A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Various members of the Woods family 

 seem to have carried on the frame-work knit- 

 ting industry at Godalming between the years 

 1701 and 1843. In 1788 Thomas and John 

 Woods were made trustees under the will of 

 another Godalming frame-work knitter, Ed- 

 ward Bowler,^ who devised a number of dif- 

 ferent houses at Godalming, one at least of 

 which he had inherited from his great-uncle, 

 James Chitty of Godalming, who has been 

 mentioned above as a frame-work knitter. 

 Of the Tofts, Abraham Toft the younger, 

 will dated 16 August 1715,^ and James Toft 

 the elder, will dated 15 December 1764,^ 

 both appear as Godalming frame-work knit- 

 ters. So also does Nicholas Monger by his 

 will dated 6 April 1724,* but in the will of 

 Thomas Hart, dated 3 February 1703-4, the 

 same Nicholas is called a silk fi-ame knitter, 

 and in that of his aunt Mary Speed in 1706° 

 as a silk stocking weaver. Mary Monger, 

 who was probably the widow of Nicholas, 

 mentions in her will dated 16 July 1735,* 

 her son-in-law Daniel Lee, who was another 

 frame-work knitter at Godalming and had 

 married Mary's daughter Mary Monger on 

 14 July 1726.'' It is noteworthy that Mary 

 Monger by her same will left her goods to 

 her two grandsons Benjamin and Shadrack 

 WooUard for apprenticing them to any handi- 

 craft except that of frame-work knitter. Of 

 the Shrubbs and Hookes, several members 

 appear as engaged in the frame-work knitting 

 industry at Godalming during the course of 

 the eighteenth century. 



Elizabeth Marshall of Godalming, whose 

 will is dated 23 August 1823, ^"'^ ^^° '^'^'1 

 according to her epitaph at Godalming in 

 September following, seems to have had a 

 somewhat large business, as she left the forty- 

 three stocking frames standing in her stocking 

 maker's shop to hergrandson, William Chitty, 

 then in America. This William does not 

 appear however to have carried on his grand- 

 mother's manufacture, as he is described in a 

 deed of 1825 as of Godalming, blacksmith. 



The stocking manufacture of Godalming 

 is noticed by Dr. Richard Pococke in 1754 

 as one of the staple industries of the town.* 



1 Dat. 23 Sept. 1788, prob. Com. Ct. of Surr. 

 6 June 1 79 1. 



« Prob. Archd. Ct. of Surr. 1 1 Oct. 1716. 



» Prob. P.C.C. 2 March 1765 {Rushworth, 

 120). 



* Ibid. 3 June 1724. 



' Ibid. 13 July 17 1 5 [Fagg, 147). 



• Prob. Archd. Ct. of Surr. 3 Jan. 1735-6. 

 ' Godalming Par. Reg. 



8 'Travels through England (ed. J. J. Cartwright, 

 Camden Soc. new ser. xliv.), ii. 164. 



352 



The frames used in the manufacture did not 

 of course differ in principle from those com- 

 monly in use in many other parts of England, 

 the original invention being that attributed 

 to William Lee in 1589, of which it has been 

 said that the chief motive has remained un- 

 changed and unimproved upon to the present 

 day.* A patent however taken out by a 

 Surrey man, John Webb of Vauxhall,'" in 

 1784 for machinery ' for making a more easy 

 and expeditious and perfect division in stock- 

 ing frame-work manufactures than heretofore 

 known ' may be noticed, although we are 

 without means of knowing whether the im- 

 provement was of any permanent value, or 

 whether it was especially adopted by the 

 Godalming makers. The frame-work knitting 

 industry of Godalming seems to have died out 

 towards the middle of the last century, and no 

 doubt shared in the general decline of the 

 trade throughout the kingdom which it is 

 shown, in the report of 1845 on the frame- 

 work knitters, had taken place between the 

 years 181 5 to 1 841. The causes of the 

 decline, belonging, as they do, to the changed 

 conditions which were taking place in English 

 industries generally in the early years of the 

 nineteenth century under the rise of the fac- 

 tory system, need not be specially commented 

 upon here." 



An important development however of the 

 frame-work knitting industry was the manu- 

 facture of fleecy hosiery, for which George 

 Holland obtained his first patent on 22 Sep- 

 tember 1788." Holland was then a frame- 

 work knitter living in St. George's, Blooms- 

 bury, but in 1790 and later appears to have 

 been established in business in St. Andrew's, 

 Holborn. The actual manufacture was 

 carried on by him at his important factory 

 at Langham in Godalming. The house is 

 said to have long retained a well-earned 

 celebrity amongst medical men and the public 

 at large.'^ Holland's invention is described in 

 the specification for his first patent as a ' new 

 invented method of making stockings, gloves, 

 mitts, socks, caps, coats, waistcoats, breeches, 

 cloaks, and other clothing, and linings for the 

 same, for persons afflicted with the gout, 

 rheumatism, and other complaints requiring 

 warmth, and of common use in cold climates, 

 and of making false or downy calves in stock- 

 ings, a thing never before put in practice.' 



« Draper's Diet. art. ' Stocidng Frame.' 



^^ Pat. of Inventions, No. 1 41 7. 



" See Cunningham, Growth of English Industry 

 and Commerce, ii. 607—50 passim. 



" Pat. of Inventions, No. 1670. 



" See W. Felkin on ' Hosiery and Lace ' in 

 British Manufacturing Industries (ed. Bevan), 27. 



