Kōrero: Sewing, knitting and textile crafts

Women have often knitted while attending lectures at universities and other tertiary institutions, although not always with the approval of the lecturer. In 1934 Horace Belshaw, a professor of economics at Auckland University College, asked women to refrain from knitting during lectures because he found it distracting. On the other hand Crawford Somerset, the lecturer shown here at the Feilding Community Centre, seems to have managed fine, despite the intimate surroundings of the room.