Two Pairs of Socks and 193 Pages: Knitting in New Zealand, 1915

A compact book with a public purpose

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa describes Her Excellency’s Knitting Book as New Zealand’s first locally published knitting book. It appeared in August 1915 under the name of Annette Foljambe, Countess of Liverpool—Lady Liverpool, wife of the governor-general. The publisher was Ferguson and Osborn. Te Papa records the volume as 131 millimetres wide, 158 millimetres high and 22 millimetres thick, small enough to fit into a knitting bag. These physical details make the object feel less like an abstract symbol and more like a working manual carried from one task to another. [1]

Contemporary newspapers help us understand what readers were told the book could do. The Dominion, on 17 August 1915, reported that it included socks, a method for re-footing worn socks, mittens and other garments for soldiers. It also said the sale benefited a St John Ambulance base hospital. The Otago Witness, on 1 September, described guidance on joining wool, increasing and decreasing, winding yarn and other points that could puzzle a beginner. These reviews are contemporary evidence of the book’s advertised and instructional purpose. Their enthusiastic language is part of the press coverage, not neutral proof that every pattern worked equally well for every reader. [2][3]

The book therefore did two jobs at once. It offered technical instruction to people making garments, and its sale raised money for relief. The Otago Witness noted that advertising paid the publication costs and that the book sold for two shillings. A purchase could be both a way to obtain patterns and a way to contribute to a fund. That model helps explain why the book was promoted so actively, while also reminding us that knitting itself still required time, yarn and skill from the person making each item.

We should not invent details from the photographed pages. The Te Papa record and contemporary reviews establish the book’s publication date, dimensions, subject matter and some instructions. Unless a particular pattern page is legible and checked directly, we should not assign it a stitch count, yarn weight, needle size or heel construction. The object is valuable precisely because its limits can be stated clearly: it is a 1915 manual intended to guide real work, and it survives as a material witness to how that work was organised. [1]

Two pairs of socks: campaign goal, not a universal receipt

Te Papa’s account says reports from soldiers that a pair of socks could last only about a fortnight on active service helped inspire “Sock Days” around New Zealand in May 1915. The campaign was meant both to raise funds and to produce socks for soldiers at camps and overseas. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s NZHistory page says Lady Liverpool challenged women to knit two pairs for each member of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force—around 30,000 pairs in all—and that roughly six months later the completed socks were ready for dispatch. That figure describes a specific campaign goal and reported output. It does not prove that every soldier received exactly two pairs, nor does it measure all knitting in New Zealand. [1][4]

A basic parcel could contain two pairs of socks along with a handkerchief, soap and a pencil. Some packages included shortbread or cigarettes, small reminders of home designed to reach a person far away. The task involved more than knitting: societies collected contributions, sorted goods, labelled parcels, arranged transport and tracked donations. Lady Liverpool’s scrapbook and the public records preserve appeals and acknowledgements; women’s committees and local groups supplied much of the practical work. A story focused only on the governor’s wife would miss the people who made, packed and moved the items.

There is a tension in the campaign’s language. Public appeals could frame knitting as patriotic service and a way to feel close to husbands, brothers and sons overseas. For some, group knitting offered companionship and a practical response to anxiety. At the same time, the language of voluntary service can hide who provided materials, whose unpaid time was assumed and how the work was distributed. A history of the campaign should honour the contribution without turning every knitter’s circumstances into a single sentimental story. [7]

The surviving sock in Image 5 belongs to a different collection and has its own record. Auckland War Memorial Museum identifies it as a pair of ankle socks worn by New Zealand Expeditionary Force infantry during the First World War and gives the dimensions as 240 by 140 millimetres per sock. The catalogue does not connect it to Lady Liverpool’s book or to any named knitter. It is material evidence of a type of garment in use, not proof that this particular pair followed a particular pattern. [8]

Mīria Pōmare and a network of Māori women

The Māori Soldiers’ Fund makes the limits of a single-hero account especially clear. Tania Rei’s history of the organisation, first published in Women Together and republished by NZHistory, says Mīria Woodbine Pōmare and Lady Liverpool began the fund in 1915 to support the Māori Pioneer Contingent. By 1917, Lady Liverpool was president, Lady Carroll vice-president, Mrs Grace chairwoman, and Pōmare honorary secretary and treasurer. The account says that 28 Māori women’s committees coordinated efforts across the country. These details show an organisation with distributed leadership, local relationships and administrative work—not simply a central appeal followed by anonymous knitting. [5]

The fund sent parcels containing letters, knitted garments, personalised tāniko work and foods such as dried pipi and preserved mutton bird. Knitting was one part of a bundle that carried practical warmth and cultural connection. Tāniko is a Māori weaving tradition, distinct from knitting; naming both side by side matters because the parcel brought together different skills and forms of making. The committee network also drew on fundraising from craft sales, concerts and auctions. Each parcel was a result of organisation as well as production. [5]

NZHistory says Mīria Pōmare is “said to have” knitted a pair of socks for each of the first 512 soldiers and placed a gold sovereign in each pair. The phrasing marks this as a reported account, not a count verified by inspecting 512 surviving pairs. The story remains significant, but a careful feature distinguishes an attributed tradition from a documented inventory. Pōmare received the OBE in 1918 and continued to help returned soldiers after the war, lodging applications for support on their behalf. The work of care extended beyond the moment a parcel was sent. [5]

Image 4 is a 1928 passport photograph of Pōmare, held by Archives New Zealand. It is a later portrait, not a photograph of her knitting in 1915. We use it to identify a person whose organisational work is documented in the fund’s history, not to imply the image depicts the event itself. The distinction between portrait, object and written record helps us keep an individual visible without making a photograph carry more evidence than it contains. [9]

