Category: Research

Extended abstracts of papers presented at the Knitting History Forum Conference on 13th November 2021.

‘From fleece to fez in fifteen steps: an interpretation of the 1571 Cappers Act in the 21st century
Kirstie Buckland – Hon President, Knitting History Forum, UK

Woollen caps and British cappers were widely appreciated from the 13^th century to the changing fashions of the 16^th century. Cappers guilds performed in the Corpus Christi pageants, prosperous members equipped shops, endowed manufactories, and became burgesses, aldermen, mayors and politicians.

The little information written about the cappers comes from other people, notably from the many statutes passed to control or encourage them. These established standards of quality and price. The late 16^th century decline of the ‘craft, trade or science’ formerly employing 8,000 people in London, twice as many in the land beside’ threatened to increase poverty and crime. Were there really that many? While fifteen distinct callings were listed in the manufacture of caps (with ‘cappeknitters’ recorded from 1422) cappers combined with cardmakers, wiredrawers and pinners who provided some basic materials.

In 1571 unsuccessful legislation to enforce the wearing of woollen caps was intended to keep the country’s knitters working. As fashion changed exports dwindled, and cappers struggled to survive despite Queen Elizabeth’s helpful intervention.

It is impossible to know exactly how cappers worked, did they knit as we do now? Did they call it knitting (always spelt with a ‘k’). Who did what in the industrial hierarchy before mechanisation took over? The fifteen callings start with ‘Carders, Spinners, Knitters’ often seen as women’s jobs and obviously using woollen spun, short-stapled downland fleece, finishing and dyeing were more specialised, they were forbidden to make ‘any caps of any cloth not knit’. The use of ‘web yarn’ or of ‘cloth yarn’ was condemned as ‘deceitful practice’. 15^th century scribes were not familiar with the word and it is often added above the line (Monmouth and Ripon) but most surviving caps found in museum collections are, in terms of present practice, knitted, fulled, raised and shorn, with some showing traces of dye.

Many were dispersed from early 20^th century London excavations, others survived in small provincial towns, bogs in Ireland or Scotland, and shipwrecks such as Henry VIII’s warship the ‘Mary Rose’, or HMS de Braak.

We now have the scientific means to examine, analyse and provisionally date the surviving specimens which continue to surface, but cheaply made, easily seen and interpreted, knitted wool berets are still effective and adaptable in military, civilian and commercial use. (Montgomery, Che Guevara, Twiggy), More than 200,000 were made annually by a single French factory, except where the traditional ‘fez’ remains popular. On holiday in Tunis, just before the Arab Spring, I wandered through the souk where rows of identical shops in one area were selling identical fezes in various colours. To my surprise these fezes were knitted and finished using exactly the same methods that I think our cappers used. This was a working environment not a tourist show, the men were working on stacks of half-finished caps, using both traditional native teasels and metal ones (and their teeth) and delivered a mutter of angry Arabic at being interrupted. I was also unpopular with our group of tourists who did not share my excitement!  I bought my fez, carefully measured to fit, also a just-made undyed knitted ‘bag’ and a discarded metal fulling teasel.

Any Cap, whate’re it be
Is still the sign of some Degree.

(Elizabethan Ballad)

Inlandic, Foreign and Speckled Stockings – Harlingen hosiery shops in the 17th century
Gieneke Arnolli – Former curator, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

The basis for this paper is six inventories, from between 1637 and 1668, of hosiery shops in Harlingen, the mo st important harbour town of the Dutch province of Friesland. Harlingen was the northern gateway of the Republic of the United Netherlands.

Knitted stockings or “hose” could be bought ready-made in the 17th century, as opposed to other kinds of clothing, which were made to order. This made the stockings an early form of ready-to-wear clothing, as well as both in- and exported commodities. That Dutch stockings from that period are still extant is exclusively thanks to archaeological finds, such as the woollen stockings excavated in 1980 at Spitsbergen, (Svalbard, Norway) when archaeologists were in search of the clothing of whalers.

