Hands Across The Sea Samplers ~ Sarah Howarth 1835

Stitch count: 206 X 222

A border laden with strawberries surrounds this charming sampler which features the Liverpool Exchange and two girls. Sarah has recorded that she “finnished” her work in 1835. Unfortunately, there is no trace in family history records of a Sarah Howarth being baptised in the City of Liverpool in the relevant decades of the 1800s. Howarth is a surname of Anglo-Saxon origin most commonly found among families originating in the English counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire, especially around the village of Great Howarth near Rochdale, Lancashire and Haworth in Yorkshire.

Situated above the Worth Valley on the edge of the bleak Pennine moors, Haworth is internationally famous for its connection with the Brontë sisters. They wrote most of their novels at the Haworth Parsonage while their father was the incumbent parson at Haworth church.

Sarah’s surname is found in a variety of different interrelated spellings, including Haworth and Howorth. We have researched these variations without success and suspect that our Sarah’s family moved to Liverpool during her childhood.