The Rajah Quilt Up Close

- Hello! I'm Georgia Stynes. Good evening, and welcome to the National Gallery of Australia for what is gonna be a fantastic conversation. We're presenting tonight from the lands of the Ngambri and the Ngunnawal people. I acknowledge their elders, past and present, and I also thank them for caring for Country, community, and culture. I also wanna acknowledge First Nations artists of this country, their elders and their communities. A Century of Quilts Exhibition, which is all around me at the moment, it looks at quilts, Australian quilts, from 1840 to 1940. But we start here. Behind me you'll see an artwork by Treahna Hamm. This is a Barmah Forest Possum Skin Cloak. She's a Yorta Yorta artist, a highly respected Mutti Mutti and Boonwurrung artist. But I'd invite you to take a little wander with me as we walk around this very special exhibition. In a moment, you're gonna have the opportunity to ask questions, via Slido, of my next guest, who you'll meet in just a moment. Thank you so much, wherever you're joining us this evening, if it is in fact you're joining us from Australia or elsewhere, wherever you're joining us. Around us you can see the Century of Quilts Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. I'm joined by two experts in the extraordinary history and legacy of this quilt, Simeran Maxwell, the Curator of this fantastic exhibition. And also Debbie Ward, the Head of Conservation at the National Gallery. But I want you to have the chance to ask questions too. If you've already been lucky enough to come and visit this exhibition, you might have had things bubbling around in your head like I did. So I've got a few questions up my sleeve. But if you wanna ask a few questions, we're gonna use a platform called Slido. It's an online Q and A platform. You just submit your questions, head along to slido.com, then you put in the code Rajah. We've already got a few questions coming through already, so don't miss out. I guess, question one, we're gonna put you on the spot first, Simeran. Question one too is, I guess a little bit of the history of this particular quilt and what we know about the women.

- So in order to understand the women who made the quilt, it was a group of convict women travelling onboard the HMS Rajah from England to Tasmania in 1841. They made it in a three month period, so pretty quick work. But the reason why they made it goes back again to England and a woman called Elizabeth Fry, who was a member of the Society of Friends, or a Quaker as it's more commonly known. And she was really shocked with the treatment of women prisoners, in particularly Newgate Jail in London, and really made it her life's work to improve the conditions both in the prison and then later onboard convict ships. And she founded a movement called The British Ladies' Society for Promotion from... Ah! The British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners. It's quite the mouthful, and I always do forget it.

- They needed an acronym in there.

- They do need an acronym. But it was mostly made up of women from the Quaker community and others who felt similarly about the plight of prisoners. And it was them for whom the quilt was actually made.

- Question already coming through for you, Debbie, which is: Where did they get their resources? Obviously these were prisoners, so where did they get the resources to make the quilt? What do we know about that?

- Well, part of the whole Quaker caring for the prisoner concept was they tried to give prisoners some things. One, to give them identity and ownership of things, and also to keep them occupied during their journey. And it's interesting because the London Transport Society Committee had a meeting, they said how it kept the women busy by having these things that they could sew. But unfortunately they talked while they were sewing and the language was obscene apparently. And it also usually ran out after 2/3 of the trip, and this one ran out in June, so perhaps that was true. But they were each given, there's lists and lists of items they were given. It was like a hundred pins. They were given personal items too, like caps, aprons, a Bible, scissors, glasses if they needed it, their knife, fork and spoon. They could only take the spoon with them. Knife and fork had to be kept in the mess. But they were given up to, it was almost 10 metres of fabric.

- Yeah.

- So they were given that. They were given four rolls of cotton, a hundred pins, hundred sewing needles, different, you know, one roll of blue, four rolls of white cotton, two rolls of black wool. How much they actually got for each prisoner. But they were given like a duffle bag, little bag for them with these possessions. They were allowed to sew. They were encouraged to sew. They could actually even sell some of the things they had sewn. This notion that they could keep the funds, I don't know how well that worked, but it was to keep them busy. And probably some of them felt like could give them an opportunity to have a better life when they were here. It would give them a step up, and they had some possessions that way. So it was mainly to keep them busy and make them feel valued.

- It catches your eye obviously as soon as you walk in. You both have spent a lot of time with it and the size of it, but the design itself, what can you tell us about and how typical that was at the time?

- So it's a patchwork medallion style quilt. So patchworking was something that was encouraged by the Reform Committee. It was something to, as Debbie said, to occupy the hands. So the majority of the quilt is made up with that patchwork style. The centre is really phenomenal and it uses a Broderie perse, which is not a common phrase, it's derived from French, and it was supposed to indicate that it looked like Persian embroidery. Whether that's true or not is up to you. But the idea was it was applique cut from really beautiful fine chintz and then designed in the style here of four birds, four large birds, and then some smaller ones and some floral details. That's also down the bottom. So it's, you know, it's a very delicate section, the bottom section and the central section, and then the 12 kind of layers of the patchwork are a little bit more rudimentary.

- One of the questions that went through my head too was I guess how we know if they could sew and were they good sewers? But there's a question on here, stitching, I should say, and someone saying, "The stitching's like a signature and people have unique styles. Can we tell how many people?" I don't know who this question's best for. Can we tell how many people were involved and how good they were? So to speak. Or experienced?

