Stocking frame (knitting machine)
Telar de medias (máquina de tejer de punto)
- Date
- 1589 · confidence high
- Place
- Calverton, Nottinghamshire, England
- Credited to
- William Lee
- People
- 👤 William Lee1550–1614
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A machine with bearded needles that knits stockings ten times faster than by hand; Elizabeth I refused it a patent for fear of putting hand-knitters out of work. The first complex textile machine in history.
Lee went into exile in Rouen under the protection of Henry IV; the machine returned to England after his death.
What it led to
- The Nottingham and Leicester hosiery industry (framework knitting as outwork)
- Early debate on technological unemployment and patents
- Precision textile mechanics that inspired later machines
Built on
- Knittingc. 1100
- Treadle lathe with flywheelc. 1480
- Hand knitting
- Steel wire for needles
Made possible
- Crane's warp-knitting frame1769
- Heathcoat's bobbinet machine1808
- Brunel's circular knitting machine1816
- Latch-needle knitting machine1849
- Heathcoat's lace machine (1808)
- Circular knitting machine
- Ribbon loom