In the Harlingen shops amongst others English, Norwegian and Icelandic stockings were to be found beside Inlandic woollen stockings for men, women and children. However, skippers from Harlingen mainly transported stockings from the Netherlands to the Baltic region, as is shown by the registered passages through the Sound Tolls in Denmark.

The craft of knitting (of stockings) was plied by men as well as by women, who were members of a guild. The names of eight “hose knitters” can be found in 17th-century sources in Harlingen. Female knitters remained unnamed most of the time, but in the 1658 inventory of Antie Jans the name of a female knitter is mentioned, because of an outstanding debt which had to be paid to her. The prominent presence of women also becomes clear from the fact that most of the Harlingen stocking shops were held in the name of the (married) woman; and there were always two women involved in inventorying, as licenced valuers. The stockings’ prices varied from five stuivers (a stuiver –penny- is 1/20 worth of a guilder) to more than three guilders per pair, whereas the average daily wage of a craftsman amounted to one guilder at that time. Examination of the Harlingen inventories demonstrates how important the role of women was in the economic life of the town.

However, from the inventories much may also be deduced about the stockings themselves: for example that stockings traded in the shops were nearly always made of wool. This means that not only knitters, but also wool-combers and spinners were indispensable for the production. The wool-combers took care of preparing the fleeces for spinning, after which the wool was taken to spinners, mostly women, who would spin knitting yarns of various thicknesses from this.
Knitting yarn was available in greater or lesser amounts in all the shops. It isn’t clear whether this was intended for selling or as a stock for working with. There was a bunch of “walvisch bien” (whalebones) for making knitting needles in the shop of Isack Pytters Verhagen (1656). Iron wire was present for the same purpose in Jantien Cornelis’ shop (1657). The stocking shops were more like workshops, which is also apparent from the presence of “formen” (moulds) in the shape of a leg, for stretching the knitted stockings around. There will also have been pupils at work there, but no traces of them can be found in the inventories.

From anecdote to statistic: in  search of quantifiable data for the volume of production and trade in hand knitted stockings made from wool in England in the later Elizabethan and Jacobean periods
Lesley O’Connell Edwards – Independent Researcher, UK

Knitted items were becoming increasingly common through the sixteenth century in England, especially stockings.  However, little work has been done to put numbers to this expanding industry: Thirsk’s research nearly half a century ago suggested each person wore out at least two pairs of stockings a year, and Croft included figures from the London port books of the period in her research on the stocking export trade.  This paper aims to rectify that situation, and show that it is possible to provide far more quantifiable data.  After touching on the amount of wool that might be needed for a pair of stockings, the paper will concentrate on the number of stockings being produced and traded, both within England and  as exports, and reveal who the traders could be.  It will then consider knitters as a socio-economic group and produce an estimate of how many there could be in the early seventeenth century.  Finally, it will show how sometimes different categories of records can be brought together to paint a broader picture of stocking knitting, using (fine) jersey stocking knitting in Norwich and Yarmouth as a case study.

There is no one source of evidence for hand knitted stockings, as knitting was not a structured industry.  Material is scattered across a wide range of sources from national government papers, such as customs accounts and pardons in the patent rolls, through local government records to personal records, including letters, account books and inventories. Sometimes one has to ‘read between the lines’ – evidence is not neatly laid out, but needs to be deduced, such as realising that a number of stolen stockings was too large for household use, so the owner may have been intending to trade in these.  People’s lives were complex, and they often had multiple income streams: creating or trading in knitted items was only one of these.

What quantifiable data are available?

This paper shows that there is numerical evidence for a number of aspects:

• How much wool / yarn was needed for a pair of stockings
• Evidence of volume of trade from official records
• The shaping of trade – what types, and how many stockings were individual merchants trading?
• Who were the knitters?

How much wool / yarn made a pair of stockings?

The paper will discuss the usefulness of a generalisation of one pound of wool producing two pairs of stockings, which appears in several sources, and consider evidence from modern recreations of extant sixteenth century stockings in the Museum of London.  It will also discuss the proposed enterprise of Walter Morrell, who claimed he had obtained five pairs of stockings from one pound of wool, and was intending to train others to do so.

