Press release:
For many years, samplers made at Ackworth have been avidly sought after by collectors and lovers of needlework the world over. Why should this be? The answer lies partly in the richness of context surrounding these samplers which enables them to be studied and understood as important social documents telling us about school girl education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, about Quaker life and values during that period, and about Quaker genealogy.
Then there are those intricate and mysterious patterns of the famous medaillion samplers which appear to have emerged fully-formed from nowhere. These distinctive and beautiful patterns were to influence sampler-making in Friends' schools throughout the UK and also the USA. And then, just as mysteriously, they disappeared.
What happened?
Perhaps stranger still is that not until now has the story of these samplers and their makers been told. And the person telling their story here is one of Britain's foremost authorities on samplers and textiles: Carol Humphrey, Honorary Keeper of Textiles at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.