The Knitter - UK (2019-11)

• Rose herself was a spinner.
  Over half of the child knitters lived
  with two parents, and most of the
  remainder lived with their mother who
  might be a widow, or might have been
  abandoned by her husband. One such
  was the 12-year-old daughter of widow
  Luce Doryk, aged 55, who was also a
  knitter: they lived in the parish of St
  Peter Mancroft. One 18-year-old knitter
  lived with her grandmother who was 92
  and not able to work. A nine-year-old
  child knitter is also noted as ‘diseased’:
  she lived with her mother’s sister Agnes
  who knitted stockings.
  We are only given gender on 20
  occasions for the child knitters, and in
  all but one instance, these are girls. The
  one boy who knitted did so every day. He
  lived with his widowed mother Margaret
  Harison whose occupations were knitting
  and washing. His sister Margeri, who
  lived next door, also knitted though her
  nine-year-old daughter spun white warp.
  Child knitters did not necessarily learn
  from their mothers. Only a quarter of
  them had mothers who also knitted.
  How the remainder learned is not
  known, but Agnes Palmer is listed in the
  census as teaching children to knit. It
  would seem that did not occupy her
  full-time, as she also earned money
  spinning white warp.
  The census was transcribed by
  J.F. Pound and published by the
  Norfolk Record Society in 1971. It is
  now out of print, but is available online
  at http://www.archive.org.

About the author: Lesley O’Connell

Edwards has been researching the

history of knitting in England for

over two decades. She researched

knitters and the trade in knitted items

in later 16th century Norwich for her

dissertation for her recent masters’

degree at Oxford University.

Norwich was the second

largest city in England in

the medieval period

St Stephens parish

provided alms to the

poorest knitters

2

1

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1 Poor knitters typically made stockings or ‘great hose’;

this 16th century example is held at the Museum of London

2 Around 15,000 people lived in Norwich in 1570

Knitting history

The Knitter Issue 144