Samplers, pieces of embroidery made to practise or demonstrate needlework stitches, played a crucial role in girls’ education for many years. From the 17th to the early 20th centuries, British girls would create samplers to develop skills such as literacy, counting, and dexterity, essential for their roles as wives, mothers, and household managers. Those who needed to earn a living could also use these skills as domestic servants or in textile trades. Girls across the British Empire, including in India, Australia, and Sierra Leone, were also taught to stitch samplers. Some girls in the colonies created samplers with Christian messages in British missionary schools, while others embroidered at home or in female academies. However, finding examples of needlework from the 18th century in Britain’s Caribbean colonies is quite rare due to neglect, environmental conditions, or the limited production of such pieces. Despite the challenges, recent discoveries have identified two 18th-century Barbadian samplers in British collections.
Since 2023, the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) has been digitising its collection of approximately 10,000 textiles. Among these is a long, narrow sampler that was initially believed to be English but has been identified as a sampler from Barbados, making it the earliest known Barbadian sampler in any collection. This significant discovery sheds light on the education white girls received in the slave-holding colonies of the British Empire.
Martha Collymore created a sampler in 1771 that closely resembles English samplers from a century earlier. The sampler features familiar patterns seen in English samplers from the 17th century, such as floral, figural, and geometric designs. Notably, a band with a rose and birds on a flame-stitched background indicates that Collymore’s sampler was indeed made in Barbados. Another sampler made by Jane Rollstone Alleyne in 1777 at the Victoria and Albert Museum shares a similar band, suggesting they might have been made under the same teacher’s instruction.
Research into Alleyne’s genealogy revealed that she was born and raised in Barbados, unlike previous assumptions. Records for both the Alleyne and Collymore families indicate their longstanding presence in Barbados as plantation owners deeply engaged in the institution of slavery. While information about Martha Collymore is limited, evidence points to her Barbadian roots.
Despite the rich history preserved in these samplers, the identity of the teachers who instructed these girls remains a mystery. While English women were known to teach girls in Jamaica as early as 1760, no such records exist for Barbados. It is likely that the families’ affluence derived from slavery enabled their daughters’ education. The samplers hint at a historical English sampler tradition woven into the fabric of Barbadian society by descendants of early English settlers on the island.
Collymore and Alleyne’s samplers offer rare insights into the early examples of samplers created in British colonies beyond the United States. These discoveries highlight how the needlework of wealthy English settlers’ daughters in the Caribbean blended British Isles aesthetics with influences from the empire. The samplers serve as a testament to the enduring legacy of British womanhood shaping young girls’ lives across vast distances.
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Isabella Rosner is a curator at the Royal School of Needlework.
