I’ve recently completed a postgraduate programme in Scottish History at the University of Dundee in the UK and my dissertation for the Masters of Letters degree involved an in-depth study of the men in their guilds who controlled the earliest hand knitting enterprises known in Scotland.

Here’s an abstract of the study:

This study examines the male-dominated hand-knitting industry in Scotland from the earliest bonnetmaker guild formation in the late fifteenth century through the introduction of machine knitting in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Specifically, a comparison is made between the bonnetmaking guilds of the burgh of Dundee and the small Ayrshire town of Stewarton in respect of their management of members, products and markets. The two guilds were chosen as subjects for this research as they were the only incorporations in Scotland that exclusively produced headwear.

The flat, oversized blue bonnet so popular with the Scottish working man, which was their original product was likely copied from similar headwear worn by French clerics who travelled between the European continent and Dundee. The bonnetmakers of Dundee relied excessively on the domestic market for their income, and when that market declined, so did their fortunes. The Stewarton craftsmen, on the other hand responded to the market decline with the introduction of a new product – the nightcap – to address changing consumer preferences and later were able to capture the lucrative market in military headgear, showing additional ability to adapt. Their success continued with the export of their popular products to new markets in North America during the latter years of the eighteenth century. Bonnetmaking by hand came to an end in the second half of the nineteenth century, when knitting by machine took precedence.

Available documents from the period – including guild and court records and wills and testaments, for example – were consulted in considering the reasons for the downturn in bonnetmaking in Dundee in the mid-eighteenth century and the upsurge of production in Stewarton. Weaknesses in the Dundee organisation and a lack of entrepreneurial spirit – in failing to consider new products and markets – are compared to the better-organised guild in Stewarton and its successes in introducing products to meet changing demand and seeking additional domestic and international markets.

If you’re interested in reading the entire dissertation, you can click on the Scots Blue Bonnet tab above or you can find it here:
https://www.thismanknits.com/early-male-hand-knitters-scotland/