Victorian jewelry began in England. It was made during the time Queen Victoria ruled from 1837 to 1901. Queen Victoria was an important person who set the styles for Victorian jewelry. How much jewelry someone owned showed their identity and social standing.

Victorian jewelry included many different types of styles and fashions. These styles can be grouped into three main periods: the Romantic period, the Grand period, and the Aesthetic period.

Identity and status

Jewelry played an important role in Victorian culture by showing a person's identity and social status. In the Western world, people often saw jewels as beautiful objects that many wanted to own. People wanted jewels because they were linked to respectability, class pride, money value, and popular trends. Because of their value, jewelry was seen as a product that helped Victorian businesses grow. Buying jewelry was important for showing wealth and social class, driven by consumer habits. Because jewelry was expensive, lower classes couldn't follow this fashion trend. If a woman didn't wear jewelry, people thought she couldn't afford it because she was working class. Because many people wanted certain jewels, factories made them quickly. Fake versions of these jewels were made cheaper for middle-class people. In the Victorian era, women mostly wore jewelry. Men usually didn't wear it because it was seen as a feminine item. Women who wore jewelry were seen as beautiful. Even though men didn't wear jewelry, they often gave it to women they admired.

Different periods of Victorian jewellery

Jewellery made during the Victorian era is well known for its design and materials. The way jewellery was made changed during this time because of new machines. These machines made it faster to produce jewellery and replaced tasks that were once done by hand. The variety of jewellery from the Victorian era was so wide that it can be divided into three main periods: the Romantic period, the Grand period, and the Aesthetic period. Each period had unique features, including different sources of inspiration, materials used, and types of jewellery worn.

The first period, called the Romantic period or early Victorian period, was influenced by the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and nature. Gold became a popular material during this time, which helped shape many jewellery designs.

Key features of this period included:

• Themes: Nature inspired designs with images of snakes, trees, birds, and flowers like lotus blossoms.
• Materials: Common materials used were gold, seed pearls, ivory, tortoiseshell, coral, onyx, agate, diamonds, amber, amethyst, emerald, and quartz.
• Common jewellery worn: Rings, brooches, bracelets, and cameos.

The second period, called the Grand period or mid-Victorian period, had a change in design from delicate to bold. This change matched the growing roles of women in society, such as entering business, politics, and education. During this time, imitation jewellery became popular, and costume jewellery began to appear. Women also started to demand the right to vote, attend university, and earn their own money.

Key features of this period included:

• Themes: Designs often included insects like flies, butterflies, dragonflies, and beetles.
• Materials: Gold was used to create a soft look, along with colourless stones, silver, jet, ivory, and pearls.
• Common jewellery worn: Earrings, brooches, bracelets, necklaces for evening events, and lockets for daily wear.

The death of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, led to the popularity of mourning jewellery during this period (see Victorian jewellery § Mourning jewellery).

The third period, called the Aesthetic period or late Victorian period, saw a change in how women wore jewellery. This time encouraged women to take more active roles in society, including forming their own political groups. This shift led to more freedom of thought and less emphasis on traditional feminine appearance. As a result, fewer people bought jewellery, and it was worn only on special occasions or rarely during the day.

Key features of this period included:

• Themes: Designs returned to softer, natural styles, featuring butterflies, roses, and pastel colours.
• Materials: Amethysts, emeralds, and opals were commonly used.
• Common jewellery worn: Small, simple brooches, earrings, and bracelets became less common.

During this time, Queen Victoria continued to influence the wearing of mourning jewellery.

Hair jewellery

Hair jewelry, also called hairwork, became a popular fashion during the middle of the 18th century. This trend grew stronger in the 1850s and continued until the 1880s. Although hair jewelry was made before 1861, its use by Queen Victoria after the death of her husband, Prince Albert, made it more popular again.

During the Victorian era, using hair in jewelry was part of a tradition called relic culture. People made jewelry with hair strands to help them deal with sadness after losing someone. Hair was used because it does not change or decay after death, making it a lasting reminder of the person who was lost. People made hair jewelry to stay connected to someone who had passed away. Hair was used in many types of jewelry, such as bracelets, earrings, brooches, rings, and watch chains. Materials like pearls, gold, gems, and enamel were often added to decorate the jewelry. Hair jewelry was used to honor the dead and to remember them during funeral ceremonies. At funerals, women wore special hair ornaments that had symbols like skeletons, coffins, angels, and crossbones. Braided hair was also used in floral arrangements at funerals.

Hair jewelry was not only used for mourning. It was also a fashion accessory that showed a woman’s social class. Only middle and upper-class women could afford to wear it. Hair jewelry was seen as a way to show a woman’s femininity and her place in society. Making hair jewelry was a skill that women learned, often passed down from mothers to daughters. Many women made hair jewelry at home using tools like curling irons, tweezers, gum, porcelain palettes, and knives. Some women made their own jewelry instead of trusting others to handle their loved one’s hair, as they worried about the safety of sending hair to a jeweler.

In addition to being used for mourning, hair jewelry was sometimes given as a gift between friends. It was made from the hair of a living person to show friendship.

Hair jewelry linked to Queen Victoria is highly valuable. Some pieces have sold for tens of thousands of pounds at auctions.

Mourning jewellery

The mourning process lasted a long time and was practiced by both men and women. During this time, women often wore mourning jewelry. This practice showed how women were expected to maintain their social status and honor their husbands, even during deep sadness. After Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, died, she began a mourning period that lasted more than 40 years until her own death. Many people mourned Prince Albert, and Queen Victoria required the court to follow a mourning period. During this time, only jet jewelry was allowed to be worn. The tradition of wearing black mourning jewelry continued even after Prince Albert’s mourning period because of the high infant death rate in England at the time.

After the death of a loved one, a mourning ritual was followed. This ritual started the day of the death and lasted at least one year. During this time, grievers could not wear shiny or reflective materials and had to wear only black clothing and jewelry. In the second year of mourning, grievers could wear softer colors like white or colorless materials, as well as pearls and diamonds.

Wearing mourning jewelry showed the strong bond between the grieving person and the deceased. During the Victorian mourning period, personalized jewelry was made as keepsakes. These pieces often included the initials, names, or death dates of the deceased, engraved on the jewelry. For example, a mourning ring for the author Charlotte Brontë, found in 2019, had her name and death date (March 1855) engraved on it and held a braid of her hair behind a locked panel.

The symbol of an eye had special meaning in mourning jewelry. A single eye was often placed in brooches or other jewelry. This eye represented the spiritual presence of the deceased, as if they were watching over the person who wore the jewelry. Pearls were also used in mourning jewelry, as they symbolized tears. The fashion of mourning jewelry declined after 1901, following Queen Victoria’s death.

During the mourning period, two main materials were commonly used in jewelry: jet and black onyx. Because of high demand for these materials, imitations were created, such as hardened rubber called "French jet," black enamel, and black glass. Jet was especially popular in the mid-1800s because it was lightweight, very black, strong, inexpensive, and easy to carve. It was used to make bracelets, necklaces, brooches, cameos, and pendants. After Prince Albert’s death, Queen Victoria wore mostly jet jewelry, hair pieces containing his hair, and her wedding ring.

Black onyx was also used in mourning jewelry. Black onyx, which is black-dyed chalcedony, was often used to make cameos and beads.