INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



it is believed, in Scotland no longer ago than the fif- 

 teenth century. It is doubly curious that whereas this 

 simple process of knitting with four parallel sticks or 

 wires known as knitting needles, operated by hand, 

 was invented at so relatively recent a period, yet a com- 

 plicated machine known as the stocking frame, which 

 knits mechanically, was invented in 1589, almost two 

 centuries before the development of the weaving ma- 

 chines of Hargreaves and his successors. The inventor 

 of this first knitting machine was the Reverend Williain 

 Lee. He introduced from the outset the fundamental 

 principle of a successful knitting machine, correctly 

 conceiving that a separate needle should be used for 

 each loop. "In this way he at first made flat webs which 

 by being sewn together along their selvedges made a 

 cylinder. He afterwards found the means of produc- 

 ing shaped articles by throwing out of action some of 

 the hooks as required. Lee, failing to get support 

 in England, took his machine to France where he suc- 

 cessfully settled at Rouen, and in 1640 his frames were 

 adopted in Leicester. 



"The knitting by machinery of the ribbed surface, 

 which gives so much greater elasticity in one direction, 

 was first accomplished by Jedediah Strutt in 1 758 by the 

 introduction of a second set of needles at right angles 

 to the first set. The circular knitting machine by 

 which cylindrical work could be produced without 

 seams was brought into a form suitable for practical 

 use in 1845 by Mr. Peter Claussen, but such an arrange- 

 ment had been suggested much earlier. 



"The needles in a stocking frame or knitting ma- 



[56] 



