Cross Stitch Antiques | Benezet Alphabet Sampler

No clues have been provided by the stitcher as to her name, year of origin, or place where she stitched her sampler. The only clue as to place might be in the lettering she used itself, giving one an indication it was stitched in Ireland. “A slightly surprising source of lettering which became identifiable on Irish Quaker school samplers, came to be known as the Benezet lettering. Anthony Benezet (1713-1784) came of a Huguenot family that emigrated to London in 1715 to avoid the persecution that followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and then settled in Philadelphia, where he became a Quaker and an important educator. He produced the “Pennsylvania Spelling Book” which was widely used in Ireland where a sixth edition was printed in Dublin in 1800 by John Gough, the son of the schoolmaster. Benezet’s 1782 revised edition, in addition to the standard Roman alphabet, contained a page of “sampler letters’ for embroidery and this served as a model for letters on samplers, both Quaker and non-Quaker, which was much more popular in Ireland than in the rest of the British Isles. This Benezet lettering was already in use by 1790 at Mountmellick Quaker school and would later appear in the non-Quaker Kildare Place work.” Samplers, Sewing and Simplicity in Quaker Ireland, Clodagh Grubb, pg. 123-124.