- It is like handwriting, but unfortunately it doesn't have quite as many clues because we don't have as many letters. So yes, I mean you could never say, "It is by this many people," but you can clearly identify more than about a dozen hands. Some could really sew really, really well with beautiful stitches that are so uniform. But even those that could sew well, they have a different slant to some of their whip stitch or overcasting, which joins the lines. And others, you can't even tell if it's back-stitch or running stitch. They didn't have a clue. So you can definitely identify that there's a number of hands. There could have been two people that were very similar, but you can easily see there's at least 12 really distinctive types of sewing that shows a style. So yes, you do. It's not quite as accurate perhaps as handwriting.

- Well, we also don't have anything to compare it.

- Compare it with. That's true, yeah.

- Which is what you do. Go back and compare.

- Yeah!

- There's another question around the plates on the outside border. Deliberate or has it stretched?

- Not deliberate. Our conservators, when they were installing it, Debbie, amongst others, it was quite the team, have made a very beautiful sort of fluted edge. But while the central section is plum and the entire quilt was designed to be square, the conditions onboard meant that it would never have been laid flat. And so as they got further and further out, things started to stretch. And of course with different hands, you have different seam allowances. So things started to move. It does look beautiful, but it was not intended to be like it is.

- Because one side, this side along here, is nearly 15 centimetres longer than the other side.

- Right.

- And has at least one row of patches extra. They sort of didn't get a chance to, as Sim said, to put it all out. And unfortunately we don't want it to have creases, 'cause creases can lead to a split. So we give it a fold.

- In a little beautiful way.

- To keep it in the best possible condition.

- Let's talk about, as I mentioned before, you both spent a fair amount of time with the quilt. And I guess, and you both come from slightly different perspectives. From you, what have you probably, I guess, learnt from the research around it? What's something you can share with people at home that they might not have realised?

- I mean, it's a beautiful work of art as well as being a really important cultural object.

- Yeah.

- And I think for Australians, you know, it's this identifying with how white Australia really developed in this country through the transportation of convicts. And, you know, especially as we enter a new era, post-MeToo, that the idea of women working together and them being also supported by more upper class women, and Elizabeth Fry was really insistent that women should help women, so I find that very interesting. But then when you look at the myriad of designs that's made up out of nearly 3,000 pieces and the fabric, the printed fabric, that makes up the majority of it, you see not only the history of how Australia was developed, but the wider reach of the British Empire through the other places that they had control of. You see Indian patterns, West African patterns, Southeast Asian patterns. It's all there. It's this sort of melange of what was happening globally at the time.

- We're gonna make you choose a favourite part or something that you've learned through your research about it.

- I mean, there's always a lot of interest about the women. And I do think it's very easy to embroider history. Just as a basic fact, although 180 women arrived, one poor thing passed away the day they got to Hobart. But as they waited in port, like there was, you know, sort of like 15 to 18 days before and the women were being loaded, but nearly 30 had to be taken off because they actually were having hysterical seizures, it says in the journal. And I think we sometimes forget how traumatic it would be for the women to be leaving husbands, children to go to. And I mean, Australia didn't have ads at the time, you know? Like you had no idea what you were going to.

- Where the bloody hell are we?

- Yes.

- No beaches.

- No! But and also the little tiny little snippets of things that you don't see when you first look at the quilt. But then when you're sitting there with your face 10 centimetres away from it, you go, "Oh! Look at that." Like, "This person really couldn't sew." Or, "Look! They've sewn this patch in backwards." Ah, the eyesight was bad or it was dark.

- Yeah.

- And then with the construction, yeah, so there's all those little, I don't know, those sort of little things you get a snippet of that others don't. As a conservator it is always quite exciting.

- I think if you look at it long enough, you keep seeing different things.

- Yeah!

- So the amount of times I've seen it. Just on the inscription though, because people might not be able to actually see it. Can you explain a little bit about the inscription on it? What we know of it?

- Well, clearly, clearly the quilt was- It was presented to Governor Franklin when they arrived and it was meant, created. I mean, there was a matron who was part of the British Womens' Society.

- She travelled onboard.

- Who travelled onboard. And although we don't know for sure, we'd imagine she probably got the women to participate in this. And it's clearly to sort of say, "Thank you" to the Ladies' Convict Society. And so-

- To give a little bit of extra. Like, "Come on, you really could do something for us."

- Yes!

- "Look what we've done for you."

- And probably there were brownie points to be won by contributing to the quilt. Who knows? 'Cause it wasn't that well documented. But I think the thing is, is it's the embroidery or the writing is so fine there's 18 stitches to a centimetre. Being a cross-stitch, that's really only nine crosses. But it's so fine. It's a black silk, which runs like crazy, which is why the section around the inscription is the original colour of the quilt. It's got that sort of brown. It was also probably heavily with hand grease because to sew it, in around June you were probably going near the Equator, it was probably very hot. But we have left it as is. It was a bit sort of messy on the back. But it's definitely well composed, very well designed, because it's not easy doing stitching and getting it to such a beautiful sew. Although there was some very clearly some great seamstresses onboard, there was clearly, the token work was done by the inscription.

- And also, I mean, not a lot of- While the Quaker Society was very big on educating women, so part of the prison reform was to have women who wanted to be able to learn to read and write. That was done by a very literate person who had, you know, good grasp of the language and was able to write it without any mistakes. So again, that wouldn't have been the majority of the women onboard.

- Thank you to everyone sending through questions. We're gonna try and get to a couple more questions while we can. Someone has said, "Can you tell us more about the fabrics used? Are they printed?" I mean, there's so many different fabrics.

- Yes!

