Shetland’s knitting heritage
Today, Shetland wool and the islands’ knitting industry are enjoying a renaissance as people worldwide take up their wires (needles) and engage in this age-old tradition. It’s touted as being a positive pastime for our mental health, and in a world that, by and large, is fast-paced and technologically driven, the slow and tactile pleasure of knitting can offer the perfect escape from the day-to-day.
But this idea that knitting offers a sanctuary away from daily life is a very modern view, and doesn’t represent the everyday reality for the thousands of Shetlanders who sold or bartered knitted goods to merchants until the mid 20th century.
History of knitting in Shetland
The knitwear from Shetland is among the best in the world, and Shetland’s knitters are world-leading teachers and experts in the field of textiles. Our islands are a destination for knitting enthusiasts keen to learn the skills involved and meet those who have come from families of knitters, passing down their rich skills and the tricks of their craft. (Discover more about textile trips and tours in the guidebook.)
However, Shetland knitwear has not always enjoyed such a good reputation – in fact, throughout history, it has often been ridiculed and looked down on as a simple cottage industry, a way in which the poor supplemented their household income and kept their heads above water. Knitting was once an integral part of daily life in the islands, just another daily chore that women and girls from a very young age would be expected to carry out to ensure their family’s survival.
Historically, low-value items such as coarse stockings were the staple of the Shetland knitwear industry – if we can call this barter-based system an “industry”. It was known as the truck system, where knitwear was exchanged for items such as tea and sugar – generally to the landlord to whom they paid their rent. This system has been heavily criticised for locking Shetlanders into a state of poverty and what amounted to little more than a life of indentured servitude to the laird.
Women churned out stockings in their thousands to trade with visitors, particularly Dutch fishermen, in the 17th and 18th centuries, in exchange for tea, cloth, flour and perhaps brandy and tobacco for the menfolk. The Scottish naturalist George Low, who visited Shetland in 1774, describes how Shetlanders sold their knitwear to these Dutch fishermen who visited Bressay Sound every summer before the start of the summer herring fishery. He said that:
“The whole time the [Dutch] fleet lay the country people flocked to Lerwick with loads of coarse stockings, gloves, night caps, rugs, and a very few articles of fresh provision.
Several thousand pounds are annually drawn for the first article [coarse stockings], tho’ a pair of stockings seldom sells for more than 6d. or 8d. [£2-£3 in today’s money]; I don’t say but they make finer stockings than these, having been informed of a pair of stockings made in Lerwick and sold at 36sh. ster., but the most valuable for the country in general, and the most profitable, are the coarse ones, of one very thick thread, which consumes a great deal of wool, but requires not a great deal of labour.”
Samuel Hibbert, an English geologist and antiquarian visiting in 1818, noted that:
“ The chief use to which Shetland wool is applied at the present day, is for the stockings and gloves that are knit. The fleece of the sheep, which is remarkably soft, has been wrought into stockings so fine, that they have been known to sell as high as 40s [£115 in today’s money] per pair. I had not the good fortune to see articles of this value, but several pairs were shewn to me, which, from the fineness of workmanship, might be considered reasonable at half-a-guinea or fifteen shillings each. The price of the most common quality, however, is about three or four shillings, whilst they are manufactured so coarse as to be worth no more than fivepence or sixpence.”
A report submitted in 1914 to the Board for Agriculture on the Home Industries of the Highlands and Islands gave a scathing account of Shetland’s knitwear industry. The report described the quality of items sold by Shetland women as poor, with socks often sold at varying lengths. Part of the problem, they believed, was how people went about their knitting, which, ironically, has produced some of the most thought-provoking and poignant imagery associated with Shetland’s knitting heritage: images of kishie-clad women knitting as they work (kishies are the straw baskets worn on the back).
The board’s report continued that knitting “is combined with some other occupation, and both are carried on simultaneously” with “women knitting as they carry baskets of peats or engage in some other task connected with the croft”.
