Gairloch museum shares how iconic Scottish socks employed many local women in 1800s

Gairloch Museum has shared the remarkable story of the woman who kick-started a thriving knitting industry that provided income for many local women.

Mary Hanbury was the mother of Osgood Mackenzie of Inverewe and the second wife of Gairloch laird Sir Francis Mackenzie. Lady Mackenzie created employment and income for many women in the area by setting up a thriving knitting industry.

Lady Mackenzie employed a lady from Skye to instruct twelve young women in knitting 'nice stockings with dice and other fancy patterns'.

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After Lady Mackenzie's husband died in 1843, she became a trustee of the estate and lived for ten years at the Mackenzie Gairloch home – Flowerdale. During this time she poured herself into her work establishing the manufacture and export of quality Gairloch stockings.

Lady Mackenzie organised and trained spinners, dyers and knitter and promoted their crafts further afield, exporting them to Edinburgh and London. The sale of Gairloch stockings soon became an important source of income for crofting families, particularly during the potato famine years of the 1840s.

For more information on Lady Mackenzie's story, visit www.gairlochmuseum/gairloch-pattern.

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