Samplers and Related Embroideries in the Isle of Man

Abstract

The textile collections of the Manx Museum include over eighty samplers and some related needlework. In accordance with the Museum's collecting policy, most of these were worked on the island, the few exceptions including those of women who married into Manx families. Thus they serve to illustrate the way in which samplers and sampler patterns might be carried from area to area.

If Man ever had any indigenous embroideries which differed from those of the adjacent islands, they have long since vanished. The rare survivals from the seventeenth and early eighteenth century are closely paralleled in contemporary English work. In some ways it is slightly surprising that more textiles have not survived from the early eighteenth century. At this time the Manx were very favourably placed with regard to trade — and took advantage of this, by smuggling goods into the adjacent islands.