This manufacture has its epochs:—
1768. Net first made by machinery.
1809. Invention of bobbin net.
1837. The Jacquard system applied to the bobbin net machine.
It has been already told how Barbara Uttmann made a plain thread net in Germany three centuries before any attempt was made to produce it by machinery.[[1238]]
This invention is usually assigned to Hammond, a stocking framework knitter of Nottingham, who, examining one day the broad lace on his wife's cap, thought he could apply his machine to the production of a similar article.[[1239]] His attempt so far succeeded that, by means of the stocking-frame invented the previous century,[[1240]] he produced, 1768, not lace, but a kind of knitting, of running loops or stitches, like that afterwards known as "Brussels ground." In 1777, Else and Harvey introduced at Nottingham the "pin" or point net machine, so named because made on sharp pins or points. "Point net" was afterwards improved, and the "barleycorn" introduced: "square" and "spider net" appear in succession.
But with all these improvements machinery had not yet arrived at producing a solid net, it was still only knitting, a single thread passing from one end of the frame to the other; and if a thread broke the work was unravelled; the threads, therefore, required to be gummed together, to give stiffness and solidity to the net. To remedy this evil, the warp or chain machine was invented, uniting the knitter's and the weaver's mechanism. Vandyke,[[1241]] a Flemish workman, and three Englishmen dispute the invention. This new machine was again improved and made "Mechlin net," from which the machine took its name.
For forty years from Hammond's first attempt on the stocking-frame, endless efforts were made to arrive at imitating the ground of pillow lace, and there are few manufactures in which so much capital has been expended, and so much invention called forth. Each projector fancied he had discovered the true stitch, and patents after patents were taken out, resulting mostly in disappointment.
The machine for making "bobbin" net was invented by John Heathcoat, son of a farmer at Longwhatton (Leicestershire). After serving his apprenticeship he settled at Nottingham, and while occupied in putting together stocking and net machines, gave his attention to improving the Mechlin net frame.[[1242]] In 1809, in conjunction with Mr. Lacy, he took out a patent for fourteen years for his new and highly ingenious bobbin net machine, which he called Old Loughborough, after the town to which he then removed.
"Bobbin net" was so named because the threads are wound upon bobbins.[[1243]] It was "twisted" instead of "looped" net. Heathcoat began by making net little more than an inch in width,[[1244]] and afterwards succeeded in producing it a yard wide. There are now machines which make it three yards and a half in width.[[1245]]