seam securely