JET HISTORY
Jet comes from the Araucaria (Monkey Puzzle) trees that died millions of years ago. Over time the trees fell, were washed into streams in heavy rainfall, and were swept out to sea where they sank to the bottom and became buried by other sediments. Due to the conditions present and the complete lack of oxygen they changed into the material that we know as ‘Jet’. Later the layers of Jet were again raised above sea level by geological movement, and are therefore today found above ground.
Whitby Jet is found only in the area around Whitby, in Yorkshire. Mining for the gemstone has never been permitted, though it was accepted practice to dig deep into the cliff faces to extract it.
Having been collected, Jet was then worked in small workshops around Whitby, where it was cut, and turned on large lathes – the specialised craftsmen could produce incredibly intricate work on these large wheels – and finally polished.
The first Jet workshop opened in Whitby in 1808. At the peak of the jet trade in the early 1870s there were about 200 manufacturing shops and approximately 1500 people employed in the Jet trade in and around Whitby. The work produced a lot of brown dust which, being a form of coal, was highly combustible. The workshops were lit by kerosene lamps, and many burned down.
Today, Whitby Jet remains a rare gem, found only in a small area, and even today it is never mined. It is collected piece by piece, most of it from the beaches where it falls from seams in the cliffs or washes up after a storm.
There are not many people working Whitby Jet today, because there is very little jet available. The large lathes and dust-filled rooms of Victorian times have been replaced by modern equipment and a healthy working environment, but each piece is still hand crafted. Sometimes the size and shape of the raw material dictates the finished appearance of a piece of jewellery.