Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge - Sampler Talk

I am so glad my friend Vanda tipped me off that there was a great talk coming up at the Fitzwillaim Museum "Stories Behind the Stitches - Schoolgirl Samplers".

The presenter, Leena Rana, was an intern on the Connecting with Collections programme at the Museum.  She was a very slick presenter and this shows just how hot you need to be to to get an unpaid work placement at this type of museum!  Great for the cv though!

Samplers at the Fitzwilliam dated from the 16th-20th centuries, of which 16 were on display and the rest were in store.  Leena had selected 8 to study, on the grounds that they had both the makers name and the school stitched in them somewhere.  With this information she had traced the school and genealogical information about the maker.  If she could access a school log book, she found a lot of social and cultural information.

Samplers were a specimen of needlework skills, and used as a record of stitches.  They tended to be long and narrow, to make them easy to roll and store.  The purpose of a sampler varied according to the affluence of the maker - affluent girls made them for display purposes, whereas the poor used them to demonstrate their ability to work household linen. Like a portfolio really!  There was much destitution in 18th century and therefore many charity schools, eg those run by SPCK, Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge.  This organisation advised parish groups who ran schools for the poor, by providing a curriculum and some funds.  Girls were taught bible reading and needlework, whereas the boys were taught writing, arithmetic and outdoor manual skills as well as reading.  Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, had a slightly wider range of curriculum and introduced the monitoring system where older pupils were used to teach the younger ones, to address the teacher shortage of the time.  The ethos was to prevent idleness and enhance employability.  Girls were starting samplers at age 8.  Simple embroidery stitches were used to initial linen- important in big households, along with simple sewing to mend and darn linen.  Samplers from Lancaster's curriculum included literacy and numeracy, as well as religious or sentimental verses.  always wholesome.