"The privilege of making stockings for everyone is too important to grant to any individual."
Queen Elizabeth I to William Lee
William Lee (circa 1550-1610), a clergyman from Nottinghamshire, England, invented the stocking frame in 1589. One story suggests that he invented it to relieve his mother and sisters of the burden of knitting; another has it that a girl was showing more interest in her knitting than in him.
Knitted fabrics are constructed by the interlocking of a series of loops, with each row of loops caught into the previous row. The stocking frame allowed production of a complete row of loops, held by a long bar similar to a knitting needle; a second bar opposed it, and each loop, picked up by a piece of wire, was transferred to the first bar.
Lee's first machine, which produced coarse wool stockings, was refused a patent by Queen Elizabeth I. An improved machine produced silk stockings of finer texture, but again she refused, saying she was concerned for the livelihoods of hand knitters.
King Henry IV of France encouraged new industries, so Lee and his brother James moved nine hand frames to Rouen. They prospered until Henry IV's assassination in 1610, after which Louis XIII imposed restrictions on foreign industries. The Lees returned to England, where James set up workshops in London.
William Lee died in Paris in 1610. Today's knitting industry, while employing machinery driven by computers, still incorporates many of his ideas.
