Mourning ring

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title: "Mourning ring" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["rings-(jewellery)", "death-customs"] description: "Type of finger ring" topic_path: "general/rings-jewellery" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_ring" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Type of finger ring ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/5_mourning_rings7997.JPG" caption="Five mourning rings made between 1745 and 1826"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Victorian_18ct_mourning_ring_with_hair.jpg" caption="Victorian mourning ring with hair enclosed in 18ct gold"] ::

A mourning ring is a finger ring worn in memory of someone who has died. Otherwise cheaper black materials such as black enamel or vulcanite were used. In some cases a lock of hair of the deceased person would be incorporated into the ring.

The use of mourning rings dates back to at least the 14th century, By the mid-18th century jewelers had started to advertise the speed with which such rings could be made. This imagery often included the initials of the dead and was typically covered by a face of rock crystal.

In the latter half of the 19th century the style of mourning rings shifted towards mass-produced rings featuring a photograph mounted on the bezel. Toward the end of the century, the use of mourning rings largely ceased. The mass production of mourning rings made this jewelry more accessible to the middle class, shifting mourning rings away from its upper class origins. Some scholars argue that upon this rapid mass production, mourning rings and mourning jewelry more largely shifted to represent the capitalistic exploitation of mourning individuals.

Use of mourning rings resurfaced in the 1930s and 1940s in the United States.

Mourning rings have sometimes been made to mark occasions other than a person's death.

People who bequeathed mourning rings

• Cesar Picton ( – 1836), bequeathing 16 rings
• Sir Anthony Browne (1509–1567)
• Col. Nicholas Spencer (1633–1689)
• William Shakespeare (1564–1616; mourning rings mentioned in Shakespeare's will)
• Princess Amelia of the United Kingdom (1783–1810)

References

References

1. "Antique Mourning Jewelry". Market Street Media.
2. Church, Rachel. (2014). "Rings". V&A Publishing.
3. "Mourning ring". University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum.
4. (19 Jan 2015). "Mourning Jewellery:Remembering the Dearly Departed".
5. Lutz, Deborah. (2011). "The Dead Still Among Us: Victorian Secular Relics, Hair Jewelry, and Death Culture". Victorian Literature and Culture.
6. (2006). "7000 Years of Jewellery". British Museum Press.
7. Tsoumas, Johannis. (2023-05-04). "Mourning jewelry in late Georgian and Victorian Britain: a world of fantasy and tears". Convergences - Journal of Research and Arts Education.
8. (1982). "Mirrors of mortality: studies in the social history of death". St. Martin's Press.
9. (30 March 2012). "When did the practice of funeral rings begin/end and how widespread was it?". [[Immediate Media Company Ltd]].
10. King, Elspeth. (1993). "The Hidden History of Glasgow's Women: The Thenew Factor". Mainstream Publishing.

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