Featured Grandmothers nurses belt or Peranakan Wedding Belt ?

hi

Can anyone help me identify this belt. I think it is solid silver. It may be an edwardian nurses belt given to my grandmother to celebrate when she finished her nursing training in 1917. Or in the 1890's my grandfather was a customs officer who may have bought it from a sailor on board the ship he was inspecting. Any help appreciated.

 

@Any Jewelry

Debora

 

It is a Peranakan belt, based on native Indonesian belts.
The maker was Peranakan too, but I can't read the Chinese mark.
1890s sounds correct to me.

 

I'll tag some people who may be able to help you with the mark.
@Kaiserpoo , @Princess Kitty , @gckimm .

 

Certainly looks like a Peranakan/nyonya "panel" belt, made out of individual panels or plates of silver. One of about four or five recognisable styles used by the Peranakan. Very lucky to have that

A belt like this would've come from Southeast Asia. Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, or Indonesia - the homelands of the Peranakan Cina. If your grandfather had any dealings with the Far East, or handled ships that came from there, that might explain its presence.

That said, belts like these were often pricey and valued family heirlooms...I can't imagine someone gave away a belt like that easily.

 

Learned something new today: Peranakan belt. Thanks!

As for nurse's belts, I thought they traditionally wore silver buckles, not silver belts? The buckle would be a graduation gift and worn on a length of petersham ribbon.

 

I can see it being used as a nurse's belt later on, especially if one didn't know the origin. Silver got used because it's anti-microbial.

 

Peranakan belts (usually made of silver, gold, or silver-plate) were worn by the men (but usually - women - or 'nyonyas') of the Peranakan Cina - the "Local-Born Chinese" (literal translation) of Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia. I've got a few at home which are heirlooms inherited from my Peranakan ancestors.

As for nurse-belts - yes, usually it was just the BUCKLE that was silver - and the belt itself was some type of ribbed cloth fabric like petersham or similar. Also, Nurse-belt buckles were usually identically-symmetrical (or at least, the ones I've seen). I have seen SOME nurse-belts which were all-silver, but they seem to have been rarer.

 

So interesting! This seems to have been a UK nurse thing, I've not seen it in the US.

At the veteran's hospital where I work, one ward had an older nurse (she finally retired about four years ago) who wore the traditional US nurse's uniform daily: white dress, white stockings/tights, white shoes, and white hat. The patients loved her! The respect she received from even the unruly ones was fascinating to see.
We're all in scrubs now, milling about like pajama-clad worker bees.

I haven't been able to find any old photos of nurses wearing silver belts, only silver buckles:

 

I've heard of solid silver nurses's belts but never seen one. Then again, we Murricans don't see the garden variety nursing buckles either. Or at least don't know what they are when we do.

 

Wich leads me to wonder where in the heck that silver plated belt I had is ! My word but those victorian nurses had tiny waists,didnt they ?

 

Ridonculously small. Probably a combination of smaller people and a corset.

 

Waists for women were generally a lot smaller back then. My grandmothers' and great-grandmothers' nyonya belts are all 30 inches and under.

And when you consider that you'd need 2-3 inches of belt for overlap (for buckling purposes) and you realise their waists were closer to 24-28 inches...it's really amazing how tiny they were.

I mean, my grandmother was not a large woman by any means - she was probably 5'2", but they really were TINY back then.

 

I have never heard of the nurse's buckle here in the US. I see by the description above that the buckle often signifies what school they got their training. In the US her cap & pin signified the school.

The caps started disappearing in the late 1980s. I graduated in 1987 & the cap I wore as a student (it was mandatory) is long gone. We were given a new one for graduation from a local uniform shop. I wore mine for the graduation ceremony & that was it. I will lay odds that I was not the only one.

Frankly, they were a nuisance, especially in an emergency. They were hard to keep in place especially if you had very short or fine hair. After most codes or other types of emergencies, there were always at least a couple of caps thrown into a corner somewhere.

 

When my grandmother was in a nursing home, the nurses who worked there still wore very traditional nursing uniforms (and this was only like 10 years ago!). they even had the little clip-on nurse-watches.

 

I've never seen a nurse's buckle which signified the training establishment or membership of the RCN. They were usually pretty floral or other motif ones, given as gifts when they first hit the wards as properly qualified.

I'm not sure where that image came from, but those aren't 1948 uniforms and it's quite wrong to say the uniform was standardised then. It still isn't in some respects.

 

Of course, now I can't find where I came across that image.

EDIT: Here it is. I'm not familiar with the website, and it wants the viewer to "subscribe to read more".
https://www.everand.com/article/462398134/Nhs-Nurse

And this is an interesting article on the history of UK nursing uniforms though I don't, of course, know how accurate it is.
https://www.voluptuousvintage.com/e...-brief-look-at-the-history-of-nursing-fashion

 

Someone down on their luck maybe?
Overhere they come up for auction every two weeks or so. Unfortunately bidding usually goes over my paygrade.

Simply a belt used and often also made by Peranakan people, also known as 'Straits Chinese'. The Straits they are part of the old maritime trade routes of SE Asia: Malacca Strait, Java Strait, Madura Strait, etc.

Peranakan women were given these when they were (very) young, so their waists were still slender.
When I was in my early 20s I had a 45cm waist (17.7"). Needless to say, I don't anymore, at my ripe old age. But a 30" Peranakan belt would fit me, only just.

I am 1.60m, so 5'24", and considered TINY in the Netherlands, aka the land of giants.
So it wasn't just back then. Some women, especially East Asian women, are small. And small young women generally have slender waists.

As an aside, there used to be a saying in Java that a rickshaw would fit either three Javanese women, or two Chinese women, or one European woman.

 

I haven't been that short since I was about 12, so the saying has merit.

 

Hi:

The Chinese characters say that it is made of "pure silver." I am not sure if that is just a way of describing sterling, which is mostly silver (92.5%) plus copper.

Greg