Evidence from official records.

The Tudor administration reformed the aulnage tax and customs systems in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Both of these reforms resulted in knitted stockings being added to the list of items on which duty was payable, which suggests that the government was aware that these were being produced in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile taxing them.

Aulnage was a duty paid on finished items made from wool: how many evaded this duty is unknown.  Only two records have been traced: one from Norwich for 1580-1585 and one from Ipswich for 1594-1595.  The Norwich records are quarterly and the paper will use these to reveal the volume of stocking production, and also to suggest that there was no obvious seasonality to production.  Although the Ipswich document is simply a total, the paper will show that it demonstrates the types of stockings being made, and who was trading in them.

Port books can detail specific cargos that were being transported – but not all of these do, especially in the sixteenth century.  The records become more detailed after the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the paper will show that it is possible to put numbers to the export trade.  The paper will briefly show that the other end of the export trade can sometimes be traced, drawing on the data in the Danish Sound Toll registers in the period.

The shaping of trade – what and how many stockings were the merchants trading?

Port books also provide evidence of quantities that merchants were obtaining, and sending.  The numbers of stockings in a cargo was very variable – some merchants were sending as few as six or eight pairs, whilst others sent over 1,500 pairs.  The paper will use specific port books to show the range of quantities and types of stockings that were being exported, as well as other information about the traders; and to highlight the differences between London and other ports.

A range of other sources will be used to demonstrate how much stock a person trading in stockings might hold, and the range of types and values, including personal inventories, and pardons for theft in the Calendar of Patent Rolls.  Other evidence, such as personal correspondence, will show how the trade might simply be informal.  Traders must have had ways of obtaining stockings in quantity, and the little evidence that exists as to how they might have done this will be discussed.

Information about numbers of knitters

The paper will discuss the few sources that show information about knitters as a socio-economic group. This will include two surveys of the poor, made in Norwich in 1570 and Ipswich in 1597, which demonstrate that knitters were poor but could be of any age, or marital status.  Other evidence such as civic initiatives to train the poor to knit in order to earn a living and not be a burden on the poor rate, such as that in Salisbury in 1625, will be briefly discussed.

How many knitters might there have been in England?

The consensus amongst contemporaries was that a full-time knitter made two pairs of stockings a week (ignoring size and yarn type), and knitted for fifty weeks a year, excluding the Christmas period.  However, many knitters might only work in the slack periods in the agricultural period, or have other occupations as well as knitting, as the Norwich census reveals.

The paper will show that we can expand on Thirsk’s estimate of a minimum of 90,000 knitters creating two pairs for each of the minimum population of 4.5 million at the end of the sixteenth century.  It will utilise data for the early seventeenth century to arrive at an estimate of the number of knitters that includes those needed to produce the stockings for export.  It will also show that where the number of a group of knitters is known, such as in the Norwich census of the poor in 1570, then an estimate can be made of the number of stockings they would produce.

A case study: jersey stocking knitting in Norwich and Yarmouth.

Finally the paper will show that sometimes different records can be brought together to paint a broader picture of stocking knitting, and provide numeric evidence, using the example of jersey stocking knitting in Norwich and Yarmouth.  The paper will utilise different types of records to reveal the possible volume of this trade, including potential amount of wool used, who the knitters might have been and their wages, the volume of the trade, and those who were exporting the finished stockings, and discuss the reliability of the different sources.  These records include the writings of Thomas Wilson, a government official, and Walter Morrell, an entrepreneur, a return on official wool usage to a local J.P., the 1600-1601 port book for Yarmouth, and a Norwich inventory of 1617.

