Stocking frame

Lee demonstrated the operation of the device to Queen Elizabeth I, hoping to obtain a patent, but she refused, fearing the effects on hand-knitting industries.

By 1598 he was able to knit stockings from silk, as well as wool, but was again refused a patent by James I. Lee moved to France, under the patronage of Henri IV, with his workers and his machines, but was unable to sustain his business.

A thriving business built up with the exiled Huguenot silk-spinners who had settled in the village of Spitalfields just outside the city of London.

Frames were introduced to Leicester by Nicholas Alsop in around 1680, who encountered resistance and at first worked secretly in a cellar in Northgate Street, taking his own sons and the children of near relatives as apprentices.

The breakthrough with cotton stockings came in 1758 when Jedediah Strutt introduced an attachment for the frame which produced what became known as the "Derby rib".

Meanwhile, the Gloucester spinners, who had been used to a much shorter wool, were able to handle cotton and their frameworkers were competing with the Nottingham producers.

He initially built a works operated by horsepower but it was evident that six to eight would be needed at a time, changed every half-hour.

It consisted of an extra set of bearded needles that operated vertically, taking the loop and reversing them.

This allowed a plain and purl knit to be used, and led to ribbing and a tighter more flexible fabric.

On a frame, a tickler wire could realise individual loops and create a run that would be picked up by hand.

Messrs Morris and Betts took a patent (807) in 1764 on a stitch transfer device where threads from one needle were passed to another.

[10] A legend later developed that Lee had invented the first machine in order to get revenge on a lover who had preferred to concentrate on her knitting rather than attend to him.

In 1846 the Victorian artist Alfred Elmore produced a variation on the story in his popular painting The Invention of the Stocking Loom, in which Lee is depicted pondering his idea as he watches his wife knitting (Nottingham Castle Museum).