82 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE HOSIERY MANUFACTURE. 



each round or row are drawn in turn through those of the preceding row. 

 Though it has neither warp nor weft, and can scarcely be called cloth, 

 except it be felted, yet this tissue is superior to any other for many pur- 

 poses from its elasticity and closely fitting the holy in wear. The art 

 x>f knitting hosiery continued to be practised by hand only, and mainly 

 as a domestic employment, working up thread spun from the long wool 

 of sheep or goats until the sixteenth century of the Christian era. Its 

 highest attainment was to furnish, at high prices, a few silk- knitted hose 

 for our Henry VIII. and his daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Before 

 that time, if stockings were desired to be cool and elegant, they were 

 shaped out of linen or silk cloth by scissors, and then sewn up. 



About 1589, the Rev. William Lee, M.A., a clergyman then living at 

 Woodborough, near Nottingham, finding a lady to whom he was attached 

 always more attentive to her knitting than to his addresses, in grief and 

 anger determined to supersede her employment by constructing a machine 

 which should, by its power and speed render hand-knitting useless. He 

 made the attempt, and met with difficulties so great in the complex 

 movements and nice adjustment of parts requisite in the machine to be 

 made, and so unlike any then known or thought of in mechanical 

 science, that he was long greatly baffled and almost in despair. With- 

 out previous practical knowledge himself, he could not find the needful 

 skill and experience in others. The knitting mesh or loop is so different 

 from the simple crossing of the threads in common weaving, that to effect 

 it mechanically was an operation which required original power of 

 analysis and combination of an extraordinary kind. Instruments and 

 forces must be applied in ways and for purposes which, for aught that 

 appears, were before unattempted. At length he succeeded ; and the 

 stocking frame still remains in attestation of the greatest triumph of 

 mechanical genius then, or for many ages afterwards, known. A minute 

 description of this machine would be out of place here : it will be suffi- 

 cient to mention that Lee placed a series of hooks of peculiarly inge- 

 nious form and adaptation side by side in a uniform line and firm posi- 

 tion. He passed the weft thread, of which alone the fabric was to con- 

 sist, along these hooks (called also " needles "), and by the use of a row 

 of cleverly formed moveable instruments, called " jacks " and " sinkers, 1 ' 

 rows of loops were formed one after the other on the hooks, and others 

 on them in succession. This was done with surprising rapidity com- 

 pared with the usual hand piocess. By the use of the hand-knitting 

 pins or skewers, 100 loops may be formed in a minute : on Lee's first 

 frame, using coarse materials, 500 loops, and in his second from 1,000 

 to 1,500 loops were made per minute ; by the machine now worked by 

 hand, even when the loops are of such fineness as can scarcely be dis- 

 tinguished by the naked eye, 10,000 loops may be made per minute ; 

 but, by circular power, 60,000 in the same time. The first machine was 

 soon taken by its inventor to London ; and having formed great expec- 

 tations proportionate to the profound thought and skill he had shown in 