- Yes, they are printed. So I mean, that's an interesting part of the quilt is that it was produced in at a time when British textile industry was just booming. It had a kind of monopoly over cotton at the time. And they had, with the Industrial Revolution, they had changed the way that they could very quickly and rather cheaply produce the fabrics. And these fabrics, the majority of, them, would've come from textile factories owned by Quakers who had a connection again with Elizabeth Fry. And these would've been bolt ends and, you know, patterns that were no longer being used or popular. There were two different types of printing. So some was block printed and some was like with a roller, and that was faster. But you couldn't get a lot of large sections with that. So there's a combination of both used in this. So it's really interesting.

- There's some really good questions coming through now, including, "Was the stitch used on the- What is the stitch used on the applique? Is it a type of cross-stitch?"

- Yes, it is.

- That's a yes! That's a yes to that.

- It's a cross-stitch that has... It just carries the thread over and there's another cross-stitch.

- Yeah!

- So the edges of the Broderie perse are not actually, they are folded under, and then they're cross-stitched. So in those little bits of the flower, because they'll join a piece so that you get more mileage out of the fabric, there's 130 different patches that produces the images that are around the inscription. So it looks like if you counted all the leaves, but. And it's actually quite a coarse. It's cotton, but it wouldn't fit in a sewing machine. It's nearly three, four millimetre thick thread. It's quite thick.

- And I mean, the fabrics that you see were like dress fabrics. So that was what. And again, these were cheaper fabrics. They weren't giving the prisoners really highly expensive beautiful things to make their patchworks with. It was just they took what they got.

- Was the quilt ever backed and stuffed? That's another question that came through. Or was it intended as a coverlet?

- Yes. This debate goes on. It's much easier-

- Well, because there's not- There's no-

- Because it's not a quilt. It's a coverlet! We often have that debate. But who knows? Who uses the word coverlet? Well, like I'm just going to the shops to buy a coverlet. It doesn't quite work. No, it was never lined. It was never meant to be.

- Marketed.

- It's a presentation piece.

- It's a presentation quilt. It's only got one layer, so no backing. Most of the other quilts in the exhibition have at least a backing material. Very few of them have anything in between. The idea of, you know, what is known contemporary as a quilt, which is the three layers, is a more contemporary idea. And so, yes, it's most likely made for a bed. But as a presentation quilt, whether anyone actually assumed anyone was gonna put it on the bed is up for debate.

- And it would've been nearly impossible to line it with that unevenness. It just wouldn't have worked anyway, even if they'd wanted to. I think it would've been near impossible.

- Yeah.

- Can we talk about the top right-hand corner?

- [Debbie] Mm!

- What? 'Cause there's something missing.

- Yes, there is something missing up there.

- Even I picked up on that. So what?

- I think the thing is, is you learn how it was constructed. So all the rows were made by people that a lot of the time couldn't sew very well. But the rows of patches were joined by people who could sow. And then they've joined it all together again, not having it all out. So they put these daisies all along and evenly spaced, but when they got up to the top corner they realised, "Oh, we've got half a daisy and then we've got no room for the other half." So you can clearly see it was all unpicked. And you can see where there's half a daisy because it kind of just didn't all come together in that last corner.

- We've got a couple of questions coming through on the same topic, which is around there being some blood pricks they think is blood, or blood DNA. Is one of the questions. What do we know of that?

- There are some iron-based stains which are very, very similar to a blood stain. If we find it often in conservation you will see these little tiny, and they just look like little bits of rust in the fabric. A bit bigger than a dot. There are some that are just above the midway on the edge, on the inner edge of the white patch. And you can see there's little. And we've tested it. It's very high in iron, which is again typical for blood. And it very well could be. But the only way you can really test it is to take it away.

- We're not doing that.

- And we're not doing that. I mean, does it really matter whose blood it is, if it's blood? It looks just like blood.

- It was somebody that was on the boat.

- It was somebody. Yeah.

- And we know who was on the boat.

- So...

- Which does bring up one of the tricky parts of what you do, isn't it? Because you wanna show the history and what's happened, but you wanna make sure it lasts. So when you're doing conserving work, you need to get rid of the things that are gonna make it, what damage it, but leave the other bits. Is it sometimes a line ball call or is it pretty clear?

- We do work with a CD, we call it, a curatorial decision. We do talk to the curators.

- Hi!

- Yeah, we do talk to the curators. But I think we don't want the quilt to be brand new. But, I mean, it was in very good condition. But some of the stains clearly were starting to damage it. There was starch because it had never been washed and the starch over time breaks down the cellulose and goes yellow. So what we could do was- But also the woodblock dyes and natural dyes and they run like crazy. So it got put onto a suction plate and with a pipette we flushed it out with water, the acids that were in the cotton. It also helped to reduce the stains. So we didn't - You can look at it and your eye doesn't go straight to the stains. The stains have been, if they were very acid or alkaline, they've sort of been neutralised. And some of the more harmful components of the stains have been removed, so we've given it extra life. But we didn't wanna make it white and shiny. Because, one, that can damage the fabric, and also it's got a history. It can own it! We don't want it looking brand new because that's part of the history of it as well.

- Absolutely. I guess we should talk about, 'cause we talked about it arriving in Tasmania, we talked about the inscription. I guess how it got to here.

- Yes! So...

- Because we're not in Tasmania.

- No, we're not in Tasmania.

- Whereas people who are not from Australia watching it.

