A stocking frame is a mechanical knitting machine that reproduces the action of hand knitting, using a row of bearded needles set on a needle bar to catch and hold loops of yarn that a presser bar and sinkers then close and draw off as finished fabric. The English clergyman and inventor William Lee of Calverton, near Nottingham, built the first stocking frame in 1589, seeking to mechanize the manual knitting of woolen stockings; his original frame carried eight needles to the inch, and an improved version he built later achieved sixteen needles to the inch for finer silk work. The stocking frame is generally regarded as the first successful mechanization of any branch of the textile trade, predating the mechanized spinning and weaving inventions of the Industrial Revolution by close to two centuries, and it remained in continuous domestic and small-workshop use in the English hosiery districts for more than 250 years.
Facts
SignificanceFramework knitting was the first major stage in the mechanisation of the textile industry and played an important part in the early history of the Industrial Revolution. 1 FAQs
Did Queen Elizabeth I really refuse William Lee a patent for the stocking frame?
The refusal story first appears in the nineteenth century and historians dismiss it.
A famous story says Lee demonstrated his machine to Queen Elizabeth I, who refused him a patent because the invention would deprive her poor subjects of work and make them beggars. That account is recorded in a nineteenth-century narrative of framework knitters' memories collected by Gravener Henson in 1831. The quoted remark and the story are not found in the historical record before the nineteenth century, so historians dismiss its veracity. What the sources do support is that Lee demonstrated the machine at court and sought a patent, and that he later took machines and workmen to France.
Connections
In Field
Source Stocking frame, Wikipedia
Invented By
Source Stocking frame, Wikipedia
Sources
1. Stocking frame, Wikipedia
Introduction
It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589.
Significance
was the first major stage in the mechanisation of the textile industry, and played an important part in the early history of the Industrial Revolution.
- In Group: Knitting and Lace Machinery, Introduction: It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589
In Field: Textile Engineering, Categories
Textile machinery
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