Harriet Bagwell

Harriet Bagwell (; –1937) was an Irish philanthropist and promoter of local cottage industry.

Life Harriet Bagwell was born Harriet Philippa Jocelyn Newton around 1853 in Dunleckney Manor, Bagenalstown, County Carlow. She was the eldest child of Phillip Jocelyn Newton (1818–1895) and his wife Emily (d. 1886). She married Richard Bagwell on 9 December 1873. The couple had one son, John Philip, and three daughters, Emily Georgiana, Margaret and Lilla Minnie. For the first part of their marriage the family lived in Innislonagh, moving to the family estate at Marlfield House, Clonmel, County Tipperary in 1884. After this move, Bagwell became active in local charitable concerns. Her mother-in-law, Frances Bagwell (née Prittie), had founded a school for Swiss embroidery, and it is possible that this inspired Bagwell to found her own embroidery cottage industry at Marlfield in 1885. The aim of this was to enable women to work in their own homes to earn extra income. Bagwell provided these women with raw materials and designs, and organised their payment and sale of the produce. The designs were adapted from Egyptian and Indian artwork. The resulting Marlfield Embroideries was a success, and generated a great deal of income for the local community. Work from the Embroideries were exhibited at a number of shows, including the Royal Dublin Society's stand at the 1887 Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester, and the 1897 Lancaster Arts and Craft Exhibition. Bagwell's older half-sister from her father's first marriage, Mrs Anne Vesey, founded the Dunleckney Cottage Embroidery in 1889 and was modelled on Marlfield. She died at the home of her young daughter, Lilla Minnie, Birdhill, Clonmel, on 12 February 1937.