“3 pounds Wostid in niting”: Knitted garments in Stuart accounts
Pat Poppy – Independent researcher, UK

An ongoing project has created a database of information on clothing from the Stuart period (1603-1714). The database contains around 23,000 references, only a few are to knitting or to knitted garments. These do however provide an insight into what was being produced and how. The bulk of the garments are stockings, followed by small numbers of gloves, cuffs, a waistcoat and a doublet. The paper will examine the changing terminology, particularly around references to stockings, and if the textile description can indicate whether they are knit or not. It will also examine the extent to which knitted items were purchased, or ordered to be knitted, and the values put on the finished garments, to cost of yarn and the cost of knitting.

A 1611 seller of points, garters, and girdles, has two pair of knit stockings in stock.¹ One hosier in 1623 has in stock five pairs of knit stockings, the rest of his stock are referred to as hose, raising the question of whether they are breeches or stockings.² As late as the 1630s breeches could be referred to as hose, the King’s suits are described as doublet, hose and cloak.³ By the later part of the seventeenth century references to hose are almost certainly to stockings, a widow Agnes Noble in 1679 has in stock well over 100 pairs of hose, and some are referred to specifically as women’s hose.⁴

The 1623 hosier has Irish hose in stock, which are almost certainly cloth stockings. Irish stockings were the preference for American colonists at the time, as being, “much more serviceable than knit ones.” ⁵  Later suppliers do not mention whether or not the stockings are knit. Cloth stockings can be identified by the name of the textile, a 1661 seller has “paire dowlas stokens & on paire of Cotten stokens”.⁶ Stockings described as yarn or thread, are almost certainly knit as, in all probability, are worsted stockings. A 1691 wool comber not only has three pounds of worsted out “in niting,” but also large quantities of worsted wool with spinners, similar large amounts of worsted yarn in stock, and at least 74 pairs of worsted hose.⁷

References to items being knitted appear in several household accounts. In 1625 the Howards of Naworth Castle pay “for knitting 2 pair of stockings for the children 6d.”⁸ In 1645 John Willoughy in Devon paid “for knitting a pair of stockings of coarse melly yarn 2s 4d.”⁹ His Devon neighbours the Earl and Countess of Bath at Tawstock had several items knitted for their servants, as well as stockings there are references to “paid for knitting Mr Harris stockings and gloves 2s” and “paid for knitting cuffs 6d.” At least one item was knitted for the Earl himself, “paid Eliz: Umbles for knitting my Lord’s socks 2s”.¹⁰ James Master in the 1650s lists several payments both for the knitting of items and for the purchase of thread, “for 1 po[ound] and a hal[f] of thred to make 2 pair of stockings 4s 6d.” and later “for knitting 2 pa of stockings for Jack 2s 6d”.¹¹

Apart from the 1611 points seller and the 1623 hosier it is sometimes difficult to tell if stockings in stock are knitted or not. The 1691 woolcomber’s stock is almost certainly all knitted. His hose for youths and women are 2s a pair, but other hose are listed at 2s 6d a pair. In 1668 in Kent George Johnson has socks at 4d a pair, children’s stockings at 5d a pair, boy’s grey stockings at 7d a pair, and men’s woollen stockings at 1s 0½d a pair.¹² Earlier in the century in 1619, John Robinson, who describes himself as a yeoman but is selling both stockings and gloves has in stock “ninetien payer of wosted stockings £3 13s 2d, wollen stockings thirtye fower payer 57s 8d” and “thirteen payer of stockings for children 7s 7d”.¹³

Silk stockings are far more expensive. James Master pays 9 shillings for a pair black silk knit tops, probably for boot hose.¹⁴ The silk stockings purchased for the Earl and Countess of Bath ranged from 19 shillings to “a pair of green silk stockings for my Lord £2 10s”.¹⁵

The colours of the stockings are rarely mentioned, though silk stockings appear to come in a much wider range of colours than wool stockings. In 1699 a mercer divides his stockings into grey and coloured.¹⁶ Another mercer a year later in 1700 has stockings in blue and red as well as “dyed woosted at 2/1” a pair.¹⁷