This way of working, which has become so familiar in our history books, allowed Shetland women to continue the work of the croft – often while the men were away at sea – while quickly producing many thousands of pairs of socks between them. And, let’s face it, it’s unlikely to have mattered to the Dutch fishermen seeking cosy toes if the left sock was longer than the right!
Stockings remained the staple of Shetland’s knitwear industry for many years until the late 19th century, when women began knitting shawls for sale or, more generally, barter. Arthur Laurenson, a Lerwick merchant with a thriving hosiery business, commented that:
“ It was about 1840 or 1841 that the making of shawls began to get very common here; and about 1845 or 1846 there was a very great demand for them. After that the veil knitting commenced, about 1848 or 1849, and from 1852 to 1856 there was a great trade to be done in veils.”
For information about textile-related trips and tours and where to buy knitwear, pick up a copy of our guidebook.
Although women were sometimes paid in cash for higher-value items such as fine lace, for the most part – and continuing right into the 20th century – the truck system existed throughout Shetland, from Unst in the north to Dunrossness in the south. Women exchanged their knitwear for goods, usually in the landlord’s shop. One account, documented in the 1872 Second Report of the Commissioners appointed to Inquire into The Truck System (Shetland), notes that “tea especially is a sort of currency with which knitters obtain supplies of provisions.”
One knitting story that has been glorified and somewhat exaggerated in recent years is that of Betty Mouat (1825-1918) and her 40 shawls, adrift at sea in 1886. Betty, a native of Scatness, Dunrossness, set off for Lerwick one February day in 1886, boarding the smack Columbine. She had an appointment with the doctor and some simple knitted shawls to sell in town. After leaving the pier at Grutness, a squall hit the boat, washing the skipper overboard. The two remaining crew launched the small boat to rescue him but, while retrieving the skipper, the Columbine gathered pace under a strong wind and made off without them, with only Betty remaining onboard. The crew gave up all hope of getting the vessel – or Betty – back again until, nine days later, the Columbine washed up on the island of Lepsoy in Norway.
Betty, a simple hand-knitter like most women at that time, shot to fame after her trip to Norway and even received a letter of congratulations from Queen Victoria for her epic journey. The exposure that Betty received put Shetland knitwear in the public eye, popularising it and increasing demand.
Through its retelling, a skewed picture of the textile industry has been painted by writers who write, under a false assumption, that the shawls she was selling before her unexpected journey across the North Sea to Norway were of the finest Shetland lace. In truth, there’s no indication that these were anything more than the simple shawls – or haps – that women “wuppit” (wrapped) around their shoulders to work.
Furthermore, one press report at the time shines a sobering light on the conditions in which women like Betty were working and the kind of poverty they endured day-to-day – and, I hope, debunking the romantic myth that her life before her accidental journey was in some way remarkable or unique.
The report from the time reads:
“She [Betty] has spent her life in a miserable hut – the typical crofter’s dwelling – a place not fit for cattle … her home is amid the solitude of the hills where the peat fire burns in the middle of the mud floor and the smoke makes an uneasy exit through stray holes in the roof. In this dismal abode she has maintained a lofty independence by knitting Shetland wool shawls and placing her trust in the Lord.”
Betty was simply an ordinary woman selling ordinary knitwear who happened to go on an extraordinary journey. She was typical of thousands of women like her who lived – and knitted – in 18th- and 19th-century Shetland.
So, as you relax with this story, planning your holiday and knitting for pleasure, please take a moment to consider those industrious Shetland women who, for generations, knitted through necessity to keep the wolf from the door and ensure that they and their families would not starve. These women, who worked tirelessly in the home and on the croft, knitting as they went about their daily chores, were paid little more than an ounce of tea for their efforts.
To forget the harsh roots of the knitwear industry is not just a betrayal of our history; it also acts as a disservice to those women who struggled day to day to make ends meet.
