Hayden Peters is a Jewellery Historian, Scholar and Designer.

An authority on the topic of mourning and sentimental jewellery, Hayden founded the Art of Mourning (www.artofmourning.com) in 2005 as his teaching platform to share knowledge and educate about this important part of history between the years 1517-1920. The website reaches thousands of international students and collectors daily, with over 800 articles detailing the history of early-modern society, politics, design and fashion.

Hayden has appeared on television, appeared in international publications, museum installations and written for academic publications. 

Profit and Loss, Art of Mourning in Print

Published by Egaeus Press, the book is a lithographically printed, 250 page sewn hardback with colour endpapers; limited to just 300 copies.

ISBN 978-1-916465749.

It can be purchased now for £35.00, inclusive of postage worldwide.

‘Profit and Loss’ is an investigation of the cost of mourning jewels in the 16th – 19th centuries, the goldsmiths who made them, the hair artists who wove them and the retailers who exploited grief for profit.

Appearances & Timeline

2026

November 9-13: Lecture and workshops at Oxford University, UK.

October: Lecture with Beadesigner International, New England USA, based on the history of mourning jewellery.

July 2: Lecture with the Adelaide Collectors Society: Jewels for the Dead: Mourning, Memory and Meaning, 1500–1800

July: Published in the Art Gallery of South Australia’s AGSA magazine (issue 61, pages 46-47); ‘Death and Fashion’, an essay about the history of mourning jewels.

June/August: Lectures at the Sydney Fair and Melbourne Fair based on a thesis titled
THE FEMME FATALE: The Power Passion and Politics of the Symbolic Woman in Georgian Mourning Jewels.

March: Cataloguing the jewellery inventory of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

January – October: Completed Advanced Graduate Diploma in Art History at the University of Melbourne.

2025

June/August: Arts and Crafts jewellery and history lectures at the Sydney Fair and Melbourne Fair, Australia.

January – October: Completed Graduate Diploma in Art History at the University of Melbourne.

2024

June: Lifting the Lid Podcast.

January: Haunted History Chronicles Podcast

2022

November: Lifting the Lid 2022 conference lecture.

July 8: Mourning Jewels in the time of Virginia Poe Lecture with the Poe Museum, Baltimore, USA.

June: Keynote speaker for the National Association of Jewellers (NAJ) UK.

March: Full day lecture with Hal Simon in Houston, Texas, USA.

2021

March 3: Featured in German magazine Börse Online to promote Sotheby’s auction ’The Family Collection of the late Countess Mountbatten of Burma’, featuring mourning jewels from Queen Victoria.

March 1: Interviewed on The Mothball Prophecies podcast.

2020

June: Keynote speaker for the National Association of Jewellers (NAJ) UK.

October: Interviewed on The Mothball Prophecies podcast.

January: The ‘Profit and Loss’ Tour of the USA begins:
– Los Angeles (January 9th) at The Mystic Museum.
– San Francisco (January 12th).
– Independence, Missouri (January 16th) at Leila’s Hair Museum.
– Raleigh (January 19th) at The Historic Oakwood Cemetery.
– New York (January 21st, 22nd).

2019

November 1st: The chapter ‘Profit and Loss’ about goldsmiths, retailers and hair artists in the 18th and 19th centuries is published in the anthology book A Miscellany of Death & Folly. Published by Egaeus Press.
July 17th: ‘Profit and Loss’ show about mourning goldsmiths, mourning retailers and hair artists of the 18th and 19th century at Fellows Auctions, London.
July 16th: Holds a full day show at Syon Park, London, with Lady Caroline Percy and Fellows Auctions.
May: ABC Perth Radio interview.
April: Work begins on the book ‘Profit and Loss’.
April: ABC Radio National interview.
April: Donation of jewellery to the Bendigo Art Gallery for the Tudor exhibition.
January: ‘Mourning Tour’ continues:
– New York (January 5th) hosted by Lady Lovelies Curio, Orsay Restaurant, 1057 Lexington Avenue
– London (January 18th) at Fellows Auctions.

2018

November: ‘Mourning Tour’ begins:
– Los Angeles (December 13th) at The Mystic Museum.
– San Francisco (December 18th) at Fiat Lux.
– Raleigh (December 29) at The Historic Oakwood Cemetery.
October – February: Donation of jewellery to the Bendigo Art Gallery’s exhibit ‘Gothic Beauty’ and mourning jewellery lectures at Bendigo Art Gallery.
May: RRR Radio interview.
February-November: Art of Mourning jewellery workshops at Lord Coconut jewellery gallery, Mitchell House, Melbourne.

2015

Exhibit at the M.A.D.E museum, Ballarat on ‘Goldfields Jewellery’.

2013

Alan Carter’s Book of Collections in Australia First Edition, 2013.

2010

Art of Mourning appears on Australia’s ABC show ‘The Collectors’ twice.

2005

Art of Mourning Created in Brighton, UK.