This sampler is a particularly fine example of samplers worked by young girls to demonstrate their skills in plain and fancy needlework.
The maker, Mary Ann Gorringe (1839-?), was born in England and came out to New South Wales as a baby. Her family settled in Carcoar where her father was a blacksmith and carpenter. At the time this sampler was produced, gold had just been discovered in the area and Carcoar would soon become a thriving regional centre.
The sampler is unusual in its depiction of a public building, the Carcoar Court House. Built in 1842, this served as Court of Petty Sessions, lock up, meeting hall and place of worship. As devout Presbyterians it is likely that the Gorringe family worshipped there on Sundays until their own church was built in 1862.
It is probable that Mary Ann copied elements of the sampler from a pattern book since the border, flowers, birds and animals are typical of those found on eighteenth and nineteenth century samplers. An Australian element has been added with the black swan above the Courthouse.
Young girls had been producing samplers as examples of their skills in needlework for over 200 years by the time Mary Ann Gorringe worked this one. However, the range of stitches and complexity of pattern was greatly reduced with cross stitch becoming the sampler stitch. Nonetheless, the sampler retained its importance. It was seen as the ideal occupation for a young girl training to become a good wife and mother. Indeed, in colonial Australia, sewing and needlework defined the very essence of femininity. Images of domesticity frequently focussed on a woman quietly stitching. This image brought together, and seemingly resolved, the basic dichotomies in women's lives: the woman is at work, yet peaceful; productive yet removed from any suggestion of commerce or industry; a quiet observer of the family yet contributing to it. As Mrs Warren and Mrs Pullan declared in 'Treasures of Needlework' (1855), needlework 'brings daily blessings to every home, unnoticed, perhaps, because of its hourly silent application; for in a household each stitch is one for comfort to some person or other and without its every watchful care home would be a scene of discomfort indeed.'
It is probable that a traditional sampler pattern book was available for Mary Ann to refer to, as the outer undulating border is very typical of eighteenth and nineteenth century samplers, as are the variety of plants, trees and flowers surrounding the central image of the court house. The inclusion of a number of birds in the design may reflect Mary Ann's country upbringing, or an interest in birds, or even the contents of her pattern book. However the black swan facing the reindeer gives the sampler a strongly original and Australian flavour.
Mary Ann Gorringe, the second daughter of John and Martha Gorringe, was born in Brighton, England on 11 February 1839 and came to Australia with her family as a small baby. She had an elder sister called Ester and at least two other sisters, Martha and Elizabeth, and brothers called William and John.
In 1851, when Mary Ann was twelve years old, she completed a needlework sampler featuring the Carcoar court house. The making of this finely-worked sampler is indicative of a childhood spent with parents who were concerned for her education, anxious that she learn the needlework skills necessary for her future role as wife and mother.
Mary Ann's father John was the first blacksmith in Carcoar and was also a carpenter. It is possible he was involved in the construction of the court house. The family were strong Presbyterians, and John is known to have led the choir for the opening of St James church in Carcoar in 1862.
Mary Ann Gorringe married twice, first to a Mr Turner and second on 9 February 1880, to a butcher from Blayney, Edward Price. The Prices had two sons, Edward John, who was born in 1880 and Oswald, born in 1884 and who died on 28 May 1888.
Date is embroidered on object.
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