Wand, mourning wand

This wooden staff or wand with brass ends would have been carried by a funeral mute and draped in white cloth for the funeral of a child and black cloth for the funeral of an adult. In the book Leaves from a Life the author Mrs Panton recalls the 19th century custom of hiring mutes to stand outside the home of the deceased 'from early morning until the funeral was over, each bearing a mysterious bauble, something like a broom tied up in black silk squares at the head and finished at the middle of the stave with black silk bows. These worthies were called mutes, and were supposed to stand motionless, no matter what the weather'.