The Bristol Orphanage Sampler - Alice Jones

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The original of this sampler is in the George Müller Foundation Museum in Bristol.  Unfortunately we do not have any information about Alice.  There were three orphan girls with this name, all of them at the orphanage at the at the right time for the working of this sampler, so we cannot determine which 'Alice' worked it.

The sampler is unusual in that it is landscape format rather than portrait and it is smaller than the usual Orphanage Samplers. 

The number before the word 'North' is thought to be her bed number.  Each child had their own bed number and this was marked on all their property so that it could be returned to the bed if lost.  The initials could be her relatives, or more likely her friends.

Notice in the third line that she has the 'P' and the 'Q' reversed haveing stitched it correctly twice before.

This is a beautiful, small, Orphanage sampler to work if you are daunted by the more 'normal' larger ones.