Embroidered by Susanna Gillies Smith, Scottish, 1821 - 1912
Susanna Gillies Smith was the daughter of Alexander Smith, the deputy-governor of Sierra Leone, and Margaret Anne Philips. Margaret Anne Philips’s father, the wealthy merchant John Philips, owned the home called Stobcross in Glasgow, pictured here. The house was constructed in the early eighteenth century and named after the wooden cross, or stob, that marked the junction to the estate. John Philips acquired the estate in 1783 and lived there until his death in 1829. When Susanna worked this sampler in 1832, she and her parents were living in Stobcross along with members of their extended family, and she embroidered the names of these relatives above the home.