Sampler

Sampler

Circa 1856

Essex

Nineteenth-century sampler made after 1856 that recalls the death of a young girl named Ellen Walford.

Sampler made in or after 1856 in memory of Ellen Walford, who died on 24 April 1856. This sampler recalls the sad death of a young girl named Ellen, telling in poem form the story of her death, how she died, and the effect on those she left behind. The bottom of the panel references Ellen Walford and her death date. The sampler is worked in brown threads on canvas and is worked entirely in cross stitch.

The majority of the ground is covered in the text that memorialises Ellen, which is surrounded on all sides by a zigzagging border. The inscription on the sampler reads,

'Within this peaceful Silent Grave
Oer which the Grass begins to wave
The cold and lifeless Form is laid
Of Youthful Ellen
She perished like A tender Flower
That Fades and dies Within an hour
Beneath the Suns consuming Power
An emblem of poor Ellen
We saw her blooming Cheek turn pale
We saw Disease her frame Assail
No art against it Could prevail
To save the life of Ellen
My Jane as you now view her Grave
Methinks the sight a power should have
From folly and from Vice to save
When you reflect on Ellen
Though blest with Health and spirit gay
You look to many A future day
Yet who my dearest Children say
But you may die like Ellen
Should sickness fade your youthful bloom
Your strength decay your life Consume
Are you as ready for the Tomb
As dear departed Ellen
Are you as Generous good and kind
With knowledge as well Stored your mind
Are you in Sufferings as resigned
And patient as was Ellen
Consider now while you have power
Nor idly waste the present Hower
For death does every day Devower
Thousands as young as Ellen
Ellen Walford died April 24 1856'

The text, which is addressed to 'My Jane', tells us that Ellen died due to disease and concludes by reflecting on Ellen's generosity, goodness, kindness, knowledge, patience, and resignation in the face of sufferings. It warns Jane particularly, and others more generally, in poem form of how short life can be and recounts the story of young Ellen's death and illness. It instructs Jane to not squander her life whilst she has it and to appreciate the time she has. Though the sampler's preoccupation with mortality is not unusual for the period, its inclusion of a personal tale of death addressed to a particular person is more rare.

Ellen died at 15 years old after suffering a long illness labelled as 'atrophy' in the records. She was the daughter of Joseph and Ann Walford (nee Willet) of Dunmow, Essex, in the parish of Great Easton. Her father was an agricultural labourer before his death in late 1844, leaving her mother an impoverished widow. Her siblings included Mary Ann, Maria, Eliza, Hannah, Emma, Jane, and Sara Ann. Several of her siblings, including Emma and Jane, went on to become servants. Ellen's full name was Eleanor, and it is by this name she is called as a six-month-old in the 1841 census. During Ellen's childhood, her 13-year-old sister Hannah died of pneumonia. Jane, to whom the sampler is addressed, died of the same illness in 1881, when she was a housemaid in Kensington. Perhaps the sampler was made by one of Ellen's older sisters for Jane, who was the next youngest after Ellen.

According to research undertaken by Lynn Healy, it is astonishing that this sampler has survived, as the only descendant of Ellen or her siblings was one of her sister's babies who died before turning one year old. Several of the sisters married but the children noted in records belonged to their husbands and were not products of their own marriages. Several of the sisters lived long lives but were spinsters. How this sampler descended through the generations and made its way to the RSN is a mystery.

width: 50cm
height: 73cm

canvas
wool thread

Cross stitch 

Cross stitch 

RSN.2628