- How long it actually remained in Tasmania is a bit of a mystery. It... Kezia Hayter married the ship's captain and moved briefly to Adelaide, but then went back with Lady Franklin to England. And whether or not the quilt went with them is still unclear, but it did arrive in, somehow into Scotland. And we have no clear- We have done all the research possible. We have no clear idea how that happened. But a British quilt historian kind of rediscovered it in a family collection in 1987, and she published it in a book about British quilting. And from there we took an interest. We said, "Hello! Could you tell us a little bit more about the cupboard in which this was found?" And after some negotiations, the family who had said they could trace it within their own family back as early as the 1930s, but no further, and they had no connection to Australia, they had no connection to the Quaker movement. So it is a real mystery how they ended up with it. But they looked after it. As Debbie said it, it was never washed, it was never used. So all of these things mean that it's remained in this really beautiful condition. And when we got, we bought it from them, and, you know, it's lived a good life in a cupboard.

- Absolutely. Well, there's some fantastic questions coming through. Thank you everyone who's taking the time to ask these questions. But someone has asked a question, is, "A lot of the blocks are missing their corners, which suggests there was no seam allowance. Does the reverse of the quilt confirm or indicate that?"

- This is one of the greatest. Well, sometimes I think they just gave up on the corners. But one of the biggest problems with it, in relation to its condition, there is virtually no seam allowance. Sometimes it's only one warp or weft thread. And that is what's a real problem, why we can't put it on display all the time. And when we do, it has to go on a slope. So even to move it, once we were installing this, just a few centimetres they were, "Don't touch that!" And we had a whole group of people, we had to ease it into position. Because if you put any tension on it, you get a split. And so that's why we do unfortunately have to restrict how often we lend it because it gets folded in the most beautiful box with this sort of silk cushion.

- [Simeran] Handmade doonas.

- Handmade doonas.

- [Georgia] Wow!

- But to get it in and out, we put it at risk. And so that is, yes, the seam allowance is appalling into a lot of places.

- Debbie, this goes in really well to another listener. A whatcher question, a question. What are the conservation considerations for display, when we have this on display like we do now?

- That is one. That is one. The seam allowance and that has to be on a slope 'cause it can't take its own weight.

- They're the main ones.

- So from the moment the exhibition was decided upon, the rest of the show just kind of fell into place. But people were talking nonstop about how to construct the showcase, what angle, what level of the lights. It was this constant back and forth and they kept saying, "Sim, would you like to come to these meetings?" And I thought, "I have very little to add apart from it absolutely has to go as the star piece in the show." So, this was all purpose-built for the work. And now the trolley that it's on, is, we have something. So with hope we'll be able to have it out, 'cause that creates the perfect angle for it.

- Yeah.

- And the slope is so you can see it up like that. And it's protected on there.

- Well, yes!

- So it doesn't fall.

- The rest of the works in the show are as on the wall as possible. This one, it can't. Gravity is pretty heavy.

- Yeah! Well, some of them are...

- Little bit of an angle.

- But yes! Yeah. And this one, because of its size, its weight, the seams won't allow it. Another huge decision is also the light, because nearly half the patches are of natural dyes, which do have a tendency to bleed more than the others.

- So the bleeding and then the fading.

- Yeah! So it's very light sensitive.

- So they were very good at producing it quickly, but it wasn't proper light.

- I mean, your eyes do get used to it. That's why the light levels in here are so low because anything, you know, exposing to light, we all know if you leave things on the clothesline, they'll fade. So over trying to keep it to be as pristine as possible over time, we have to really reduce the light. So they're the two main issues.

- So she's the diva. Glorious diva.

- Yes.

- So let's go to someone's asking about English paper piecing. Is there evidence of it?

- Piecing?

- Yes.

- Piecing.

- Not piecing.

- No. We do have a lovely example of another, but there's no piecing at all in the patches, which explains the funny corners and the weird shapes. But there is in the daisies around the side. And as a more junior member of staff, I was very excited. I was thinking, "Oh, it could have!" You know? Because often they'll use nice white paper with inscriptions, and we might learn some things.

- Letters sometimes.

- Yes, sometimes letters, sometimes a bit of an old book is used as a template. But it's only in the daisies. And unfortunately they've got very common brown sheet wrapping paper inside them, which is perhaps all when you're on a ship.

- I don't think there was that many illustrated journals and books back then.

- There probably wasn't. So we did unpick, we did unpick two small areas, and then we got to look at it under different sort of types of reflective light. So we could tell it was exactly the same density. We didn't unpick all of them, but it was very clear they've all got exactly the same brown. So that's the only area with a template. And we know, unfortunately, it didn't have another nice secret that we'd have loved.

- There is another question though, around anything else that people might not know by just having seen it now. Any other things you uncovered? Little tidbits? Secrets?

- Well, there are some patches that I've mentioned before sewn in backwards.

- Yes!

- And you sort of go, "Why does this look so weird?" And then you go, "Oh, because it's sewn in backwards." Sometimes there's somebody with really crude stitching and they've started a row and somebody with fantastic-

- Has taken over.

- Has taken over as if to go, "Give up, you're hopeless."

- Hopeless. There, I'll put it.

- You know, we do actually have some stamps that you would typically get at the end of the bolts.

- Yeah, so as I was saying, because these are off-cuts essentially. Yeah, there are prints from the various manufacturers in some of the fabrics. So it sort of directly ties it back again to the Quaker movement.

- And you can tell because we have the same pattern that's printed in different colours. So it's colorways from the same factory. And so there's some colours where there's about eight different. Some fabrics, we've got eight different colours. So you can tell they've come from the same factory. And also the daisies are a better quality fabric than the ones you generally use for the patches. They're twice as thick and they've got more expensive colours in them. You've got bits of green in things, which would generally cost it a little bit more.

