Margaret Roddick: The Sampler Girl

Tracing the life of a Newcastle girl through an embroidered sampler made in 1881.

In September 2026, a Victorian alphabet sampler caught my attention at auction. Stitched in coloured thread, it carried the name of Margaret Roddick, aged ten, and the words Newcastle upon Tyne.

That small piece of embroidery became the starting point for tracing Margaret's life. Census records revealed her childhood in industrial Elswick, where her Scottish father worked as a boilersmith, and followed her family through the changing streets of Victorian Newcastle.

Further research uncovered her marriage, her child and her later life in Byker. Burial records eventually led me to an unmarked grave in Heaton Cemetery, where I was able to leave flowers in her memory.

What began as a child's needlework exercise became a journey through fifty years of an ordinary Newcastle woman's life, showing how even the smallest surviving object can open a window into the past.