The Real History of Mourning Jewelry

By AJLuxe Team

Mourning jewelry is real historical jewelry, not a modern goth aesthetic: it was a formal, almost mandatory part of how 19th-century mourners, led publicly by Britain's own queen, grieved in a way everyone around them could see. Black jet brooches, lockets holding a lock of hair, and rings engraved with a loved one's initials were not decoration. They were a visible, socially enforced signal of loss, worn on a strict schedule that could stretch for years. Here is what actually happened, and why one royal widow's private grief turned an entire industry's raw material into a nationwide fashion.

Why did mourning jewelry become so popular in the Victorian era?

Mourning jewelry became a Victorian phenomenon because Queen Victoria's own grief for her husband, Prince Albert, became the model the whole country was expected to follow. Albert died of what was diagnosed at the time as typhoid fever on 14 December 1861, at 10:50 p.m., in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, with Victoria and five of their nine children at his bedside. He was 42. Victoria never fully returned to public life afterward: she wore mourning black for the rest of her reign, roughly forty more years until her own death in 1901, and for a long stretch of that time she required jet, the deep black fossilized material described below, to be worn at her court. When the monarch enforces a dress code that strict for that long, court dressmakers, jewelers, and eventually ordinary shops follow her lead, and an entire consumer industry grows up around it.

What is jet, and why was it the material of mourning jewelry?

Jet is a lightweight, intensely black fossilized wood that takes a high polish and carves easily, which is exactly why it became the material of choice for deep mourning. England's main source was Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast, where a genuine jet-carving industry had existed in a smaller way for decades before Albert's death and then expanded rapidly to meet the sudden nationwide demand. One Whitby firm, run by Thomas Andrews, held the position of jet ornament manufacturer to the Queen from 1850 onward. Jet's appeal wasn't only its color: mourning etiquette in the first phase of grief specifically barred anything shiny or reflective, and jet's matte-to-satin black finish, unlike a faceted gemstone, fit that rule exactly.

Why does mourning jewelry contain human hair?

Mourning jewelry incorporated a lock of the deceased's actual hair because Victorians believed hair held something durable and almost sacred about a person after death, unlike a portrait or a written memory. The practice of working hair into jewelry predates Victoria's reign, but her very public use of Albert's hair after 1861 reignited and dramatically widened its popularity. Hair was braided, woven into intricate patterns, or ground and set behind glass, then built into brooches, bracelets, rings, and watch chains, often finished with gold, pearls, or enamel around the hair itself. It's a detail that reads as unusual now, but at the time it was considered a literal, physical way to keep part of a loved one close.

Did mourning jewelry follow strict rules, or was it worn freely?

Mourning jewelry followed a strict, staged etiquette, not a free choice of what looked appropriately sad. In the first stage, commonly called deep mourning and lasting roughly a year for a widow, dress and jewelry had to be entirely black and completely without shine, which is exactly the gap jet filled. A second stage relaxed the rules slightly, permitting more subdued materials such as pearls, diamonds, and touches of white or colorless stones. A final phase, often called half-mourning, allowed a slightly wider palette, including muted purples and grays, before a woman was expected to return to ordinary dress. The length and intensity of each stage depended on the mourner's relationship to the deceased. A widow mourning a husband faced far longer and stricter expectations than someone mourning a distant relative.

What did a memorial locket actually contain?

A memorial locket typically held a photograph, a woven lock of hair, or both, sealed behind a small glass window so the keepsake stayed protected but visible. Many pieces were also engraved on the outside with the deceased's initials or full name and the date of death, turning the jewelry into a small, wearable epitaph rather than a purely decorative object. Photography was still a relatively new technology through most of Victoria's reign, so a locket photograph of someone who had died was often one of very few images a family would ever have of that person, which is part of why these pieces were treated as genuinely irreplaceable.

Did mourning jewelry disappear after the Victorian era?

Mourning jewelry as a strict, mandatory practice faded after Victoria's death in 1901 and largely disappeared by the years following the First World War, when the sheer scale of wartime loss made the old, elaborate mourning calendar impractical for most families. It didn't vanish overnight, and pieces from the era survive today in museum collections and antique jewelry markets, still recognizable by their jet, hairwork, and engraved memorial details. What did carry forward, even after the formal etiquette relaxed, is the underlying idea: a small, personal piece of jewelry that holds a name, a date, or something physical tying it to a specific person you loved, rather than a purely decorative choice.

From memorial jewelry to sentimental jewelry today

The strict black-jet-and-hairwork rules of Victorian mourning are gone, but the instinct behind them, wanting a piece of jewelry that carries someone's name, initials, or a specific date rather than just looking nice, is still exactly why people buy engraved lockets, birthstone pieces, and name necklaces today. If that history has you thinking about a locket of your own, AJLuxe's locket necklace guide is a practical place to start, and our necklace collection carries the same idea the Victorians had (a piece that holds something personal), just without the mandatory black.

Frequently asked questions

Is mourning jewelry the same thing as memento mori jewelry? Not quite. Memento mori jewelry, which often features skulls, coffins, or hourglasses, is older and is meant as a general reminder of mortality for anyone, not necessarily tied to one specific person's death. Mourning jewelry, especially the Victorian form, was almost always personal: it named, dated, or physically contained something from one particular deceased individual.

Was mourning jewelry only worn by women? No, though women's mourning dress and jewelry were far more codified and strictly enforced. Men also wore mourning jewelry, typically in more restrained forms such as a black-enameled mourning ring, a watch chain incorporating hair, or a jet or onyx cufflink and stud set.

Is real jet still used in jewelry today? Genuine Whitby jet jewelry is still made in small quantities, mostly by specialist and antique dealers, but it's a niche material today rather than a mainstream one. Most black stone jewelry sold now uses onyx, black glass, or other materials rather than true fossilized jet.

How can you tell if a piece of jewelry is genuine Victorian mourning jewelry? Genuine pieces typically show hallmarks of the period: hand-carved jet or vulcanite, visible hairwork under glass, engraved initials and death dates, and construction techniques consistent with the mid-to-late 1800s. Because the style has been widely reproduced, a jewelry historian or antique appraiser is the reliable way to confirm authenticity and age rather than appearance alone.

Sources

• Royal.uk, "Prince Albert"
• Wikipedia, "Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha"
• Wikipedia, "Victorian jewellery"
• National Geographic, "Trendy Victorian-Era Jewelry Was Made From Hair"
• Art of Mourning, "Mourning Fashion and Jewels During Victoria"
• Art of Mourning, "Victoria's Photographic Mourning Ring for Albert, 1861"

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