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This is a darning mushroom that belonged to my great, great granny. It's a tool used in the olden days for mending holes in woollen clothes. People always fixed clothes instead of buying new ones.
A couple of hundred years ago, wool changed everything for lots of people in Scotland. The big Scottish land owners found they could make more money by keeping sheep instead of letting people live on their land. This led to the Highland Clearances, where lots of poor people were forced to leave their homes to make way for the sheep.
The ones who didn't die of cold or starvation went to live far away in places like America. Others went to work in the new factories that were springing up in cities all over Britain.
The darning mushroom was very old technology that was used by women in their own homes. Times changed and instead of making things at home, people went to work in mills, where they made things by machine instead of by hand. A lot of poor children our age spent long days working the machines instead of going to school.
Now, there are laws in Britain to protect where people live so they can't be driven out of their homes. Also,children in Britain don't have to work in factories.