Collection of the Whitworth Museum University of Manchester
Elizabeth Young-Wardle Wardle (1834-1902)
in the early 1890s with a sewing box.
Not a conventional muse but an important business woman & artist
Elizabeth and embroidery students 1888
Khartoum Altar Frontal at Bradford Cathedral
by the Leek Embroidery Society
Elizabeth became skillful at design, handwork, research and teaching and in 1879 after that last baby she organized The Leek Embroidery Society occupying a classroom, store and workshop space next door to her home.
Wardle House, 54 St. Edward Street
A few years ago a group of Lady Elizabeth Wardle's embroidery
memorabilia was auctioned. Now in the Whitworth Museum's collection.
The Society’s work for churches and hobbyists was in demand into the 20th century providing income and employment for many Staffordshire women. Patterns, kits, materials and finished needlework were sold in Wardle’s shop in New Bond Street, William Morris’s showroom in Oxford Street, Liberty & Company in Regent Street and at Debenham & Freebody, off Oxford Street.
Details showing stitches in Leek Embroidery Society work
Much of the thread is an Indian silk in which the Wardle dye mill specialized. Tussar silk grew wild in India with different qualities than cultivated silk, among them some negatives such as resistance to conventional dyes. Thomas Wardle figured out how to give the Indian silk permanent color and became the leading British importer for a product that was much in demand during the Arts & Crafts embroidery fashion.
Collection of the Whitworth Museum University of Manchester
Sample of Wardle's indigo block printing
When William Morris and Thomas Wardle began working together in the 1870s Morris persuaded the dyemaster to learn the art of woodblock printing. Wardle's mills became the leading site of the old-fashioned technology, printing Morris patterns and yardage for others.
Leek Embroidery Society members designed patterns but they also transformed Wardle's block-printed silks, velvets and cottons by laying embroidery stitching over the printed designs.
An altered print?
The Society used a rather narrow range of simple stitches that
showed off the Tussar silk's color and lustre well.
Another link between Leek and London was Elizabeth's brother George Young Wardle (1834-1910) who assisted William Morris, managing the business and perhaps using his painting skills to finish Morris's print designs.Collection of the Victoria & Albert MuseumWreath or Poppy About 1880The V&A catalog for this watercolor on paper tells us (to my surprise!)"Wardle was an excellent recorder of pattern....The draughtsman responsible for this technically adept drawing (intended as a guide for the printer to use when matching the colours) may not have been Morris, as his strengths were more conceptual than illustrative. Instead, it is possible that... George Wardle executed this design for production, working from Morris's first version....This design was intended as a guide for the printer to use when matching the colours. Pencil notes with instructions about the colours have been added to the drawing on the front and on the reverse."
From the Leek Embroidery Exhibition at the Nicholson Museum in 2013,
Detail Nine Orders of Angels. drawn by
George Young Wardle in 1864. Embroidery done in 1899.
This set of angels was embroidered by "Miss Winterbottom of Stone, Staffordshire, a member of Leek School of Embroidery," possibly Christina Winterbottom (1861-?) listed in the 1881 census in Stone as a "Shop Keeper Fancy And Embroidery" or her sister Amanda A Winterbottom (1858-1948) a "dressmaker." Christina taught at the Leek School.
George Wardle's tale had taken a dramatic turn in 1861 when he wed a notorious murder suspect from Glasgow. Madeleine Hamilton Smith had been tried four years earlier for killing her lover by poisoning him with arsenic, charges had not been proven in court.
The newspapers could not get enough of the crime.
"This case, regarding which such an intense interest has been excited, not only in Glasgow but over all Scotland, commenced this morning ...in Edinburgh. About a dozen .... ladies, were in court, and some of them evinced such a determination to sit out the proceedings that they brought their work with them and commenced stitching as soon as they sat down.... Madeleine Hamilton Smith, a very pretty girl, was placed at the bar...."
Glasgow Herald,- July 1, 1857
The jury weighed circumstantial evidence that she'd poisoned former lover Pierre Emile L'Angelier
....Madeline had purchased arsenic; L'Angelier was threatening to blackmail her but the jury delivered a verdict of "Not Proven."
Magdalene Hamilton Smith 1835 -1928
Among her names: Magdelene, Madeline, Lena
After the verdict she fled to London.
During the years George managed Morris business the Wardles raised two children Mary and Thomas born in the early 1860s. In 1889 when George retired from the firm they separated. Madeline moved to New York City following son Thomas. After George's death in 1910 she married George Sheehy, a concrete contractor over 20 years younger than she. New Yorker Lena Sheehy died in 1928 in her 90s though loathe to admit her age.
Lena Sheehy with granddaughters
What Elizabeth Wardle thought of her sister-in-law has not been recorded.
Collection of St. Edward the Confessor Church in Leek
Photograph by Richard Knisely-Marpole
Embroidery by the Leek Embroidery Society
Silk thread perhaps on silk damask
See Richard Knisely-Marpole's photos for details of more miniature masterpieces.
His photo of a sunflower embroidery gives us a pattern adaptable to a light-colored print in the Morris Muse collection:
Flowering Scroll in the Parchment colorway
Print this on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet.
This entwined circle border was a standard design in Leek.
Cathryn Walton, Hidden lives: Leek's Extraordinary Embroiderers
Brenda King, The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era
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