Susanna Rampley
Suffolk, England, 1776
This fine sampler offers excellent needlework and a very pleasing, mirror-image composition in the pictorial register. Susanna Rampley, aged 9, must have learned her needlework under the tutelage of a highly skilled teacher, as various stitches were carefully executed throughout the sampler. The initials, EC, stitched to the left of her own name, are likely those of this instructress. The date, 1776, appears at the end of the 4th line, between a heart and a crown.
Several characteristics pointed to the likelihood that the sampler was made in Suffolk, England so we turned to Bethany Clements, a scholar and collector with deep knowledge of the many excellent samplers made in Norfolk and Suffolk. Her website, https://www.norfolkneedleart.com/, is extremely informative.
Bethany attributes this sampler to Susanna Rampley who was born in Eye, Suffolk, a town close to the River Waveney, which forms the border with Norfolk. She was born circa 1767 to John and Susanna (Brett) Rampley and married John Leatherdale in 1792. They had four daughters and Susanna died in 1837.
Again, according to Bethany’s observations, her teacher was most likely Elizabeth Chauncy, a schoolteacher who is known to have had a boarding school in the 1760s in Diss, about 6 miles north of Eye. Bethany feels it's likely that Elizabeth taught Susanna in Eye after closing her school in Diss.
There are several characteristics that Bethany noted on this sampler that relate to samplers made in that region - the large eyelet stitched alphabet at the top, the specific middle alphabet, the variegated pines in the bottom scene and the particular style of those two dragonflies as well as the very small birds holding a leaf or something like that in their beaks on either side of the band of "grass". Notable also are the cartouches that contain lions and the hexagons on grassy mounds. We are grateful for all of Bethany’s help.
Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition and has been conservation mounted in a modern burl frame with a gilt liner.