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Story: Crafts and applied arts

Elizabeth Marsden King's sampler, 1853

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Elizabeth Marsden King's sampler, 1853

Girls traditionally demonstrated their embroidery skills on samplers – rectangular pieces of cloth adorned with different stitches. The earliest samplers made in New Zealand were made by girls from Anglican Church Missionary Society families. Elizabeth Marsden King created her sampler at the Te Puna Mission Station in the Bay of Islands in 1853. In the 2000s it was on display at the Te Waimate Mission House in Northland. 

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How to cite this page

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins and Lucy Hammonds, Crafts and applied arts – Maritime and settler craft, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/object/45266/elizabeth-marsden-kings-sampler-1853 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins and Lucy Hammonds, published 16 May 2014.