In photographs of fishing crews, a gansey can look like a simple wool sweater. Look a little closer and there’s a surprising amount to see. The sleeves often stop just short of the wrist. A small diamond of knitting sits under the arm. On some sweaters, the wool below the elbow is darker than the wool above it. Each detail offers a clue to how the sweater was worn and what happened when it began to wear out.

The Scottish Fisheries Museum holds more than fifty hand-knitted ganseys, with variations in colour, pattern and construction. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many Scottish fishermen wore ganseys knitted by someone in their family. Dark blue was common, though grey, cream and red were also worn. The wool was knitted tightly to make a dense fabric that provided warmth on the water.

From the hem up, from the shoulder down

A traditional gansey began at the hem. The body was knitted in the round up to the underarms, where the front and back were worked separately before being joined at the shoulders. Then the knitting changed direction. Stitches were picked up around each armhole and the sleeves were worked down towards the cuffs.

That change in direction made a difference when the sweater needed mending. If a cuff wore through, the knitter could unravel the sleeve back to sound stitches and knit down again. A worn elbow meant going back a little further. Heritage Crafts points to old photographs where the lower sleeves are darker than the rest of the gansey. The replacement wool hadn’t yet faded to match. After all the work that went into knitting the original sweater, a new section of sleeve could give it years more wear.

How a gansey was worn

A close fit helped keep out the cold, but a fisherman still needed to be able to reach and haul. The diamond of knitting under each arm, known as a gusset, gave him room to move without adding width through the whole sweater. The Scottish Fisheries Museum has a navy herringbone gansey with cuffs that stop just above the wrist. That small gap kept wet, salty wool from rubbing against the skin as the wearer worked.

In some fishing communities, men tucked their ganseys into their trousers. A body long enough to tuck in would help keep the lower back covered when bending and reaching. The lower part was often knitted plain, while the raised stitch patterns across the chest and upper arms could create a thicker fabric, adding warmth where it was needed.

A fisherman needed a sweater that would keep him warm without getting in the way as he worked. The close fit, underarm gussets and textured knitting all played a part. And when the cuffs or elbows wore through, the sleeves could be knitted again from the point where the wool was still sound. A gansey could spend years at sea, with some of its stitches much newer than others.

Main image - Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, Whitby Fishermen, c. 1885. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert B. Menschel Fund. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.