Jet

Jet was formed in the stagnant waters of ancient bogs, it is believed to be the compressed remains of an ancient ancestor of the monkey puzzle tree "Araucaria araucana".

The name is possibly derived from the Roman's name for it "gagat". It is sometimes thought to be a type of black lignite coal, (lignite is a brown coal which retains retains some of the structure of the original wood). Jet beads and ornaments can be found in Romano British sites, it was one of the reasons why the Romans invaded Britain, samples of Whitby jet have been found in all corners of the Roman Empire, it is still found at Whitby and is regarded the best in the world.

It is easily carved and its light weight made it ideal for jewellery. Black mourning jewellery had been fashionable in France since the early 1800s and demand gained momentum when Victoria donned jet to mourn the death of her consort Albert from typhoid in 1861, the traditional mourning period was 2½ years for a widow mourning her husband, (followed by "half mourning" in grey or violet) and 3 months for a widower mourning his wife.

Victoria far exceeded this period and was in mourning for 40 years, the rest of her life, (Elizabeth Longford's autobiography of Victoria tells how the monarch disagreed strongly with widows remarrying) Demand for jet rose sharply as everyone in Victorian society strove to copy their monarch (At the start of Victoria's reign in 1837 there were 10 jet workshops in Whitby, by 1873 there were 200+), it became the height of fashion and the natural supplies could not keep up.

So there were many imitations, black glass mimicking jet was created in Bohemian and nicknamed "French Jet", as so much black glass was already in production for the French market but other substitutes included vulcanite.

Much of the commercially available new jet is from Russia, China or Mongolia.