In writing about Anna Maria Garthwaite yesterday, I could not help but think of, and remember, the late Natalie Rothstein, the former Deputy Keeper of the Department of Textiles at the V&A, who devoted the best part of her long career at the V&A to the study of Anna Maria Garthwaite’s textile designs. The granddaughter of Lenin’s ambassador to Persia and daughter of ardent North London socialists, she joined the staff of the V&A as a Museum Assistant straight from Oxford in 1952. She wrote a long and magisterial Master’s dissertation on the ‘The Silk Industry in London 1702-1766’ which should really have been published and was always said to have been an enthusiastic scooter rider, having ridden motorcycles in her youth.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
As a teenager in the late 70s/early 80s I made great use of the V&A textile collection and, living in Stepney, was a frequent visitor to the Spitalfields silk collection which was then displayed at the Bethnal Green Museum. This was before the museum decided to concentrate on all things childhood. I remember V&A education department arranged trips to Dennis Severs house (while he was still alive) and to a silk weaving factory in Braintree. I got to see and do some fantastic things. I went on to do a degree in textile technology in Manchester, at a time when young people from my background were, in general, not going to university.
I am pleased that my teenage daughter recently got to go on a school trip to the wonderful V&A Clothworkers’ Centre which is clearly doing a lot to encourage interest in textiles. From your description, and from her Guardian obituary, I guess that Natalie Rothstein would have been thrilled by what has been put in place there.
Best wishes,
Joan
The silk weaving factory must have been Warner’s who owned Garthwaite’s designs and sold them to the V&A. Charles