Samplers donated to Chesham Museum
Chesham Museum have been fortunate to have a number of cross stitch samplers donated to them over the course of time and here are some details about the samplers we hold.
Sampler stitched by Elizabeth Sarah Walters dated 1824
This lovely sampler was stitched exactly 200 years ago. It was made by Elizabeth Sarah Walters but it was very difficult to track her down. Firstly, because we were still 17 years away from the first official nationwide census (1841) and secondly because it was not until 1837 that official birth, marriage and death certificates became mandatory. Another complication was that unlike most of the other samplers in the Museum’s collection, this one does not show Elizabeth’s age.
Working on the assumption that she was around 10-12 years old however (as were the other sampler stitchers) I found an Elizabeth Sarah Walters who was born in Bishops Waltham, Hampshire in 1812, daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Walters which means that if she was the stitcher, she was just 12 years old when she produced it.
My colleague Charlotte Harrison researched the poem and discovered that it is “The Rose” written by William Cowper (pictured), reproduced here as follows:
The rose had been washed, just washed in a shower
Which Mary to Anna conveyed;
The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower,
And weighed down its beautiful head.
The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet,
And it seemed, to a fanciful view,
To weep for the buds it had left with regret
On the flourishing bush where it grew.
I hastily seized it, unfit as it was
For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned,
And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas!
I snapped it; it fell to the ground.
And such, I exclaimed, is the pitiless part
Some act by the delicate mind,
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart
Already to sorrow resigned.
This elegant rose, had I shaken it less,
Might have bloomed with its owner awhile;
And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be followed perhaps by a smile.
William Cowper lived from 1731 to 1800 and was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. He spent much of his adult life fighting mental illness, attempted suicide three times and was sent to an asylum in St. Albans to recover. He spent a number of years fighting against slavery and some of his best known poems deal with this subject. In 1779 he had a book of hymns published which included one which began “God moves in a mysterious way”. His father had been Rector of St. Peter’s Church in Berkhamsted, and the church contains two stained glass windows in memory of William Cowper.
