A tricky one in a mourning locket - any ideas of date please?

[action49]

I think you need to be careful here & not to try and hammer this in to someone you would like it to be.
What you've said contradicts what everyone is saying to you in that this is a girl around 15.
Women of all classes managed their hair into the fashionable style of the day without any problem.

Of course! You guys are the experts. It would have been lovely - I think I have very dim memories of my mum telling me it was Sarah but mum was renowned for scattering red herrings everywhere and I stopped taking her word as gospel a long time ago! Will go back to looking for a girl who was around 15 in the 70s (I thought I saw the choker there too) and who died young (perhaps - or it was just a favourite photograph)

Lots to think about! Thank you all for your insights!

[Ruskie]

I am not suggesting you do this (I wouldn’t if this were mine), but the locket must be able to be opened. I would be very reluctant to force anything but a restorer or dealer in antique jewellery may be able to help you.

I doubt that the photo is contemporary with the locket, so I would be curious to see if there is an earlier photo or other image behind it.

You might be able to do something to loosen up the hinges, possibly a tiny amount of specialist oil such as that used for oiling clocks. You would need to take care to not get anything on the jet though. Once again probably best left to a professional.

Jet is lovely - you are so lucky to have so much of it.

[Mowsehowse]

I am no kind of expert, but.....
I thought girls/maidens wore their hair down until marriage or, until too long "on the shelf" to get away with it anymore.

Would a 15 year old, in Victorian times, be getting married?  And would the hair go up before or after the marriage ceremony?

[jim1]

Young women usually dressed as adults at around 18,marriage didn't have anything to do with it.
It was a case of longer skirts & shorter hair.
It might be worth mentioning that jet was a fashionable jewellery accessory & worn in it's own right
& not just for mourning purposes although that was the most common practice.

[louisa maud]

If it can't be opened  by you without damaging it I would be inclined to take it to an old fashioned jeweller, he might have the small implements to open it without damaging it, worth a try

Good Luck

Louisa Maud

[Ian Nelson]

Wikipedia has fascinating facts on whitby jet et al.  Apparently Queen Victoria wore lots of it when mourning her Albert and so enhanced the fashion for ' mourning jewellery'.  see here ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(gemstone)

[Treetotal]

Yes Ian...a subject that has been much discussed on here and also Bog Oak which is often mistaken for jet.
Carol