Antiques Roadshow - Genealogists' Forum

Olde Crone · #1 12-01-14, 19:38

Anyone else see it tonight and that astounding sampler?

For those who didn't, they produced a sampler made in 1903(?) by an inmate of the lunatic ward in the workhouse. I wasn't paying attention at this point, so don't know which workhouse, but the person who worked the sampler was called Lorina Bulwer.

The sampler was enormous and was an endless furious rant about her situation, interspersed with nasty asides about people she knew. The curator of the museum which owns the sampler said those words guaranteed to make a family history enthusiast get up on their hind legs and start sniffing, i.e. "We don't know anything about Lorina Bulwer".

If anyone is bored.........

OC

HarrysMum · #2 12-01-14, 20:01

She's in the Yarmouth North District Workhouse in 1901.

HarrysMum · #3 12-01-14, 20:04

Looks like she was born about 1839, daughter of William ( a grocer) and Anna, in Beccles Suffolk.

HarrysMum · #4 12-01-14, 20:05

She's a milliner, still at home, unmarried in 1861.

HarrysMum · #5 12-01-14, 20:07

And....she's still at home with her parents in 1871, but has "no profession". can't find 1881 or 1891 at the moment.

Surely that wouldn't have been too hard for the AR lot to find.....lol

I'm not actually bored, just trying to delay starting the day....lol

HarrysMum · #6 12-01-14, 20:09

She's down as Louisa in 1891 still at home with her widowed mother. No mention of occupation for either.

HarrysMum · #7 12-01-14, 20:12

1881, she is with her mother and is a domestic housemaid. Her mother is a cook who takes in lodgers so maybe they run a boarding house.

What a seemingly uninteresting life. I can see she probably learnt to sew as a milliner but what turned her to make the sampler?

How very interesting.

Phoenix · #8 12-01-14, 20:13

Any relation of "It was a dark and stormy night" Bulwer Lytton, I wonder?

Bulwers were a posh family in Norfolk. I have tried (and failed!) to find a connection between them and my humble Bullard/Buller family.

HarrysMum · #9 12-01-14, 20:15

Phoenix....one census was transcribed as BULMER, but had a correction added and 1881 and 1891 she is transcribed as Louisa.

Olde Crone · #10 12-01-14, 20:38

I did wonder if she had some sort of mania because the sampler was absolutely enormous - probably 20 ft long - and she apparently made TWO of them. She must have sewed day and night, poor soul.

The curator said she would have to be careful reading out some bits as they "are quite rude".

I have this picture in my mind of some crafty (clever?) lunatic attendant saying, "there, there dear, why don't you write it all down, or better still, sew it into a sampler, you're a lovely needlewoman" to shut her up!

OC