- Yeah, the majority of it is, as you can see, sort of reds and browns and a few bits of purple. But that central section is where you find the greens.

- Another question is, "Are any of the fabrics recorded in the company's pattern books?" Like have you been able to trace them back?

- I tried.

- A stall point.

- Unfortunately, there was a fire where the British Museum, which had very good stocks, that some of them have been lost, especially those around the late 1830s, '40s.

- And fortunately, right on time.

- It was. But I do always look at auctions. And, you know, I save the photo. There's some dresses, very simple dresses with fabrics. I sort of seem to know every fabric off by heart. So you're always looking at other quilts at other times and other items of clothing. And it's just typical of, you know, I've seen it about five or six times where you sort of go, "It was just typical of the late 1830s." So definitely wasn't the last season. And this period in time too, that's when patterns came out each season.

- Yeah.

- And-

- So that's why these would've been like the end of one season and then they wouldn't have needed those fabrics again. So they would've given them to the ladies. And then they would've brought in, you know, next season's patterns.

- Which I think you've answered the next question, which is another person has asked. Were any of the fabrics used in other quilts of the era? Like how much was it like other quilts?

- Well, it was very typical and we did go through all the samples. Because at the old prison in Sydney... The Mint, was it? Where women prisoners were kept, they have little fragments where rats used to take bits of the clothing and build nests. And years later they found it and they photographed them. It was a huge job going through, seeing if we could match up any of them. But then there is one. We have one quilt in the collection, The Campbell, we call it.

- Ferguson.

- Ferguson Quilt. And it actually has a fabric that's very similar. It was clearly made by the same factory. We checked it. It's exactly the same fabric and it has exactly the same dyes, so it was made by the factory. It's got a slightly different pattern. I think there might be an image up now, and you can see there's a colour, sort of a rust and a rusty peachy colour. And it's very glazed. And in the Rajah Quilt, it's glazed as well. Which means it's got a sheen to it, again, proving it was never washed. So that's the only example. But we actually have it in our collection. So that's exciting. 'Cause you can go looking through the books all the time. But, you know?

- Somebody in here had also asked too one of the early questions, have said, "Wouldn't it be nice if they reproduced some of these fabrics?" So I imagine lots of people wanna do that, don't they?

- [Debbie] Mm.

- To almost try and recreate it. Although...

- There is a pattern.

- There you go.

- For sale in our shop.

- There you go, for that particular person who asked that question. Can we just go to the size of the quilt too? And a bit of stats.

- So it's-

- The numbers.

- 325. Well, it depends.

- 320. Yes.

- Which side you're measuring, of course. It's 325 by 335-ish. So, you know, it is really enormous and I don't think that when you see it on a screen or in a book, you really get that sense of scale. That this is one of the other reasons that we don't get it out very much because it just really takes up so, so much space. And then can only be on display for a short period because of the considerations around light levels.

- Another question too, just in regards to this, when we're talking about the colour. Someone said, "How would the colours have changed from the original?"

- They don't have at all.

- There you go. And how significantly? Well, you're saying, "Not much at all from what it was originally."

- Which is why it was. Because it was a presentation quilt, so I mean is the only convict quilt known to be left, but convicts made these, women convicts made these, commonly onboard their trips. And so, but the ones that we don't find are the ones that were used. This one was never used. So because it was a presentation quilt, I mean, we surmise. But because it was a presentation quilt, it was sort of packed away very carefully and then sort of never saw, luckily, the light of day. So by the time the Gallery acquired it, it was still in relatively pristine condition and the colours and vibrancy of the printed fabrics is.

- There is no difference between the front and the back at all with colour testing. It is identical to watch.

- Because they're inquiring if it was originally white. Like that?

- Oh, actually, well you would've! The outer edge is out of very fine muslin and it possibly, it was never probably white like we would consider white now. It would've been a light, very light cream, and it has darkened over time. It was darker, but we removed the starch because it had never been washed. But the starch will just deteriorate and yellow over time without exposure to light. And so, yeah, that it never was bright white because they didn't have artificial brighteners that they were using.

- Cream didn't exist.

- Yeah. So it it would've been cream. But it probably would've been another shade or two lighter.

- Okay. Oh, well, all these questions. Let's try and get through some of them. Do we know who the overall main designer was?

- Well, not for certain, because it was never documented onboard. No one bothered to write about it in their diaries during the trip. But we do have Kezia Hayter who was an acolyte, as we said, of Elizabeth Fry. She was a prison matron and she was onboard as a free traveller to sort of take charge of the women and to look after them. And she also had incredible skills as a needle worker. So it is quite likely that she brought the group together and then planned the overall design of it. But these are all just suspicions and surmises. We can't say for certain.

- And her passageway was paid for by the Ladies' Society. So there was perhaps a little gratitude and she was very dedicated to the Womens' Reformation.

- She was. She was very dedicated to the cause.

- And the women who had a hand in the quilt probably we think wouldn't have been able to write.

- Well!

- We don't know.

- So I mean, there is... You know, because it's well documented what Elizabeth Fry was doing within particularly Newgate Prison, which is where these women came from, and when she first went there in 1813, you know, it was like a horrific sight. There were 300 prisoners crammed into these small conditions. Some of them had been tried, some of them hadn't. Some of them were there for heinous crimes, some of them there. And there was gambling and drinking and no beds, no nothing. So she was like, "This cannot stand." And part of what she did was occupy their time with things like patchwork and teach them the Bible, because she was a Quaker. But then also encourage them with education because that's the best way out of poverty, she thought. And it's still common idea that if the women had an ability to read and write and had some practical skills, then they would be able to, even though they were being transported and there was nothing that she could do about that, that at the other end they would have those skills.