References

1. Atkinson, J A., et al eds. 1993, Darlington wills and inventories 1600-1625. Publications of the Surtees Society, vol 201, 111-114
2. George, E. and S. eds. 2002, Bristol probate inventories, Part 1: 1542-1650. Bristol Records Society publication 54, 36
3. Strong, Roy. 1980 Charles I’s clothes for the years 1633-1635. Costume, 14, 73-89
4. George, E. and S. 2005, Bristol probate inventories, Part 2: 1657-1689. Bristol Records Society publication 57, 12
5. Wood, William. New England’s Prospect. (London, 1639)
6. George, E. and S. eds. 2005, Bristol probate inventories, Part 2: 1657-1689. Bristol Records Society publication 57, 12
7. George, E. and S. eds. 2008, Bristol probate inventories, Part 3: 1690-1803. Bristol Records Society publication 60, 8-10, (Online at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/History/bristolrecordsociety/publications/brs60.pdf)
8. Ornsby, G. ed. 1878 Selections from the Household Books of the Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle. Publications of the Surtees Society, 68, 225
9. Gray, Todd. 1995. Devon Household Accounts 1627-59. Part 1 Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new series, vol. 38, 257.
10. Gray, Todd. 1996. Devon Household Accounts 1627-59. Part 2 Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new series, vol. 39, 62, 102 & 103.
11. Robertson, S. ed. 1886. The expense Book of James Master 1646-1676 [Part 2, 1655-1657], transcribed by Mrs Dallison. Archaeologia Cantiana, 16, 241-259, 253
12. Lansberry, H. C. F. ed. 1988. Sevenoaks wills and inventories in the reign of Charles II. Maidstone: Kent Archaeological Society. 75
13. Phillips, C. B. and Smith, J. H., eds. 1985. Stockport probate records, 1578-1619. Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. 124, 138-41
14. Robertson, S. ed. (1887). The expense Book of James Master 1646-1676 [Part 3, 1658-1663], transcribed by Mrs Dallison. Archaeologia Cantiana, 17, 321-352, 340
15. Gray, Todd. 1996. Devon Household Accounts 1627-59. Part 2 Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new series, vol. 39, 153
16. Trinder, B. and Cox, J. 1980. Yeoman & Colliers in Telford: Probate Inventories for Wellington, Wrockwardine, Lilleshall and Dawley, 1660-1750. Phillimore, 305
17. Trinder, B. and Cox, J. 1980. Yeoman & Colliers in Telford: Probate Inventories for Wellington, Wrockwardine, Lilleshall and Dawley, 1660-1750. Phillimore, 315

“There are few ladies who cannot knit stockings” – Printed instructions, norms and practice in the nineteenth century
Hanna Bäckström – PhD in Textile Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden

In research on the history of knitting, stockings are often mentioned as a key item. Extant stockings are often described, while the development of printed instructions on how to make them has not been as thoroughly explored. In this paper I study the norms and practices surrounding the act of knitting a stocking during the nineteenth century, by examining how the publication of instructions for knitting stockings changed over time. The sources range from the well-known instructions in The Knitting Teachers Assistant (1817) to lesser known manuals published in Germany, Denmark and Sweden from the early nineteenth century to the 1870s. To further explore how the act of knitting a stocking could express social identity other printed sources and portraits are also considered.

Part of the investigation was included in my newly published PhD thesis that explore the emerging market for printed patterns for knitting and crochet in the middle of the nineteenth century, Förmedling av mönsterförlagor för stickning och virkning. Medierna, marknaden och målgruppen i Sverige vid 1800-talets mitt (The mediation of patterns for knitting and crochet. The publications, the market and the target group in Sweden in the mid-nineteenth century).

In the early nineteenth century a market for printed knitting patterns first developed in the German speaking area. The first patterns for knitting were in the form of coloured grid patterns that conveyed motifs, such as a garland. These were sometimes combined with written instructions to communicate how to create a distinct form or a structure, such as a lace stocking. However, more often than not the the grid patterns were not accompanied by any written instructions. Prior knowledge on how to form a stocking, and how to incorporate a lace pattern or border on it, was expected of the target group of the patterns. An early and rare example of written instructions on how to knit stockings were included in Johann Friedrich Netto’s and Friedrich Leonhard Lehmann’s popular manual Die Kunst zu stricken in ihrem ganzen Umfange (The art of knitting in its entirety), published in several editions around the year 1800. The instructions are hard to understand today, and whether they were understandable for a German reader of that time can be discussed.

