Mary Orger 1792

We have long been pondering the idea of Quakerism, with its emphasis on education, and Quaker teachers as the transmitter, and possibly the originators, of some of the motifs that predominate in Norfolk samplers -the floral wreaths and borders, as well as certain motifs found in 17th-century long band samplers that were carried forward into the Norfolk samplers of the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Quaker women preachers were, as we know from their writings, indefatigable travelers and the Quaker network strong and far-ranging. The motifs favored by Quaker teachers may help explain some of the visual links between the samplers of Norfolk and some samplers of Yorkshire, London (Middlesex and what are now called the home counties), Cambridge, and areas of the Midlands where both Quakerism and textile production flourished. We are looking forward to the Quaker Sampler exhibition and accompanying book this fall at Witney Antiques that we hope will address this topic.

While we have been collecting numerous examples supporting this thesis, for the moment I would like to present one late, and possibly anomalous, case - the sampler of Mary Orger worked at the Ackworth Quaker Boarding School in 1792, an unusual hybrid of a Quaker Extract sampler encircled by a Norfolk style floral wreath.

Mary Orger was born on 23 December 1780 in Hartford (Hertford) Hertfordshire, the daughter of George and Sarah Orger. Her birth on "the 23rd day of the Twelfth Month" as it was recorded in the registry of the Hartford Quarterly Meeting, was witnessed by Richard Cutler, Elizabeth Manses, and Jane Gripper. Hartford/Hertford, about 20 miles north of London has one of the world's oldest extant and purpose built Meeting Houses in continuous use. In 1770 we find George Orger as one of the signatories on an official document of the Hertford Quaker Meeting, although the Pollbook for Hertford in 1774 identifies the place of abode for George A. Orger as London, suggesting he was in business there while Hertford was his registered home and voting precinct.

Hertford Quaker Meeting House (Historic England Archive)

Mary's sampler was worked in 1792. She was twelve years old and had been a student at Ackworth for 2 years. The school roster lists her home as High Wycombe, a small town northwest of London in Buckinghamshire. This consistent with the 1790 Poll for Hertford in which Mary's father George is listed as residing in "High Wycomb" and his house in Hertford occupied by a Mrs. Barton. In the 1791 Universal British Directory George was listed among "the principal inhabitants" of High Wycombe with the distinction of esquire.

The Mary Orger sampler is centered on a classic Quaker Extract design. The text, worked in black thread within a black oval cartouche, is an exegesis on the beatitude “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit” from the Sermon on the Mount. The author, unidentified on the sampler, was a early eighteenth-century Irish poet philosopher named Wetenhall Wilkes (born c.1705) who culminated his writing career in 1740 with the publication by subscription of the popular A letter of genteel and moral advice to a young lady: being a system of rules and informations, digested into a new and familiar method, to qualify the fair sex to be useful, and happy in every scene of life. Shortly thereafter the author moved from Dublin to London, took Anglican orders and died in Lincolnshire in 1751 while rector of South Summercote near Louth. [C. M Barry in 1690-1800 The Long Eighteenth Century ]

What distinguished Mary Orger's sampler from the familiar extract and medallion samplers of the Ackworth School is the graceful and colorful multi-floral sprays springing from each corner of the rectangular ground to enclose the the black oval frame of the verse. Roses, sunflowers, jonquils, dianthus, morning glory, violas, and forget-me-nots are executed in delicate shades of pink, golds, greens, blue-greens, and pale blue. The distinguished sampler dealer Amy Finkel has called the composition an Ackworth Sampler with a Norfolk border.

The unusual combination of styles on the Mary Orger sampler raises the question as to whether it was worked in two phases with the floral border added later. However the scale and cohesiveness of the composition would suggest that the border was not added later but was always part of the original design, especially since Mary did not leave the school until two years later when she was fourteen. Are there similar samplers also worked at Ackworth that we have yet to discover?

We assume that after leaving Ackworth in 1794 Mary returned to High Wycombe and resided there until 1805 when "Mary Orger of High Wycombe Buckinghamshire" was married to Warner Cobham in the Parish of St. Marylebone, London (Palliser's Marriage Index 1790 - 1837). Like Mary, Warner Cobham was a Quaker from Hertfordshire, born 4 September 1778 in Ware, the son of Mehetabel and Edward Cobham, his birth recorded in the Monthly Meeting of Hertford and Witnessed by Sarah Glading and Sarah Sabine.

Per the Records of Apprentice Indenture Duties in 1802, Warner Cobham was a Master Long Bow String Maker in London. The couple lived in Marylebone until 1841 when they were listed in the census of Hertfordshire at Cogan's Farm in Ware at the head of an extensive household. In 1855 W.W. Cobham, Esquire, wife Mary, and their household were living at Amwell End in Ware.

The records suggest that Mary Orger was from a well-to-do family and established Quaker Community. She is the only student of the Orger name to have attended Ackworth . The delicate and arresting flower border of her sampler is in the Norfolk tradition and and is of the same style as the floral embellishments that distinguish the work of her contemporaries from Norfolk and parts of Yorkshire. Yet this colorful decorative element is an anomaly amongst the distinctive samplers associated with Ackworth. Was there a Norfolk trained embroidery instructor at Ackworth in 1792? Are there yet to be recognized samplers from Ackworth that relate to Mary's? And might Mary's sampler be one piece of key evidence of the strength of the Quaker influence in the the long Norfolk sampler tradition? As always there are many paths of research to explore.

JML