- Get a chance.

- And there is evidence of several of the prisoners who wrote back to her and told her of their lives that had improved. They were married with kids, they ran businesses. So while, you know, not literate in maybe today's terms, I feel like they weren't completely illiterate and there was that ongoing process. But of course it depends on if women wanted to be educated. They weren't being forced to do anything. It was choice.

- One of the questions too is, "Were these women encouraged? Do we know if they were encouraged to continue quilting or sewing once they arrived?" Like whether it continued off there?

- No. So I mean, what happened was that the women were given the skills and then what they chose to do with them, you know, was up to them. Some of the women obviously had sewing skills before they entered prison.

- I think 15 women, when they were tried, said they had a career that was based on seamstress, tailoring, fringe maker, something to do with the textile industry. 25 went off. They got off the ship, said that they were seamstresses.

- Oh, so 10 became on the way.

- Yeah! Onboard. Maybe they thought it'd give them better odds.

- For a few months.

- Maybe they sewed a lot.

- I mean, there wasn't a lot of opportunities for women in the times, so having those sort of skills was really helpful. If you look at the rest of the quilts in the exhibition, you often see that the women, if they're not ladies of leisure, who were taught sewing skills as part of being a lady. But other women had connections to draper shops, tailors, they were dress makers. So that's a quite a common overlap between quilt making and what people's day-to-day career was.

- And so this quilt, obviously the Rajah Quilt was this boat. And someone's asked a question there too is, "Do we know or has there been an indication that other ships had made quilts similar?"

- Yes.

- So we don't have the- So with the Rajah Quilt, we have the physical evidence of the quilt.

- Yep.

- We have no written evidence about it.

- Right behind us.

- But with other quilts, we have all the written evidence that quilts were being made onboard and were being sold or were being used by the women at their destination. They, you know, would. If they sold them, then they would get some income so that they would have something at the other end. We know that this was happening from the moment that Elizabeth Fry and her ladies started the prison reform and the subcommittee, which was about convict reform.

- Another question too is, "How representative is it of other quilts of the period?" Which we've sort of touched on. I mean, what's significant about it? I guess the boat and the experience of coming to Australia?

- Yeah! I mean, it is typical of the period in that, you know, Broderie perse, the applique designs, the patchwork, the materials, they're all typical of what you see. The amount of patchwork is probably increased and there isn't paper piecing throughout the whole quilt because of obviously scarcity of means. And because you need a few skills to do paper piecing. It's not an easy quilting method. And so starting easy I think is really what they were trying to do with those rather loose seams.

- But there's lots of quilts in Ireland that follow exactly the same medallion type, you know? And in England.

- Similar patterns.

- Yeah, similar patterns.

- So another question is, "Are the applique pieces button-holed or tacked?"

- That's a you question.

- It's not for me. Don't look at us.

- No, there is tacking stitch still holding some of the patches down. And it's, I call it whip stitch. It's just like overcasting. And that's how most of the pattern is formed.

- The daisy patches, and then the Broderie perse is obviously different type of stitching. And then the patchwork is patchwork.

- We got any few questions just in regards to how it's stored. Now, you spoke before about when it's not on display. Is that when it travels? When you talked about all the intricate doonas.

- That's just its bed.

- That's just its bed!

- It goes to bed. It's a box that's probably nearly 1/4 of the size of the quilt.

- Yeah!

- The centre gets put in. It then gets a doona because we don't want creases. So then one side gets fold over.

- We don't want fabric touching itself.

- Fabric not touching. So then we put down another layer. And then everywhere where you virtually see a fold now, a little sausage goes in so it doesn't form a crease. And...

- Sausage?

- Material.

- Sausage doona.

- We make it! No, you make it out of polyester, which is very stable and insects don't like.

- Passed in with-

- And then it has polyester fabric and it's all been washed and specifically made for each crease. Then you fold it over again and it ends up being about this high. So when somebody says, "I really wanna look at it." You sort of go, "Oh, that's a day's work for four people."

- It's not that simple. Yeah!

- It's very elaborate, but it hasn't gotten a crease.

- No!

- Not one seam has broken since we developed that method, so it's working.

- Yeah!

- It was wonderful actually watching it being unpacked because you know Debbie, in a previous life before the bureaucracy of running the whole conservation lab took over was a textile conservator. So her and then our current textile conservator, who used to work under her, Michelin Ford, and then the new blood, Michelle, and it was three generations.

- Yeah!

- Just learning how to unpack it. Because it's such, you know, it's a skill that's passed down. And I just stood around and pointed at things in a very helpful way.

- Very helpful. Very helpful way.

- Wow! And gloves. Do you wear gloves when you're unpacking?

- No.

- They wash their hands.

- I hope they wash their hands!

- We often get that question. But you can't tell, you can't feel the tension. So you run and wash your hands, then you run back, you do it, you work on it. If you start to feel your hands getting a little bit sticky, you go off and you wash your hands. But if we put gloves on, we wouldn't know if we were gripping and ripping the seams.

- Yeah.

- So you have to just wear, you know, no engagement rings, no big long fingernails. You just have to make sure they're clean.

- Another question about how long we think it took to make the quilt. 'Cause obviously it wasn't the entire boat. We don't.