During the 1830s and 1840s there is a shift from manuals mostly containing grid patterns, to manuals where a combination of written instructions and illustrations are used. At the same time the function of the patterns change, from communicating how to form motifs, to communicating how to form shapes and structures. Basic instructions on how to form the stiches that make up the motif and pedagogical, step by step instructions first became a frequent part of the manuals in the 1840s. A standardised language of how to describe the craft was also developed during the 1840s.

One of the most prolific German authors of needlework manuals in the 1840s was Emma Hennings, whose manuals were also translated to Dutch, Danish and Swedish. To illustrate the instructions for knitting stockings from the mid-nineteenth century, Emma Hennings’ Anweisung zur Kunststrickerei (1843–1847) (Instructions in art knitting) is compared with the instructions of Danish knitting manual author Sine Andresen, Strikkebog til Skole- og Huusbrug (1845) (Knitting book for use at home and in schools).

In the mid nineteenth century knitting of stockings was common in all parts of society, both as sustenance and as a part of everyday household chores. Most of the printed manuals were aimed at middle and upper class women, and in these publications the knitting of stockings was framed as a fashionable, graceful and feminine activity, tied to bourgeoisie gender ideals. In the manuals, norms regarding what kind of objects should be fabricated, why, and by whom is also expressed. The target group, “fruntimmer” (ladies), are constructed as persons that had the means, time and need for a pastime, but this pastime should also be productive or beneficial – such as knitting thin cotton stockings for your family. By relating to established notions of gender and class, knitting is presented as important and meaningful occupations in the everyday life of middle-class women.

The ways in which knitting is described, for example as both productive and entertaining pastimes, can be viewed as part of the publishers’ strategy to make the manuals into desirable and fashionable commodities. In the manuals, the concepts of usefulness and entertainment are conspicuously tied to each other, making a convincing argument for a middle-class woman of the mid-nineteenth century to engage in knitting.

The connections between knitting and bourgeoisie gender ideals can also be seen in German and Danish portraits of bourgeoisie women, who were frequently depicted holding a knitting. The shape and colour of their knitting suggest that it was the making of cotton stockings that was depicted, rather than any other object that could be knitted.

Satirical articles in fashion journals and weeklies further emphasize that the knitting of stockings was a quintessential occupation for fashionable women. While stating that the stocking was present in the hands of women in all parts of genteel social life, the practice was also criticized for making girls antisocial, passive and inattentive to the courting of men. When performed too much, a task that signalled feminine virtue could also have the opposite effect.

While the task of knitting stockings was framed as a mandatory and fashionable task for bourgeoisie women in portraits, fashion journals and magazines in the mid nineteenth century, the popular knitting manuals of that period have none or very brief instructions on how to actually perform the task. The German, Danish and Swedish knitting manuals that were issued during the period 1830–1850 contain a lot of patterns for structures that can be used on stockings, such as lace patterns and borders. Technical aspects of how to actually form the stocking, such as instructions on how to form a heel, are often omitted. The omission of step-by-step instructions for knitting stockings in the manuals emphasize the cultural significance of this task, making it into something that the target group was just expected to know how to do. As is stated in both the German and Swedish edition of Hennings’ Anweisung zur Kunststrickerei: “There are few ladies who cannot knit stockings”.

In Sweden the first step-by-step instructions for making stockings was published in the 1870s. This was a translation of The Knitting Teachers Assistant, first published more than fifty years earlier. I will conclude by discussing why there was such a delay in the publication of thorough instructions for how to knit stockings in Sweden compared to Britain.

Heads, hands and feet: Examining the body of evidence for early knitting
Jane Malcolm Davies – Associate professor of textile analysis, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark