WI Centenary

Items are given to the museum right through the year and several items have been donated in the run up to Christmas. Yesterday’s photo of George Baker was one of them and here is another.

Banner made by Market Lavington and Easterton WI to mark the centenary of the first WI in the UK.

This is a quilted banner to represent the Market Lavington and Easterton Women’s Institute as part of a celebration of the centenary of these institutes within Britain. The first WI in this country was set up in 1915 and was seen as a way of encouraging country women to produce food to help with the war effort. The first meeting was held on 16^th September 1915 at Llanfairpwll on the Isle of Anglesey.

The quilter has created a downland scene, as we see in this part of the world from oddments of fabric and has embroidered on to it the vital information for the centenary.

This banner will appear again in 2019 when the Wiltshire Federation of WIs celebrates its centenary, and who knows, it could make it to 2030 when the Market Lavington and Easterton Branch will celebrate its centenary as well.

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Easterton Centenary Celebrations

Well 1975 wasn’t the centenary of Easterton which had been a tithing of Market Lavington for aeons. But it was the centenary of Easterton becoming an ecclesiastical parish in its own right.

It was deemed worthy of celebrating this centenary, and being Easterton, the locals did it well.

Pony, trap and people at the Easterton Centenary event in 1975

Here we see a pony and trap on the High Street – a reminder of those Victorian days.

Indeed, the passengers are dressed in appropriate Victorian costume and there are followers in costume as well.

The children and others, however, are really showing us what we looked like 40 years ago. We have a good range of 70s fashions. There’s the little girl in the short mini-dress and possible white boots. Three young lads sport the fashionable length hair for the time – certainly no short back and sides. There’s a slightly older lad in long and very flared trousers and further back a tank top wearing man. The man patting the horse is dressed as a Scot. His outfit is more timeless than the others on show.

The scene shows us the chapel and behind that the Jubilee Terrace.

Guess what? We lack names. Maybe you can help.