Finding Elizabeth

Antique samplers combine our love of needlework and history. One of the first things we do when a sampler catches our eye is to research the stitcher using Ancestry and other family history sites. So many of these school girls died young, often in childbirth, but there are a few that through clues left in their sampler tell a fascinating story and take you on a journey through a family’s history.
We originally found several girls bearing Elizabeth’s name born around 1823 and it was impossible to say with any certainty which was our Elizabeth. We knew that the surname of “Furnass” was of Old Norse-Viking origins, and is a locational name from Furness, a district on the south coast of what is now Cumberland.
Shortly after Elizabeth’s chart was released we learnt of other samplers that shared some or all of her motifs: the distinctive apple tree; the imposing red house with its towering cedars either side; the patchwork pasture: the shepherd and shepherdess and those “funky” striped geese.
A sampler with an almost identical apple tree recorded the name of the school where it had been stitched “Darnall School” which we traced to the Township of Attercliffe cum Darnall in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. We found the sampler’s maker through the 1814 census living in Lead Mill Row Sheffield, a short distance from the school.
Focusing on the Sheffield area we researched the other girls who had stitched similar samplers and found five girls who lived within close proximity of each other. As further samplers have come to light we have traced even more girls living in the same area. Most importantly we found our Elizabeth Furniss.
Sheffield’s location amongst fast-flowing rivers and streams surrounded by hills containing raw materials such as coal, iron ore, ganister, and millstone grit for grindstones—made it an ideal place for water-powered industries to develop. Water wheels built for the milling of corn were converted to the manufacture of blades. As early as the 14th century Sheffield was noted for the production of knives.
In Georgian Sheffield industry boomed and it was known for its iron production. In the 1740s Benjamin Huntsman invented a form of the crucible steel process for making a better quality of steel than had previously been available. At around the same time Thomas Bolsover invented a technique for fusing a thin sheet of silver onto a copper ingot producing a form of silver plating that became known as Sheffield Plate. Originally hand-rolled Old Sheffield Plate was used for making silver buttons. Then in 1751 Joseph Hancock, first used it to make kitchen and tableware. This prospered and in 1762–65 Hancock built the water-powered Old Park Silver Mills, one of the earliest factories solely producing an industrial semi-manufacture. Eventually Old Sheffield Plate was supplanted by cheaper electroplate in the 1840s. Silver plate was cheaper than silver and was very popular for things like candlesticks and teapots. Sheffield was renowned throughout the world for the production of cutlery; utensils such as the bowie knife were mass-produced and shipped to the United States.
Sheffield was a dirty and unsanitary place which was not surprising considering its heavy industries. In 1832, when our Elizabeth was 9 years old there was an epidemic of cholera in Sheffield which killed 402 people.
Elizabeth came from a humble background, her father was a blade cutter and they lived in a shared house where families occupied a room. Whilst wages for blade cutters were good for the times life expectancy was low at only 35 years for dry grinders. They worked in a bent posture with the constant pressure of tools against their chests inhaling sharp-edged metal particles freed in the cutting process. Fortunately factory work was not Elizabeth’s fate, presumably due to the education her father was able to provide her with through his own labours.
In the 1851 census Elizabeth is recorded as being a nurse and by the 1861 census she is married with 2 young boys. Through the census returns and trade directories her husband’s businesses can be seen to flourish: he was a carting contractor; coal, lime and brick merchant and a brewer. The family prospered and when her husband died in 1883 his estate was valued at over £5 million in today’s values. Elizabeth lived to the grand age of 90, her death being recorded in 1913.