Girl Peace Scouts: learning, service and the limits of a portrait

Te Papa’s record for the Harris portrait says the young women were probably Girl Peace Scouts. It describes a movement founded in New Zealand in 1908 and says that by 1912 it had more than 2,000 members. During the war, Girl Peace Scouts learned first aid and domestic skills, raised funds and joined knitting circles. In September 1914, a Wellington troop answered Queen Mary’s appeal for socks, caps and belts and met to knit on Constable Street. This documents a troop’s activity, but it does not prove the pictured girl attended that particular circle. [6]

The portrait widens the story to younger makers and skill-sharing. Te Papa notes that some women did not know how to knit when war began, partly because factory-made garments had become widely available. A manual, a local circle and the presence of a more experienced knitter could bring beginners into the work. It was not only the finished sock that mattered; teaching someone to cast on, join wool or repair a worn foot made the community’s capacity larger.

Care is needed in describing the movement. The museum’s account includes period language about “housewifely arts” and citizenship that reflects its historical setting. We can report what the source says without adopting every assumption behind it. A portrait reveals uniform and studio conventions; the institutional record provides the context of the Girl Peace Scouts and the knitting circle. Neither source alone tells us everything about the sitter’s own life or views.

Reading the book, the parcel and the sock

The book’s mention of re-footing a worn sock is especially revealing. Repair was not an afterthought: the heel and sole wore through first, and the instructions addressed how to renew a useful garment. The value of a sock therefore includes its capacity to be mended, not simply the appearance of a new pair. Before trying to recreate a historical pattern, however, we would need to inspect the original page for its yarn, gauge, needle size and heel construction. A modern version made with today’s yarn is an interpretation unless those details are verified.

The comfort-parcel label, reference GH007347, is reproduced on NZHistory. Its page says permission from Te Papa is required before reusing the image, so it is linked in the source list but not included in this photo set. That choice is part of research practice: a relevant image is not automatically free to republish. Likewise, the two images of the knitting book show different pages of one volume, not two editions. The portrait, passport photograph and military socks each belong to different collections and dates. [10]

Image 5 gives us a physical object to compare with the book’s wider instructions. The Auckland Museum record names the garment type, context and dimensions, but not its knitter, yarn weight, needle or exact pattern. A photograph allows us to inspect shape and wear; a catalogue provides measurements and collection data; a book or newspaper review tells us about instruction and circulation. Put together carefully, these sources make a stronger account than any one of them can alone. They still do not prove that the displayed pair was knitted from Lady Liverpool’s manual or sent in one of her parcels. [8]

For a present-day knitter, the book’s questions remain practical. Where does the sock wear first? Can a heel be repaired without remaking the whole garment? Does the yarn survive repeated washing? What information does a pattern need to give a beginner? Reading these questions back into a 1915 source does not mean the old instructions are automatically suitable for modern use. It lets us see how a technical manual responded to materials, needs and the routes through which people learned.

A short timeline

1. September 1914: A Wellington Girl Peace Scout troop joins knitting circles after an appeal for socks, caps and belts. [6]
2. March 1915: Lady Liverpool calls for two pairs of socks per member of the Expeditionary Force; the campaign goal is around 30,000 pairs. [4]
3. May 1915: Sock Days raise funds and organise production. [1]
4. August 1915: Her Excellency’s Knitting Book is published locally. [1]
5. September 1915: Otago Witness reviews the book’s patterns and beginner guidance. [3]
6. 1917: Records describe leadership roles and a network of Māori women’s committees in the Māori Soldiers’ Fund. [5]
7. 1918 and after: Pōmare receives the OBE and continues assisting returned soldiers. [5]

Read the stitches, but read the organisation too

New Zealand’s 1915 knitting story cannot be reduced to the name on a book cover. Lady Liverpool’s campaign connected patterns, fundraising and parcel distribution. Mīria Pōmare and Māori women’s committees organised support for Māori soldiers through knitted garments, letters, food and tāniko. Girl Peace Scouts learned and contributed in local circles. The soldiers’ socks themselves became objects of use and repair. Each layer helps explain why knitting mattered—and why the people who taught, sorted, packed and recorded the work belong in the story alongside the people who cast on.

When an old pattern appears, note its author, publication date, intended wearer and the evidence behind each instruction. When a photograph appears, check its collection, date and rights. And when a story is told as a moving wartime anecdote, ask whether it is a surviving object, a contemporary report or a later account. Those habits make craft history more vivid, not less: they let us see the handwork and the networks that carried it.

Sources and image credits

Inline numbers identify the records below. The two book images and Harris portrait are from Te Papa objects marked “No Known Copyright Restrictions,” which is not a Creative Commons licence. The two Wikimedia images carry the licences stated in their captions. The comfort-parcel label is not reproduced here because NZHistory says permission from Te Papa is required before reuse.

1. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Her Excellency’s Knitting Book, 1915, GH003690
2. The Dominion, 17 August 1915, review of Her Excellency’s Knitting Book
3. Otago Witness, 1 September 1915, review and instruction summary
4. Manatū Taonga—Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Lady Liverpool campaign and Sock Day account
5. Tania Rei, “Lady Liverpool’s and Mrs Pōmare’s Māori Soldiers’ Fund,” NZHistory
6. Te Papa, Harris 6 PC portrait, B.045687, Girl Peace Scouts context
7. Manatū Taonga—Ministry for Culture and Heritage, “Who were the volunteers?”
8. Auckland War Memorial Museum, First World War ankle socks, object 612478, CC BY 4.0
9. Archives New Zealand, Mīria Pōmare passport photograph (1928), CC BY 2.0
10. Manatū Taonga—Ministry for Culture and Heritage, comfort-parcel label GH007347; reuse permission information