Sewing sampler

The notebooks and sewing samplers (3) in the Mary Lancaster collection are significant because they tell the story of the types of sewing skills taught at South Australian schools over a period of about four decades from the 1920s until the 1950s. Sewing samplers taught children the skills of dressmaking: different seams, hems, cuffs, wristbands, pockets, plackets, pin tucks and some embroidery stitches to finish same.

Mary Lancaster, born in 1903 in Kalangadoo, was a pupil at Kalangadoo Primary School then at Cabra College for her secondary schooling. Mary is presumed to have been a junior teacher before attending Adelaide Teachers College . After teachers college, Mary Lancaster taught at a series of one teacher schools, including Schell's Well which she opened, Keyneton, Kalangadoo, Kalkabury in the thirties, Tailem Bend in the forties and Glenelg in the fifties. She also taughjt at Black Forest Demonstration School. When Mary retired, she continued working with local schools especially St Anne's School (a school for children with disabilities), helping them to read. She died at Kalyra in 1994.

South Australia, 20th century (first half)

2009.015

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