Rare Bristol Orphanage sampler comes to auction

Signed ‘E Eastman, Bristol, Age 16 1886’, the sampler is in the characteristic  red petit-point stitched on a cream ground with upper and lower case alphabets over an arrangement of pictorial and geometric motifs. Needlework would have been a significant element of a girl’s education in an orphanage, teaching skills that they would need to find employment in a household, and samplers would have been a portable demonstration of their skills.

A German émigré, George Müller opened his first orphan house on Ashley Down in 1849. By the time the fifth house had been completed in 1870, thousands of children had been taken off the streets and placed in the care and protection of the Müller orphanage. As part of her education, every Müller girl would stitch a fabric sampler to demonstrate her needlework prowess. Kept as keepsakes, they were also useful when showing potential employers their abilities.

Thanks to the detailed archives cared for by the George Muller museum, we have been able to trace the identity of the girl who made the sampler and what became of her after she left the orphanage. Emily Sarah Eastman was admitted to the Muller Orphanage on 25^th July 1877. Muller Homes trained girls for a future in domestic service and the 1891 census finds Emily working as a maid servant at a house in Hereford. By 1901 she had returned to Bristol and had entered into service for the family of a tobacco merchant at 2 Edgecumbe Road, Redland. Emily must have enjoyed a happy relationship with her employers as both the 1911 and 1921 census returns show her with the same family. She passed away on 8th January 1927 and is buried in Canford cemetery, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol.

The sampler was for many years in the collection of Bristol 1904 Arts (formerly Bristol Savages) who are consigning this and a number of other items for auction. It is offered with a pre-sale estimate of £3,000 to £5,000 and is lot 221 in Clevedon Salerooms Spring Fine Art sale on Thursday March 13^th.