7.
THE TURNING POINT
T ROUBLE WITH S TOCKINGS
I N 1583 W ILLIAM L EE returned
from his studies at the
University of Cambridge to become the local priest in
Calverton, England. Elizabeth I (1558–1603) had recently
issued a ruling that her people should always wear a knitted
cap. Lee recorded that “knitters were the only means of
producing such garments but it took so long to finish the
article. I began to think. I watched my mother and my sisters
sitting in the evening twilight plying their needles. If
garments were made by two needles and one line of
thread, why not several needles to take up the thread.”
This momentous thought was the beginning of the
mechanization of textile production. Lee became obsessed
with making a machine that would free people from endless
hand-knitting. He recalled, “My duties to Church and family I
began to neglect. The idea of my machine and the creating
of it ate into my heart and brain.”
Finally, in 1589, his “stocking frame” knitting machine
was ready. He traveled to London with excitement to seek
an interview with Elizabeth I to show her how useful the
machine would be and to ask her for a patent that would
stop other people from copying the design. He rented a
building to set the machine up and, with the help of his local
member of Parliament Richard Parkyns, met Henry Carey,
Lord Hundson, a member of the Queen’s Privy Council.
Carey arranged for Queen Elizabeth to come see the
machine, but her reaction was devastating. She refused to
grant Lee a patent, instead observing, “Thou aimest high,
Master Lee. Consider thou what the invention could do to
my poor subjects. It would assuredly bring to th