Hair jewellery

Hair jewellery with which we are most familiar is, I suppose, mourning jewellery, which often contained a lock of hair of the deceased and would have been given to members of the deceased’s family as a memento. And indeed hair did not need to be made into jewellery to be treasured. Jane Austen’s hair was kept as a momento, as was a lock of her father’s hair, and both are kept in the collection of the Jane Austen’s House Museum. Do note the label -My Father’s Hair- is written in Jane’s hand: