Knitting with wires, the method of which I have hitherto spoken, has always appeared to me so ingenious, that I conceived the inventor of it must have had a pattern to serve as a guide. This pattern I think I have discovered. Wire-workers, and other artists who used wire, exercised their ingenuity some centuries ago, more than at present, in making wire-screens in various ways; and it must be confessed that many of them produced articles, which even at present, though not suited to the modern taste, deserve admiration. Works of this kind may still be found in old churches. The art of making them has often been considered as too difficult for human hands; and hence popular tradition has asserted that the artists were assisted by the devil. A tale of this kind is still related, though no longer believed, to those whose curiosity induces them to view the wire-screen which surrounds the baptismal font in St. Mary’s church at Wismar, and which is plaited or wove in so ingenious a manner, as if with ropes, that neither the beginning nor end of the wires can be observed. A similar legend is told to strangers when shown the screen around the pulpit in the cathedral of Lubec, which, according to the inscription, was made in 1572. It is not improbable that, among works of this kind, some may be found made with meshes, as if formed by knitting. Our pin-makers can construct some much more ingenious. That I might be better able in my technological lectures to convey to my pupils an idea of knitting, I made a drawing on the subject, and caused a pin-maker to weave for me a small screen of brass wire. This work is easy, because it is executed in a frame of strong but pliable wire. I suspect therefore that some one first tried to make an imitation of such a wire-net with yarn, and in one expanded piece, for which only two or three small sticks would be necessary. Instead of having a frame, the inventor, it is probable, fastened to his clothes the stick on which the meshes were made, or on which he knitted; but afterwards employed a sheath to perform that service. Thus, most of the Wirtemberg stocking-knitters, at present, knit with two wires and a sheath. Hence their stockings, like those wove in the stocking-loom, are sewed or have a seam behind.
Among the master-pieces of the Wirtemberg stocking-knitters, a carpet of beautiful flower-work and figures is mentioned in their regulations. It is milled, and when spread out measures three ells in length and one and a half in breadth. It is probable that some person, by repeated trials, found out the method of knitting in a circular form; but for this purpose several wires would be necessary. In order to render this improved art of knitting similar to the old method, the meshes were so arranged that the stockings seemed to have a seam, for which however there was no occasion. The sheath, which was fastened to the left side, was long retained by our knitters; but as it retarded the work, and as it was necessary to keep the body in an uneasy posture, injurious to the growth of young and industrious persons, means were devised to dispense with it and to knit with much less restraint. In this manner the art was brought to its present perfection; and it must excite no small astonishment when it is considered that it was invented all at once, and by one person.
The invention of the stocking-loom is worthy of more admiration, when one reflects that it was not a matter of accident, like most of the great discoveries, but the result of talents and genius. It is a machine exceedingly complex, consisting of two thousand parts, which, in a moment almost, can make two hundred meshes of loops, without requiring much skill or labour in the workman. There are few descriptions of this machine; and those published do not fully answer the purpose[909]. But my object is merely the question, Who was the inventor, in what country, and at what time did he live? and I can say, that after the most diligent research, it does not appear subject to any doubt, as some have hitherto believed.
Under the administration of Cromwell, the stocking-knitters of London presented a petition, in which they requested permission to establish a guild. In this petition they gave to the Protector an account of the rise, progress, and importance of their art or trade; and there can be no doubt that this well-written document contains the oldest authentic information in regard to this invention, which was then scarcely fifty years old. Every thing must then have been fresh in the memory of those by whom it was drawn up; every circumstance could easily be examined; and the petitioners must have been sensible that their misrepresentations, for which however they had no reason, could easily be contradicted. However unimportant my research may appear, it gave me much pleasure to find a copy of this petition in Deering’s Account of Nottingham, already mentioned, in which the author has collected many authentic circumstances from the records of that town, where the loom was first employed and enriched many families, and whence the use of it was spread all over England and Europe[910].
From these it appears that the real inventor was William Lee, whose name in the petition is written Lea, a native of Woodborough, in Nottinghamshire, a village about seven miles distant from the town of Nottingham. He was heir to a considerable freehold estate, and a graduate of St. John’s College, Cambridge. It is reported, that being enamoured of a young country-girl, who during his visits paid more attention to her work, which was knitting, than to her lover and 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 affection to converse with him. Love indeed is fertile in inventions, and gave rise, it is said, to the art of painting; but a machine so complex in its parts and so wonderful in its effects, would seem to require longer and quieter reflection, more judgement, and more time and patience, than can be expected in a lover. But even if the cause should appear problematical, there can be no doubt in regard to the inventor, whom most of the English writers positively assert to have been William Lee.
