Every Sampler Tells a Story

As I write, I gaze up at a framed sampler that hangs in the dining room: a square piece of linen embroidered with gaily-coloured flowers, trees, birds contained within a rich border. A large house and garden edged with trees take up most of the space; cattle and sheep graze on the lawn. A little verse has been painstakingly stitched in black: O God, our help in ages past...It adds a moral tone, a note of severity to the rural scene with which I have become so familiar. Who was Phoebe Beeston? How old was she in 1832 when she stitched this sampler? Is the house with its square windows still standing? Do long-horned cattle still roam past? And whom do the initials, D and W, represent?
There are no more clues, details to take me any further. Like many samplers they begin to tell a story, detailing fragments of time lost with the passing years. Penelope Lively in her novel, A Stitch in Time, weaves a children's story round a sampler displayed in a Victorian house in Lyme Regis, interleaving past and present. It seems every sampler has the potential to stir the imagination and intrigue us.
So who was Mary Hemming whose intricate map embroidered on silk hangs on the other side of the fireplace? She has stitched 1816 but I have seen identical pieces dated 1790. How long did it take her to finish? Not that long, surely?
What of Jean Souter, aged 9, Ann Ravenhill, Alice Amore, Katie Herbert or H.M. Aves whose diligent handiwork lines the stairs? One sampler is unfinished. Did its seamstress die or just give up? Who knows?
However, there are many samplers in museums and collections across the country that are well documented from those in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to the Goodhart Collection at Montacute House in Somerset.
The earliest known, dated sampler was embroidered in coloured silks, metal threads and seed pearls on linen by Jane Bostocke in 1598 to include animals, flowers and strawberries. The stitches used included satin, back, Holbein and cable. It is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Samplers take their name from the Latin exemplum meaning something that may be copied or imitated and were originally used for reference by needle-women perfecting their skills.
Throughout the centuries the general appearance of samplers changed. 17th century samplers were long and narrow, known as band samplers and could be rolled on an ivory stick or a rod of parchment. As many as thirty different patterns of lace and cut and drawn work could be shown on one piece of fabric.
In the 18th century samplers were generally square with a border, a variety of motifs such as houses, flowers, birds, trees. A crown or coronet was a common motif and a verse was usually included.
Embroidered maps were fashionable at the start of the 19th century; the pattern was printed on silk or linen.
As the century progressed there was less individuality. Many samplers were taken from pattern books and often worked in schools showing the alphabet in cross-stitch.
The fashion for Berlin wool work saw the demise of the sampler. However, an interest in embroidery was revived by William Morris towards the end of the century. One of his panels, embroidered by his daughter, May, is on display in the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow.
Samplers have regained popularity and a revival in the 1970s produced kits available based on traditional designs, often stitched to commemorate family occasions such as weddings or christenings,as in years gone by. Jane Bostocke's early sampler notes alice lee was borne the 23 of november being tuesday in the afternoon 1596. A sampler worked by S.Stearn in 1826 details the marriage of Thomas and Elizabeth Markham and the births of their eight children, two of whom died in infancy. It is presumed that S. Stearn was a nurse or governess but who can tell?
One sampler that has intrigued me has connections with my local parish church, St Mary's, Woodford. Our local historical society was contacted by a gentleman from Nottinghamshire who had recently purchased a sampler from an antique dealer. It was stitched by Mary Anne Wade in 1835 and includes a poem by Samuel Wade in memory of ''my much lamented friend, John Viney who met instant Death by falling from the scaffold inside Woodford Church Essex March 18th 1817 in the 23rd year of his Age''. Parish records cofirm that John Viney, a workman from London, was buried on 20th March 1817. It remains a mystery why the sampler took 18 years to embroider. Who were Samuel and Mary Ann Wade. Perhaps we may never know.
Anothe sampler with Essex connections can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum: a map of the Farm called Arnolds in the parishes of Stapleford Abby and Lambourn in the County of Essex being part of the estate of... Although the late 18th century sampler includes animals, birds and details of the surrounding area there is no mention of the farm owner's name.
One sampler, that is particularly well documented and researched, was stitched by Eliza Gibbons in 1839 of Chieveley Church in Berkshire, containing many references from the Bible.
I cannot help imagining the lives of those who stitched samplers so diligently in years gone by, including a six year old who completed: This I have done I thank God without correction from the rod. Many 19th century samplers stitched by young girls included 'improving' texts. Isaac Watts' Divine and Moral Songs for Children 1720 was still popular in Victorian times. O God our help in ages past, the verse chosen by Phebe Beeston on my sampler was also composed by Isaac Watts, who lived from 1674 - 1748.
Old paintings reveal that samplers were stitched by both rich and poor across the kingdom. The sampler features in Victorian cottage interiors by artists such as Thomas Webster and William Bromley and in a much grander portrait of Miss Hawkins by George James from the second half of the 18th century. It is as likely that samplers were stitched by Jane Austen's Georgina Darcy, Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennett in their younger days and by Hardy's Tess and Dickens' Little Emily, albeit on coarser linen in simple cross-stitch.
Literary associations with samplers include those displayed in the Parsonage Museum, Haworth. These practical, plain examples stitched on rough linen are the work of Charlotte. Anne and Emily Bronte. They are hardly flights of fantasy but who knows the thoughts 'wuthering' in their heads as they stitched patiently by candlelight, surrounded by the desolate Yorkshire moors?
Or those of a girl from Cardiff who stitched The Life of the Happy Man in 1780, compromising of 250 words in addition to: Mary Dudden were 12 years of age when this sampler were worked and some part of it by moonlight?
Samplers cannot help but remind us of the swift passage of time and of our own mortality, as illustrated by these lines stitched by Anne Hooper, aged 9:
Our life is never at a stand
'Tis like a fading flower
Death which is always near at hand
Comes closer every hour...
The fragments that survive into the 21st century are a tribute to the Moral Children who stitched them for posterity.

(Article originally published in The Essex Countryside)