What Is a Mourning Ring?

A mourning ring is a ring made or given specifically to commemorate a death - one of the oldest and most consistently documented forms of memorial jewellery, with a history well before the Victorian mourning boom most people associate with the practice.

An Older Custom Than Victorian Mourning

Mourning rings were common in England from at least the 17th century, and the custom is documented with unusual clarity because it was frequently written into wills. A testator would leave money or instructions for rings to be made and distributed to family, friends and associates after the funeral, sometimes specifying the design, the inscription or the sum to be spent on each ring. William Shakespeare’s will of 1616 left 26 shillings and 8 pence each to three fellow actors, Richard Burbage, John Heminges and Henry Condell, to buy rings. By the late 17th century the custom had grown considerably: Samuel Pepys, who died in 1703, left instructions for mourning rings to be given to a long list of relatives, friends and colleagues, and lists of this kind, with recipients graded by the value of the ring they were to receive, survive among many wealthy families’ papers.

This made the mourning ring as much a social obligation and a record of the deceased’s wishes as a piece of jewellery chosen freely, and it means surviving 17th- and 18th-century examples can sometimes be traced to a specific will or bequest. The custom crossed to colonial America, where mourning rings were given out at funerals in New England and elsewhere through the 18th century.

How the Design Changed

• c.1650-1700: gold bands enamelled in black and white with a skull, skeleton, crossbones, coffin or hourglass in the memento mori tradition, with the name and date engraved inside. After the execution of Charles I in 1649, royalists wore rings with the king’s portrait in enamel or under crystal.
• c.1690-1730: bezels with a faceted crystal over a tiny skull, a gold-wire cipher or a lock of hair, sometimes in the shape of a coffin, related to the “Stuart crystal” slides of the same period.
• c.1720-1770: the classic Georgian mourning ring, a gold hoop enamelled in black (or white) with the deceased’s name, date of death and age reserved in gold letters on the outside. The hoop was often made in a series of scrolls, each carrying part of the inscription. Many have no bezel at all.
• c.1770-1800: neoclassical rings with a large oval or navette-shaped bezel showing an urn, a weeping willow or a mourning woman at a tomb, painted in sepia on ivory or worked in hair, framed in gold, enamel or seed pearls.
• c.1800-1840: broader bands with black enamel and gold lettering, often with a glazed compartment holding hair or a small crystal-covered plait.
• c.1840-1900: wide gold bands with “In Memory Of” in raised Gothic lettering on black enamel, hair under glass in the bezel, and rings of jet or set with dark garnets and pearls.

Materials and Colour

Earlier mourning rings, particularly through the 17th and 18th centuries, were typically gold bands finished with black enamel. White enamel was often used instead of black to mark the death of an unmarried person or a child, and some rings combine the two, but the convention was followed inconsistently enough that it should be treated as a general tendency rather than a firm rule. Some rings incorporated a small glazed compartment for a lock of the deceased’s hair, anticipating the more elaborate hair jewellery of the following century. Rings were commonly supplied in small fitted cases, like the one in the image above.

Typical Inscriptions

Most mourning rings carried an inscription giving at minimum the deceased’s initials or name and date of death, either engraved inside the hoop or reserved in gold against the enamelled exterior. Georgian inscriptions often use Latin abbreviations: “Ob” or “Obt” (obiit, “died”) before the date, and “Aet” or “Ae” (aetatis, “aged”) before the age at death. Short mottoes also appear, such as “Not lost but gone before” or phrases urging the wearer to prepare for death. This makes mourning rings, like other inscribed mourning jewellery, unusually well documented compared with undated ordinary jewellery of the same period - where an inscription survives legibly, it can sometimes be matched to genealogical or probate records.

Continuation Into the Victorian Period

The custom continued into the 19th century, though its character shifted alongside the wider Victorian mourning-jewellery culture that developed after 1861. Victorian mourning rings drew on the same materials that dominated the period’s mourning jewellery generally - jet, black enamel, dark garnets - and increasingly incorporated hair compartments, alongside the inscribed band that had defined the form for two centuries already. The will-based custom of distributing rings to a wide circle of mourners gradually lapsed during the century, and Victorian mourning rings were more often bought by close family for their own wear.

Mourning Rings vs Posy Rings

Mourning rings are sometimes confused with posy rings, since both are inscribed bands and posy rings predate the height of mourning-ring fashion. The distinction is in the inscription’s content and purpose: a posy ring carries a short romantic or affectionate verse, typically given between living people as a token of love or friendship, while a mourning ring’s inscription records a death - a name, dates, or an explicitly memorial phrase. A ring’s black enamel, skull motif or hair compartment is generally a stronger indicator of mourning purpose than the inscribed band alone, since plain inscribed bands were used for both purposes across overlapping periods.

Frequently Asked Questions

Were mourning rings only worn by close family? No - the will-based custom of distributing rings meant mourning rings were often given to a fairly wide circle of friends, colleagues and associates, not only immediate family, so ownership of one doesn’t necessarily indicate a close relationship to the deceased.

Does black enamel always mean a ring is a mourning ring? Not necessarily - black enamel was used decoratively outside of mourning contexts too, so it should be read alongside other features such as an inscription, hair compartment or memento mori motif rather than treated as proof on its own.