Hollinshed also informs us, that about 1579, when Queen Elizabeth was at Norwich, “upon the stage there stood at one end eight small women children spinning worsted yarn, and at the other end as many knitting worsted yarn into hose.”
Silk stockings are said, in consequence of their high price, for a long time to have been worn only upon grand occasions. Henry II. of France, wore them for the first time, on the marriage of his sister with the Duke of Savoy in the year 1559.
In the reign of Henry III. who ascended the throne in 1575, the consort of Geoffroy Camus de Pontcarre, who held a high office in the state, would not wear silk stockings given to her by a nurse who lived at court, because she considered them to be too gay. Anno 1569, when the privy-councillor Barthold von Mandelsoh, who had been envoy to many diets and courts, appeared on a week-day with silk stockings, which he had brought from Italy, the Margrave John of Austria said to him, “Barthold, I have silk stockings also; but I wear them only on Sundays and holidays.”
The knitting stockings with wires, called weaving, has been thought to bear a resemblance to the wire work in screens of churches. However, the invention of the stocking loom is thought more worthy of attention, because it is alleged to have been the production of a single person, and perfected at one trial; his name, and the exact period is ascertained; and, because it is founded upon a similar incident to that of the beauteous Corinthian maid, elsewhere mentioned, as the introducer of painting in Greece; we bestow a particular attention upon this incident which produced the stocking loom, trusting our fair readers will favour us with their attention, when they are informed it is ascribed to Love.
It is a complicated piece of machinery, consisting of no fewer than two thousand pieces; it could not have been discovered accidentally, but must have been the result of deep combination and profound sagacity.
Under the usurpation of Cromwell, the stocking-knitters of London presented a petition, requesting permission to establish a guild. In this petition they gave a circumstantial account of their profession, of its rise, progress, and importance. No doubt can exist but that in this document the petitioners rendered the best, and probably a true account of the origin and progress of their trade, that of stocking weaving being then scarcely fifty years old. The circumstances they stated being then within memory, any misrepresentation would have militated against them, and could have been easily contradicted. In Deering’s account of Nottingham, this petition is found. In that town the loom was first employed, where it has given wealth to many.
From this account it appears the inventor’s name was William Lee, a native of Woodborough, a village about seven miles distant from Nottingham, in which the following passage occurs: “Which trade is properly styled frame work-knitting, because it is direct and absolute knit-work in the stitches thereof, nothing different therein from the common way of knitting, (not much more anciently for public use practised in this nation than this,) but only in the number of needles, at an instant working in this, more than in the other by a hundred for one, set in an engine or frame composed of above two thousand pieces of smith’s, joiner’s and turner’s work, after so artificial and exact a manner that, by the judgment of all beholders, it far excels in the ingenuity, curiosity, and subtility of the invention and contexture, all other frames or instruments of manufacture in use in any known part of the world.”
The inventor of this ingenious machine was heir to a considerable freehold estate, and a graduate of St. John’s College, Cambridge. Being, it is said, deeply enamoured of a lovely young country-girl, who, during his frequent visits, paid more attention to her work, which was knitting, than to her lover or his proposals, he endeavoured to find out a machine which might facilitate and forward the operation of knitting, and by these means afford more leisure to the object of his affections to converse with him. Love, indeed, is confessed to be fertile in inventions, and has been the efficient passion which has perfected many inventions for which the gratitude of the world is due; but a machine so complex, so wonderful in its effects, would seem to require a longer time than was probably allowed, and a cooler judgment than a lover’s to construct such mechanism. But even should the cause appear problematical, there cannot exist a doubt but the real inventor was Mr. William Lee, of Woodborough, in Nottinghamshire.
Deering says expressly, that Lee made the first stocking-loom in the year 1589; this account has also been adopted by various English writers. In the Stocking-weaver’s Hall, London, is an old painting, in which Lee is represented pointing out his loom to a female knitter, who is standing near him; and below is seen an inscription with the date 1589, the period of the invention. “The ingenious William Lee, Master of Arts of St. John’s College, Cambridge, devised this profitable art for stockings, (but being despised, went to France,) yet of iron to himself, but to us and others of gold; in memory of whom this is here painted.”
Lee set up an establishment at Calverton, a village five miles from Nottingham, but met with no success. In this situation he showed his work to Queen Elizabeth; from that princess he requested some assistance, his work having embarrassed rather than assisted him; but instead of meeting with that remuneration to which his genius and invention so well entitled him, he was discouraged and discountenanced. It need not, therefore, excite surprise that Lee accepted the invitation of Henry IV. of France, who having heard of the invention, promised him a magnificent reward if he would carry it to France. He took nine journeymen, and several looms to Rouen, where he worked with much approbation; but the king being shortly after assassinated, and internal commotions taking place, the concern got into difficulties, and Lee died in poverty at Paris. A knowledge of the machine was brought back to England by some of the workmen who had emigrated with Lee, and who established themselves in Nottinghamshire, which still continues the principal seat of the manufacture.