Hull Museum Sampler Collection On-Line

Hull Museum has a large sampler collection and now has images of 33 of these on-line for you to enjoy. Just click on any of these images to visit for yourself. The annunciation sampler with royal crest (above) by Rhode Atkinson, which she stitched in 1786 when she was just 13 years old, is simply sensational. Her Holbein embellished alphabet may signal Scottish connections, but I have been unable to trace her - maybe someone else will find her on records somewhere.

There is no mistaking the stepped lozenge design, the fabulous free-form crewel flowers and the daintily cartouched stepping deer. In spite of her Scottish sounding surname, Ellenor Ramsay's sampler certainly comes from Norfolk. Which all goes to show how far these samplers travel, though the distance from Norfolk ports to Hull would have been easy to accomplish.

This kneeling slave sampler is typical of the Abolitionist movement and is dated around 1836. They are very special samplers and show that women with their needles were not just toying about, but were actively part of a movement that changed the world for good.

This panel of the mid 1600s could well have been the lid of a casket. Again, was it never made up, or was it scavenged for decoration later?