World Art Collects: Chinese and Kachin textiles

Lois, Wa Gyi [ Lois' uncle] and Robin, 2009. Myitkyina Manua

We have just finished accessioning and cataloguing approximately 70 textiles and artefacts from China and Burma, which were offered to our World Art Collection as a donation.

They were presented to us by Lois and Robin Knight and included their personal collection as well as Lois’s family items.

Lois’s grandfather, Thomas Darlington, worked for The China Inland Mission (CIM) between 1906 and 1926 and the textiles and artefacts are assumed to have been given to him as farewell gifts.

He married Ada, a nurse also working for CIM, and had four children. Their son, David, undertook theological training at Oak Hill College in Southgate, North London and then went as an Anglican missionary to the Kachin State, Burma in 1939.

In 1944 he married a Kachin woman, Nhte Roi and they had six children. The family stayed in Burma until their departure to England in 1962.

The textiles and artefacts were stored in a trunk with David Darlington’s name on. The trunk presumably had stayed in England whilst David Darlington’s family were in Burma. It was only discovered after the death of Lois’s mother, Roi, in 1999. With awareness of the important Burma textile collection we have here at Brighton Museum, Lois’s wish was for the family items to join our World Art permanent collection.

The Darlington Collection includes some unique Kachin clothing pieces handwoven by Lois’s mother, Roi, who used a back-strap loom. Roi grew, spun, dyed, and wove her clothes and those of the children. She even bred silkworms and used the silk to make a few of the skirts we have now in our collection.

Roi feeding yarn into heddle

Roi teaching Lois

Weaving a labu [skirt]

Jinghpaw Hkahku silk skirt [1950’s] – Roi reared silkworms and collected enough silk to weave this skirt

Lois and Robin with Tawm Nu – Early Childhood Development, 2019

Lois and her family continue to have a very special bond with Burma (Myanmar) and partake in important Kachin festivities like the Manau Festival for which we have a display within the World Stories Gallery in Brighton Museum.

We are thrilled to have received such a personal collection, which has been extraordinarily well documented and cared for. The family have also donated their archive material to our collections.

It is a great testament to the experiences and lives lived by families born under British colonies, growing together in between places, forever intertwined but embracing their re-shaped identities.

You can see a selection of some of the textiles and items donated to us below.