Victorian's superstitions ways & Death Tokens

Mementos 

Victorias were collectors; when it came to deaths especially in a family victorians would go mad about preserving the memory of the departed. Mementos were extremely popular when it came to dealing with loss. Like a previous blog talks about the victoria's creation pieces of jewellery from the persons hair called hair work; many of these pieces are extremely beautiful even though the idea of them is mainly due to sad circumstances, the tradition of course of having someone closes hair isn't that strange, my own mother has a locket of my sisters hair in a locket from when she was a little baby (my sister had gorgeous red hair) Many Victorians would also actually buy hair to create a piece.

A mixture of hair colours 

                             http://www.corvusnoir.com/blog/2011/08/victorian-hair-jewelry.html

bell at the grave

Victoria's had a fear of waking up during being inside their grave; of course you hear these horrible stories of dead bodies moving like sitting up or flinching hands but this is usual explained with gasses being released.... ew. To many superstitious Victorians once being buried incase of a waking up the grave would be fitted with a bell incase the person woke up and could alert the grave diggers to being unearthed from the near death experience. Of course though did this ever happen? probably not regularly. The idea of a bell at the grave was called a safety coffin... I'm sure like the valentines card is to card companies the safety coffin was a big seller to the superstitious wealthy Victorias's. The safety coffin has had a few different forms over the years but the idea of a bell at the grave is very Victorian.

https://www.pinterest.com/islandpsycho666/bell-ringer/

Post Mortem

The unusual technique of photographing the dead in their last portrait. The photos usually consisted of children which isn't surprising as children's death rate was a lot larger then a fully grown adult. 

The photographs themselves are extremely sad to look at and some are a little disturbing.... it wasn't unusual for the photographs to be taken up to two whole weeks after death. The smell must of been extremely unpleasant. Post Mortem photos were usually for the wealthier classes as photography was an expensive art in the Victorian era. A lot of images involving babies would usual have a family member behind hidden holding the baby up in position.... so sad

Double exposure Photography 

EEEK

This new form of photography became increasingly popular in the Victorian era; of course the victorians superstitions of death became a hugely increased subject from the increase in gothic literature that spoke of ghosts and creatures of the night.  People were becoming more adventurous. It was Willian Mumblers first discovery of double exposure in the 1860's that brought about the idea of using double exposure in a supernatural way. Family members would be in one shot whilst the dead would be in a nothing image over; of course being supernatural lovers a lot of people would create shoots to look ghostly when the person modelling was actually just a actor or model. Actors themselves were also popular to be double exposed with. A lot of the photos created were meant to be hoax's that the public would believe much like many photoshop "Ghost" images we see now these photos were made to add paranoia to the already superstitious Victorian's.

Both photos were found on ......

http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2011/october/victorian_spirit_photos.htm