Hannah Wilson (Ackworth) Sampler

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Hannah Wilson (Ackworth) Sampler by NeedleWorkPress

From the designer: S amplers are just one of the many compelling legacies left to us by Ackworth School in Yorkshire, England. Certainly the Quaker virtues of simplicity, community, peace, tolerance, integrity and stewardship are among them as well. The school, founded less than ten years before Hannah was enrolled, remains in operation today. Records show Hannah was from Kendal and that she left the school in 793. (For those who have stitched the Mary Wigham sampler, she is referenced on the same school catalog page as Hannah.)

Born February 26, 1778 to Anthony and Hannah Wilson, the infant Hannah’s birth was registered at the Quarterly Meeting of Westmorland County, England. Although no marriage record could be found, Hannah gave birth to a daughter (no father named), Margaret Wilson, in 1806. Margaret married Edward Bradshaw, a baker. They had seven children. The 1841 census shows Hannah living in Kirkland, Kendal. By 1851, Hannah, age 73, had joined her daughter’s family in Lancaster, England.

Many of us envision the beautiful medallion samplers or delightful geometric pinballs when we think of Ackworth School. While these distinctive works of art are hallmarks of Ackworth students, the budding needle artists also created stylized alphabet samplers as a useful reference for future stitching needs. Hannah assembled a variety of fonts, numerals, punctuation marks and ligatures, as well as a few decorative motifs in her cross stitch and eyelet stitch sampler. In writing, typography and even cross stitch, a ligature—a type of special character—occurs when two or more letters are joined to form a single glyph (a graphical font unit).

Pre-order due 2/28/2025!