- Well, I mean, the problem being that there isn't any of that written evidence. So with other quilts, multiple were made onboard. But again, the women were broken up into, or broke themselves up into, smaller sort of groups of women the same age, with the same skillset, sometimes with the same type of convictions. Those sort of things. And then they would work together on different things. And so when those items were typically sold, then the profits from that would be split between that group of women. So whether or not something else was also being produced because there were 180 women onboard plus Kezia, and certainly 180 women did not participate in that. Sorry, in the making of this.

- No!

- So potentially there were other quilts being made onboard at the same time. We just don't know because no one bothered to write it down.

- No! If somebody wanted to make a quilt and they were told to work on this quilt, they'd probably be quite resentful of the fact, "Well, why can't I be making something for my profit instead of something that's gonna go back to a rich person in England?" Like, you don't know. There's all the different ways of interpreting all the social history that this quilt embeds.

- Which is another reason why I think it's inspired so much talk, hasn't it? Because there's so many questions we don't really know. Here's another question someone has asked. "Can you tell if the birds and flowers in the-" Is it Broderie?

- Yes.

- Broderie perse.

- Perse! "Are from the same piece of fabric? And is that likely an English printed fabric?"

- Ah... Might be.

- Yes, it could be. It could be Indian.

- I mean, the design is certainly is Indian in its origin whether or not it was printed in England or not.

- Because by that time they were copying, they were reporting.

- That's where all of these patterns come from, copied from.

- And it does. Sorry, what was the question?

- It was about whether or not they're from, they were English.

- And we've looked at lots of patterns. Between the two it was very difficult to identify and but there is one bit of pattern that must have at least been half a metre, we've worked out that half a metre that was being chopped up. But there are some-

- Joints!

- Small areas that seemed to have completely different. So perhaps there was a small scrap. It seems unlikely that prisoners would've been given it. But if it was very small scraps, I think, and it's got, we can tell it's made with just slightly different dyes. So it's sort of more like a carnation when the rest of the flowers are more like roses, and there's one little section that's sort of at the end rose there. So it could be from the same piece, but maybe they were selective. And we can't really tell if, it's a very even weave. But India, by that time, really knew how to weave.

- India was also producing things that would appeal to the British market. So they weren't making just for themselves.

- For themselves.

- You know? They were hoping that the Brits would buy it.

- Here's an interesting question. What are both your thoughts on Elizabeth Fry's aim to reform women through jobs like quilting? Is it a romantic notion heightened by the beauty of the quilt?

- Well, if I put myself back nearly 200 years, I probably would have very different aspirations of what my career would be than today.

- Yeah.

- So thanks to all my grandmothers and great, great grandmothers, and everybody else's who got us where we are today. I think it's very limited. There's limited space. You're working with a very limited skillset. It is easy to get fabric. It is easy. You know, sometimes there are some records that people were given wool and knitting needles.

- Oh, yeah! Knitting was something that also took place.

- I think it was more a way of harnessing skills that some women had. Like, you know you sort of get your mom to show you how to knit, or your grandma.

- My grandma.

- Or, you know? You just sort of... They could share that skill with each other. And also it was promoted for reading. 'Cause some women did when they got off, said they could read but they couldn't write, I think.

- [Simeran] Yeah.

- Which means that they usually didn't have access to paper and pens. But they learned some of the basic words.

- [Simeran] But they all had a Bible.

- But they were all given a Bible when they came, which would've been a challenge, I'm sure, for quite a number of them. But I can't think of too many other careers. It would've been nice if people learnt to be nurses on the deck, but things, and or that they could be carpenters, but the ship was fully equipped. These people were prisoners. So it had to be what they could do as their group. And it was quite limited.

- I guess it's giving them skills, isn't it? For whatever they can.

- It is giving them skills. And what, you know, Elizabeth Fry was able to achieve. Like, you know, yes, there is the romantic notion from the quilt, but what she did in prisons and on convict ships. I mean, transportation to Australia by the time the HMS Rajah went to Tasmania, New South Wales had already stopped accepting prisoners. And it was quite soon after that that Tasmania also stopped accepting prisoners. So it was sort of the end of the line anyway. But what she managed to achieve in terms of the conditions that the women were in, I don't think that's romantic. I think that she really had a very long lasting effect on the treatment of prisoners.

- It's continued.

- More broadly across, you know, all of Great Britain, and then into parts of Europe as well. You know, she was widely travelled. She had 11 kids, but she sort of put them on hold to really devote herself.

- I mean, she's a fascinating woman in her own right.

- She is!

- And we can find out more information about her too. And there is a link actually, some information on her on the National Gallery website. Just a question. Is the outer edge hemmed or raw-edged?

- It's hemmed.

- It's hemmed?

- Yep.

- Rolled and hemmed.

- Rolled and hemmed. Someone's asking, "Would any of these fabrics have been used in quilts that you would've found in America?" The fabrics?

- Similar. Britain had this kind of stranglehold, this monopoly at this point on cotton production, on printed cotton production globally. So if you wanted this sort of fabric, then you would have to have bought it, not necessarily through these exact factories. But, you know, most of the cotton of the world was coming from Great Britain. Which, you know, speaks a story unto itself. That obviously dwindled later into the 20th century. But at the point that this quilt was made, yes, you would've found this material. It's why you find it in the Ferguson Family Quilt, which, you know, they were Scottish. And the material came from-

- Partly with them.

- When members of their family immigrated to Australia. So, you know, it was all over.

