Four Centuries of Machine Knitting: Commemorating William Lee's Invention of the Stocking Frame in 1589

FOUR CENTURIES OF MACHINE KNITTING COMMEMORATING WILLIAM LEE'S INVENTION OF THE STOCKING FRAME IN 1389 Machine knitting has grown this century into an advanced, computerised and automated section of textiles and clothing. The particular properties of the knitted structure, offering stretch and recovery, make inbuilt comfort, knitting not just a specialist identifiable area of textiles but an expanding part of the modern world clothing scene. While the origins of hand knitting are centuries older and have vaguer origins, machine knitting can be dated with reasonable confidence to William Lee's invention of the hand stocking frame in 1589 in the village of Calverton, Nottinghamshire, England. This volume uses Lee's far-reaching invention, the romantic legend surrounding it and his tragically doomed efforts to find a sponsor, merely as a starting point. A series of Authors, all key historians in their specialist fields, trace the growth and development of the world clothing scene. While the origins of hand knitting arc centuries older and have vaguer origins, machine knitting can be dated with reasonable confidence to William Lee's invention of the hand stocking frame in 1389 in the village of Calverton, Nottinghamshire, England. This volume uses Lee's far-reaching invention, the romantic legend surrounding it and his tragically doomed efforts to find a sponsor, merely as a starting point. A series of authors, all key historians in their specialist fields, trace the growth and development of the hosiery, knitting and knitting machine building industries over the four hundred years since that momentous date in the history of textile invention. Chapters deal, among other subjects, with knitted fashions through the centuries, the key steps in technology, the changing pattern of distribution and the rise and decline of the British knitting machine building industry.