These words were stitched by 7-year-old Ellen Fiske in red cotton on a linen background in 1837. Little could she have guessed that over 150 years later, the sampler she must have spent many hours working would be one of a collection of 18 samplers now housed at the Museum of East Anglian Life.

Composed of hundreds of tiny stitches creating patterns, alphabets and verse, these delicate pieces of embroidery can also be viewed as unique documents of social history.

The creation of embroidered samplers in Britain can be traced back to the 16th century. At this time, they were worked by women as easy reference tools, gathering together a collection of patterns and stitches that would be useful to them in their future roles as housewives and mothers. Unfortunately, printed books were both costly and rare, so it is perhaps not surprising that samplers were treasured and handed down to the next generation.

Samplers were stitched by both adult needlewomen and children, Ellen’s sampler being a good example. It reads:

Chediston 1837 Ellen Fiske Aged 7 years

Throughout the following centuries, the ability to sew became an important part of a young girls education. For a young lady, it was a necessary accomplishment, but for the less fortunate girl it could be the means to obtaining reasonable employment.

In the 18th century, fashionable samplers began to include alphabets and numbers. This allowed the practice of working a sampler to be combined with teaching young girls to read, write and count, and many teachers encouraged the inclusion of inscriptions and verses to give the girls a moral education. One example in the Museum collection reads:

Kezia Darrington
Aged 11 Years 1843
Baptist Saturday School
Remember now thy God.

Many samplers also included motifs – the sampler mentioned above shows a four-legged animal, two crowns and a cross. While some motifs served a purpose – such as the crown or coronet, used by sewing maids to mark linen and underwear belonging to the nobility – others were for decoration and often had symbolic meanings attached to them.

In the 19th century, the practice of sampler making began to decline. Many other forms of needlework began to take over, i.e. knitting, tatting, etc, and the introduction of the sewing machine did away with the need for girls to be able to sew by hand.

As a result, we are left with some very fragile, but beautiful examples of learning in the past.  Selected items from the collection are now on display.  The items displayed rotate as they would deteriorate with prolonged exposure to light.  Do come and see them. Each sampler tells its own personal story in the form of a miniature work of art.

It is with this in mind, that the Museum has joined with The Sampler Guild to have the Ellen Fiske sampler recreated in chart form and made available for sale. We hope that Museum visitors will experience the pleasure and enjoyment of both creating and admiring their own version of Ellen’s work of art for years to come.

Further details about the Museum’s sampler collection or the Ellen Fiske chart or kit can be obtained from Lisa Harris, Collections Manager. Email on: lisa.harris@eastanglianlife.org.uk