Mary Linwood

Mary Linwood (1755–1845) was an English needle woman who exhibited her worsted embroidery or crewel embroidery in Leicester and London and was the school mistress of a private school. In the 20th century, Mary Linwood Comprehensive School was named in her honour. In 1790, she received a medal from the Society of Arts.

Biography Early life

Born in Birmingham in 1755, Mary Linwood moved to Leicester in 1764 with her family after her father, a wine merchant, became bankrupt. He died young, and her mother opened a private boarding school for young ladies in Belgrave Gate. When her mother died, Linwood took over the school and continued it for 50 years. Linwood made her first embroidered picture when she was thirteen years old, and by 1775 she had established herself as a needlework artist. By the age of 31, Mary had attracted the attention of the royal family, and she was invited to Windsor Castle by Queen Charlotte along with Mary Delaney and Mary Knowles whom the queen also engaged with to show their work. Linwood's subjects also included Lady Jane Grey and Napoleon, whose portrait was said to have been done from life. He conferred on her the Freedom of Paris in 1803.

Legal dispute Linwood's needlework exhibition was housed in the old Savile House on Leicester Square, which also housed William Green's Pistol Repository and Shooting Gallery from 1836 to 1855 in a rebuilt section upstairs. The run-down building had been leased to Mary Linwood and associates at the turn of the century. It was subsequently rebuilt and refurbished from 1806 to 1809 by architect Joseph Page (1718–1776). Linwood displayed her work in a long gallery on the first floor from 1809 until her death in 1845. A legal dispute regarding the payment for renovations became a decades long battle, and eventually landed in The House of Lords in 1837. The House decided the case against Linwood and her partners, who were ordered to pay Page. In 1865, Savile House was destroyed by fire.

Family Mary is often confused with her niece Mary Linwood, born circa 1783 in Birmingham, a composer whose works include the oratorio David’s First Victory (1833) and the author of Leicestershire Tales (1808), and the poem Anglo Cambrian (1818).

Last years and death Four years before her death in 1845, Mary's works were still exhibited in London. She worked with stitches of different lengths on a fabric made especially for her in Leicester, and had coarse linen tammy cloth prepared for her as well. Her long and short stitches looked like brush strokes, with silk for highlights. She inspired many amateurs in later years to copy her needlework techniques on a smaller scale.

She embroidered her last piece when she was seventy-eight, although she lived to be ninety and worked as a school mistress until a year before her death. She never married and, according to the Greater Wigston Historical Society, was the last person in Leicester to use a Sedan chair. In 1845, during her annual visit to her Exhibition in London, Mary Linwood, by then regarded as the most celebrated needlewoman of her age, caught the flu and died. She was buried in St Margaret's Church, Leicester, a church she regularly attended.