[249] Ib. Sept. 29th, 1588.
[250] "City of York in the Sixteenth Century," Miss Maud Sellars. The English Historical Review, April 1894, pp. 288, 289.
[251] Lincoln Hist. Man. Com. Report, XIV. App. viii.
p. 74. On July 31, 1591, "A committee appointed to confer with Mr Grene of Boston who has offered to set 400 poor people of Lincoln on work for five years at wool, if the city will find him a convenient house and lend him 300l. freely for the five years."
p. 17. Among the manuscripts described is a "fragment consisting of eight small quarto leaves of a book of orders made in 1591 and 1592 respecting a knitting school established by the city." This contains the following information:
8th Oct. 1591. Cheeseman undertakes under certain conditions to teach a competent number of women and men how to knit and "to hide nothing from them that belongeth to the knowledge of the said science." Four aldermen were appointed overseers.
28 July, 1592. Forty stone of wool to be provided.
4 Aug. 1592. Articles of agreement made at the Knitters House in St Saviourgate between John Cheeseman and Francis Newby.
In this agreement Francis Newby and his wife Jane undertook to attend regularly at Cheeseman's house to learn his trade of knitting, spinning, dressing of wool and keeping his mill. Newby and his wife were to have the oversight and teaching of thirty scholars. They were to be paid 40s., twopence for every pair of stockings knitted by a scholar and the full price of their own work. They were also to have such profit as might arise from "amending and footing all stockings" brought unto them.
On the same day it was agreed by the Corporation that the Knitter should be paid 16s. 8d. for ten wheels which he had provided and the overseers arranged to visit the school in turn.