The Sampler Sleuth: The Alice Weatherell 1832 Sampler: Exploring Alice’s World

Exploring Alice’s World

Sometimes we know quite a bit about the maker of a historical sampler, and other times, we know very little and have to discover any clues about her identity from the sampler itself. The Alice Weatherell 1832 Sampler is the latter case. Though Alice does not provide her age, she does include her name, the town she lived in, and the year the sampler was executed.

The best place to start is Alice’s last name. The name Weatherell has Anglo-Saxon origins and is derived from a place called Wetheral, located in County Cumberland, England. Locational names such as this were often used when a person or family migrated somewhere else. This appears to be the case with the Weatherell family, as there is evidence of them living in County Durham, the county next to Cumberland. We do know that some of this family also migrated as far as Ireland and the American colonies, and that a wide variety of spellings of the name were used. Some alternative spellings of the name include: Wethera(e) ll, Wetherald, Weatherhill, etc.

From the sampler we know that Alice lived in

Wolviston, England. Wolviston is a village with a history that goes back before the Norman Conquest of 1066. A civil parish within the borough of Stockton-on-Tees and the formal county of Durham, Wolviston, in the early

19th century, was an easy distance from flourishing ports and industrial areas with blast furnaces and shipyards.

The Durham coalfields and the ports of Seaham and Hartlepool drew men from the village with gainful employment opportunities that arose from the influence of technology during the Industrial Revolution.

Near to Wolviston is Wynyard Hall, historically the estate of the Anglo-Irish Londonderry dynasty whose fortune came from the ownership of several collieries

(coal mines) and a port in County Durham. The present Wynyard Hall was completed in 1846, we presume still within Alice’s lifetime. The estate, owned by the Marquises of Londonderry between 1822 and 1985, and its grand mansion played host to a list of esteemed guests said to include political and royal visitors, and artists and writers, including Charles Dickens.

England itself was experiencing an era of tremendous innovation and change in the 1830s. Because of the Industrial Revolution, workers were leaving farms to work in the cities. An Act was passed in Parliament restricting the work hours of women and children in factories, and factory owners were required to provide two hours of schooling six days a week for children 13 and under who worked there. Slavery was abolished in England in 1833 (England’s slave trade had ended in 1807).

In 1832, when Alice completed her sampler, the University of Durham was founded by an Act of Parliament. Young Queen Victoria (age 18) began her reign in 1837.

Also in 1837, the first commercially successful electric telegraph was developed by inventors Cooke and Wheatstone. Further innovation included the Uniform Penny Post and postage stamp in 1840, which provided for reliable conveyance of letters across Great Britain. This was the world that Alice lived in.

Samplers in the 18th century began evolving away from a sole marking sampler to more decorative and pictorial art. Marking samplers originally served a dual purpose for learning: They taught a young woman sewing techniques, the alphabet and numbers. These were crucial for any future homemaker who would be required to keep track of her linens, some of her most valuable household goods, by marking them, usually in cross stitch with her initials and a number. By Alice’s time in the 19th century, a sampler was considered to have value beyond its purpose as a receptacle of practical knowledge; it was artwork to be displayed.

As samplers evolved into more decorative art, the completed work was usually framed and hung in a parlor, acknowledging the maker’s patience, skill and talent. Samplers at this time included verses reinforcing the values of education, obedience to one’s parents, religious faith, and the acceptance and remembrance of deceased family members. Many signed their work with their name, date and age.

The Alice Weatherell 1832 Sampler is a combination of a marking sampler and a pictorial section as well as verse. To the left of “Wolviston” on the sampler are stylized initials that likely represent members of Alice’s family, perhaps her parents and siblings.

The pictorial motifs chosen by Alice have symbolic meaning. The crowns represent royalty, sovereignty, possibly a reference to and recognition of William IV, third son of King George III, on the English throne 1830–1837.

The baskets of flowers depict hope, friendship and love. Flower motifs in general are symbolic of nature, spring,

By Deborah Fasano of Historic Handworkes

youth and gentleness. The pink carnations that adorn the basket portray maternal and true love. Bird motifs can be symbolic of nature, eternal life and hope. The large bird on a branch represents love of nature. Tree motifs characterize growth, regeneration and rebirth.

The selected verse is poignant at a turbulent time, for in February 1832, Alice would have been aware of the second cholera pandemic that was spreading and growing from East London and beyond. Though London is 250 miles to the south of Wolviston, even at that time, travel was such that the possibility of contagion spreading to the north was a worry. With the invention of the steam locomotive in 1807, trains, by the 1830s, had already begun to connect the far reaches of England.

Choice of color in a sampler can also tell a story of the stitcher’s aspiration. Throughout her sampler, Alice chose to use a pale blue thread that may represent peace, heaven, infinity and the sky. The color brown highlights humility, poverty and renunciation. Green represents immortality, joy, youth, renewal and gladness. The dark red-orange is indicative of divine love, charity, life, war and martyrdom. And the purple hues may represent royalty and justice.

The choice of fabric (linen in this case) and thread always leaves a whisper of the maker’s deft hands. Her thoughts, dreams and expectations, undoubtedly influenced by the time period in which she lived, would have been stitched into the fabric while she plied her needle and thread—her personality left behind for the modern stitcher to study, admire and revere.

It is truly miraculous that samplers sometimes survive many centuries into our modern time and present stitchers today with the opportunity to learn from the talented women who lived so long ago, and who helped forge their own unique historical contributions to family, life and country.

Today, we celebrate the life of Alice Weatherell from Wolviston, England, and the 1832 sampler art she created while living in a world that shaped our own.