- You mentioned before there was a pattern available. Someone's saying, asking, "Have you seen any contemporary replicas of it?"

- There is one, but I just can't remember. I feel like in Tasmania there's one where a group have reproduced it. I mean, it actually looks more perfect than the real deal because they've not got the fluted edges. But, yes, there have been reproductions made. Because it's so studied, you know, people have been able to reproduce it. Unfortunately, obviously some of the patterns and what have you aren't quite, quite the same. But, yes!

- We're sort of coming up to, I think we've got about eight or so minutes, maybe a bit less. So I wanna get to a couple more things. Debbie, a couple of people have asked this question, so I wanna get to it, Do you have tips for people who've got heritage quilts at home? This is their chance to ask you a question.

- Give them to us!

- Yeah, give them to the NGA. There you go.

- I think the thing is, one, keep them insect free if you possibly can because an insect will do more damage than the best of the care. Away from light if you can. Or if you wanna put it on display, in a place that doesn't get direct sunlight. They do attract a lot of dust and a lot of grease so it'd be good to get a piece of perspex to put in the front so that, you know, all things from the kitchen don't land on your quilt. And also to try and seek advice if you have a problem. If seams start to split or if certain fabrics are deteriorating, it's much better to get those fixed by somebody who knows how to fix them, 'cause you can cause more damage. But enjoy them and love them because the quilts that are in this display are only here because somebody loved them. If somebody doesn't bother to keep them. And sometimes people have contacted us saying, "You know, I've got six sons and they're not gonna give care about this quilt. Would you like it?" And we've had a few quilts that have come into the collection that way, haven't we?

- Absolutely. Through families. And I mean, that's the interesting thing. That while the women who certainly who made the Rajah Quilt, but who made the other quilts in the show, they didn't consider themselves artists. This is just, you know, the work that women did of this period. But these works have been handed down through generations until they arrived at, in our storage. And the families treasured them because they could see how beautiful they were and that they had worth and people cared for them. Even, you know, if they were used, they were still cared for in a way.

- And each of these quilts tell a different story of a different family and a different woman and different traditions and the materials. But how much longer can people come and see the exhibitions?

- It's on until the 25th of August, so we've got quite some time. So, yes, please make the journey.

- We've got a couple of questions too, just in the last few minutes. People are asking where they can find out or read more on both the Rajah Quilt but also on the women. I mean, how easy is it to find out more information?

- Well, so there's... So on our website we have, there was a publication a number of years ago and all of that information is now on our website. So I encourage people to go there. There has been several books written about different aspects of the Rajah Quilt, particularly focusing on the women and their lives after arriving. 'Cause we do have a list of all of the women. So we don't know who worked on this one in particular, but we know broadly everybody's names and that was fairly well documented. So there are other books out there. And because of its uniqueness, it's included in almost all books that you'll find on the history of Australian quilting, and even on British quilting.

- Debbie, any final thoughts on the quilt?

- I think one of the reasons why the Rajah is so special, because it doesn't have that fantastic of fabrics for the period. It wasn't sewn,, wellsome areas are sewn beautifully, but you have to remember that there was, you know, 179 women arrived and 10 children. And you imagine that they had children, they had and some passed away, but I think part of the interest in the Rajah is there are thousands and thousands of Australians that have a direct link to these bits of fabric. And that is part of what makes it special. And so its story will never finish because it connects people, and it's actually doing exactly what a quilt should do, even though it came from a completely different place of what a normal quilt would do.

- I could ask you so many questions on that, “What a quilt should do?” What are your final thoughts?

- Well, I agree with Debbie. I mean, we've got files and files filled with names of people who can trace their lineage back to this, you know, really important group of women. And, you know, it continues to surprise me every time. You know, we get it out or we have these discussions, how many more people feel this sense of connection. And I think, you know, broadly across the whole exhibition, it's very popular because people do feel this incredible sense of connection with textiles, that perhaps people who don't usually come to art galleries might feel like a little disconnect with certain things we show. Whereas there is this, you know, visceral reaction with the textiles and with this one in particular. And it's also so just-

- I was gonna say, "What a quilt should do." Like, keep you warm.

- Yeah!

- And show off your skills. Because nobody had ownership of this once they arrived. And it definitely won't keep you warm.

- No!

- Yeah.

- So it doesn't do what so many other quilts in the exhibition would.

- It's also, if we talk about women, and putting women in the front, you put women and their women's, female stories in the front, which we don't traditionally see.

- And it is at its heart about women's supporting women.

- Yes.

- It's about, well-to-do women being benevolent and saying, "You know, I can spend my time making other women's lives better." And, you know, some of these women, you know, committed heinous crimes, some of them not so much, some of them committed crimes so that they could get to Australia to see their husbands. You know? So like there's so many stories bound up in the quilt. And then, you know, across the whole idea of textile history is just like a little snapshot there.

- I feel like we could've gone for a few more hours. There's so many questions. But thank you Debbie, and thank you, Sim.

- That's lovely! Thank you.

- Because it's a great place to conclude our conversation tonight. Thank you to everyone who joined us online. Thanks for all your fabulous questions. The Rajah Quilt, as we said, is on display at the National Gallery, and that's as part of the Century of Quilts Exhibition until the 25th of August. There's also lots of great information up online, which we've referred to too, that you can find. There's the pattern for the quilt too, which is in the shop, so you can find all that information. Thank you again so much for making this so interesting and all the fabulous questions. We hope to see you all at the National Gallery again soon. Thank you all and good night.

- Good night.