Aaron Hill seems to make the stocking-loom younger, and relates the circumstance in the following manner. A student of Oxford was so imprudent as to marry at an early period, without money and without income. His young wife, however, was able to procure the necessaries of life by knitting; but as the natural consequences of love, an increase of family, was likely to render this soon insufficient, the husband invented a machine by which knitting could be performed in a speedier and more profitable manner. Having thus completed a stocking-loom, he became by its means a man of considerable wealth[911]. But Hill, in his account, gives neither names, date, nor proofs; and as he seems to have formed it from an imperfect remembrance of what he had heard or read in regard to Lee, it is not worthy of further examination.
Deering says expressly, that Lee made the first loom in the year 1589; and this account has been adopted by Anderson and most of the English writers. In the stocking-weavers’ hall, at 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 it is seen an inscription with the date 1589, which was the year of the invention[912]. Other accounts make it somewhat later. Thus Howell, after relating that Queen Elizabeth obtained the first stockings in 1561, says that thirty-nine years after the loom was invented by Lee, in which case the period would be 1600[913]. In the petition of the stocking-knitters it is stated, that the loom, at that time, had been found out about fifty years. It is to be regretted that this document has no date; but as Cromwell reigned from 1653 to 1658, the invention would fall in the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is more probable, however, that it belongs to the end of the sixteenth.
Lee instructed his brother James in the use of the loom, and took apprentices and assistants, with whom he carried on business for some years at Calverton, a village five miles distant from Nottingham. On this account, Calverton has by some been considered as his birth-place. He showed his work to Queen Elizabeth, who died in 1603, and requested from that princess some support or remuneration; but he obtained neither, and was impeded rather than assisted in his undertaking. Under these circumstances, Lee accepted an invitation from Henry IV. king of France, who had heard of this invention, and promised to give a handsome reward to the author of it. He therefore carried nine journeymen and several looms to Rouen in Normandy, where he worked with great approbation; but the king being assassinated, and internal commotions having taken place, Lee fell into great distress, and died soon after at Paris. Two only of his people remained in France, one of whom was still alive when the before-mentioned petition was presented to Cromwell. Seven of them returned to England; and these, with a person named Aston, who at first was a miller at Thoroton, the place of his birth[914], but afterwards an apprentice of Lee, by whom he had been left behind in England, where he made some improvements in the loom, laid the foundation of the stocking-manufactory in that country. The number of masters increased there in the course of fifty years so much, that it was found necessary to unite them into one guild; for which Cromwell, however, in consequence of reasons not known, refused the proper sanction; but in 1663 they received letters patent, which gave them certain privileges to the extent of ten miles round London.
In the year 1614, the Venetian ambassador, Antonio Correr, persuaded an apprentice, Henry Mead, by the promise of five hundred pounds sterling, to go with a loom to Venice for a stated time, and to teach there the use of it. Mead met with a favourable reception in that city, and was much admired; but the loom becoming deranged, and no person at Venice being able to repair it, when the time of his agreement was expired, he returned to England. The Venetians had not resolution enough to continue the attempt; and sent the damaged loom, together with some bad imitations of it, to London, where they were sold for a mere trifle. Such is the account given in the petition before-mentioned.
Zano, however, an Italian writer[915], asserts, on the authority of information preserved in manuscript among family documents, that Correr carried two stocking-weavers with looms to Venice; that he immediately placed under them four apprentices, and when they went back to England sent with them a boy, who returned to Venice well-instructed in the art, and who continued to carry on business there with great success. Giambattista Carli of Gemona, a smith who worked in steel, saw the loom at Venice, which had been made after the model of those brought from England and sold to Francesco Alpruni of Udina. In a short time a great many stockings were manufactured there, and sent for sale, chiefly to Gradisca in Austria. But, in consequence of the poverty of the Venetian stocking-knitters, an order was issued that Carli should make no more looms; and this productive branch of business at Udina was so much deranged, that the masters removed with their looms to Gradisca, where the inhabitants of Udina were obliged to purchase such stockings as they had occasion to use.