A highlight of the event is an update on The undelivered sweater: a 200-year-old knitting time capsule. The sweater was part of a ship’s cargo sailing from the Faroe Islands to mainland Denmark in 1807. The ship was seized by the British Navy and its contents became part of a vast archive of captured correspondence and goods at The National Archives. A panel of speakers from there and the Faroe Islands National Museum will report on the research so far including microscopic analysis of the fibres in the Faroese sweater
The full programme and tickets are available here.
The undelivered sweater: a 200-year-old knitting time capsule
In February 2024, three parcels, sealed for over two centuries, were opened at The National Archives, UK. Inside were knitted wool artefacts: a pristine sweater intended as a gift, four pairs of stockings, and a swatch of knitted fabric. These items, part of a ship’s cargo sailing from the Faroe Islands to Denmark in 1807, were seized by the British Navy and became part of the Prize Papers collection, a vast archive of captured correspondence and goods now part of a significant cataloguing and digitisation project led by The National Archives and the University of Oldenburg.
The artefacts provide rare material evidence of early 19th-century Faroese craftsmanship, trade, and cultural identity, and the opening of the parcels has launched investigations in the UK and in the Faroe Islands to trace their origins and significance within global knitting history. This joint paper presents the work being done to unravel the story of these textiles through interdisciplinary research.
Amanda Bevan, Head of Legal Records and the Prize Papers Team at The National Archives, will introduce the Prize Papers project and the archival work that led to the identification of the knitted items.
Margretha Nónklett, Head of Ethnology at The Faroe Islands National Museum, will explore the cultural and historical context of the textiles, including their role in trade between Tórshavn and Copenhagen and their place in Faroese fashion and craft traditions.
Noomi í Dali, Teaching Lecturer in Textile Arts at the University of the Faroe Islands, will discuss her recreation of the sweater and her comparative research with similar garments in The Faroe Islands National Museum’s collection. Susan Noble, Head of Conservation for Imaging at
The National Archives, will present findings from recent scientific analyses, including DNA testing of the wool in collaboration with the Natural History Museum’s Molecular Laboratory. The speakers will demonstrate the range of archival, historical, craft, and scientific perspectives used to trace the journey of these artefacts from Tórshavn in 1807 to sealed parcels in the archive.
IMAGE: Prize Papers Project Conservator Marina Casagrande carrying out microscopic analysis of the fibres in the Faroese sweater. Photo credit: The National Archives
