HOSIERY. Under this name is embraced a wide range of manufactured textiles, which are classed together more on account of their manner of fabrication than from similarity of application or use. The term, as is quite obvious, has its origin in hose or stockings; but although stockings continue to be one of the staples of hosiery, that department is only one of a very numerous and diversified range of applications of the entire industry, it having been officially stated that not fewer than 5000 distinct articles are made in the trade. All kinds of hosiery proper are made by the process of knitting, and the industry has principally to deal with the fabrication of knitted under-clothing.
The art of knitting is the youngest of all the important textile manufactures, and, compared with the others, its origin is quite modern. No certain allusion to the art occurs before the beginning of the 15th century. In an Act of Parliament of Henry VII. (1488) knitted woollen caps are mentioned. It is supposed that the art was first practised in Scotland, and thence carried into England, and that caps were made by knitting for some period before the more difficult feat of stocking-making was attempted. In an Act of Edward VI. (1553) " kmtte hose, knitte peticotes, knitte gloves, and knitte slieves " are enumerated, and the trade of hosiers is, among others, included in an Act dated 1563. Spanish silk stockings were worn on rare occasions by Henry VIII., and the same much-prized articles are also mentioned in connexion with the wardrobe of Edward VI.
The peculiarity of knitting consists in the use of a single thread for the entire texture, and in the formation therewith of a singularly elastic yet strong and firm looped web.
The process of hand-knitting is universally known, and the endless details of fancy stitches and loops whereby ornamented work can be produced do not come within the scope of hosiery proper. While a vast quantity of the best and most comfortable hosiery is made with implements so simple and inexpensive as four knitting wires or needles, the manufacturing industry is carried on with machinery of unsurpassed ingenuity and complexity. Moreover, domestic knitting machines, mostly of American origin, have of late years been introduced, and, although these can never be expected to attain the popular favour of the sewing-machine, yet they have been widely adopted.
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In the year 1589 the stocking-frame, the machine which mechanically produces the looped stitch in hosiery, was invented by the Rev. William Lee, a graduate of Cambridge, and native of Woodborough, near Notting ham. The fundamental principle of the apparatus consists in the substitution of a separate hooked or barbed needle for the support and working of each loop, in place of the system whereby an indefinite number of loops are skewered on one or more wires or needles. The method on which the machine is worked will be easily comprehended byaid of the accompanying diagram (fig. 1), which represents a few of Lee s peculiar barbed needles from a frame with yarn in process of knitting. At R is seen a thread of yarn passed over the needle stalks and within the terminal hooks. The yarn, it will be ob served, is waved or depressed between each pair of needles, whereby sufficient yarn is secured to form the separate loops of uniform size, and thus produce a regular equal fabric. The waving or depression of the yarn is produced by allowing thin plates of shaped metal termed sinkers to fall between each pair of needles after the yarn has been thrown across the whole range, and these sinkers, according to their depth of fall, carry down material for a large or small loop as the case may be. The elastic points of the needle-hooks are next pressed into a groove in the stem by means of a presser bar which acts on the whole row of barbs, and thus a range of temporarily closed metallic hooks is formed, through which the waved yarn is threaded. Over these hooks the loops of the already formed web SS have only to be drawn to form with the material R a new series of loops ; the pressure is then relieved, and now R forms a new row in the work in place of S, and the operation is ready to be repeated for a succeeding row. It is not necessary here to enter into a description of the various mechanical devices by which Lee perfected the complex movements of his stocking-frame. It is sufficient to say that so perfectly did he succeed in his adaptations that to this day the essential features of his machine continue in use for the class of work to which he applied it. At first Lee was only able to work a flat even web, which when joinedat the selvages made an unshapen cylinder ; but he soon learned to shape the work at pleasure by removing loops from time to time from the outer edges of the web for narrowing or taking in, and to reverse that process for widening or letting out.
Neither Lee nor any of his relatives during their lifetime reaped an adequate reward for the great boon he conferred on mankind. His stocking-frame came gradually into extensive use, and an important industry was thereby created. No improvement of essential consequence was effected on the apparatus till in 1758 Mr Jedediah Strutt, originally a Derbyshire farmer, adapted it to the production of ribbed work. Mr Strutt s invention consisted of an addition to the original frame, which could be brought into use or not according as plain or ribbed work was desired. The addition consisted of a set of ribbing-needles placed at right angles to Lee s plain needles, and at the intervals required for producing ribbed courses. On the completion of a row of plain loops, the rib needles are raised ; at their respective intervals they lay hold of the last-formed loop, and, bringing that through the loop which was on the rib- needle itself before, they give an additional or double loop ing or twisting, which reverses the line of chaining, and produces the ribbed appearance characteristic of this variety of work. For his invention Strutt in conjunction with his brother-in-law Woollett, a hosier, secured a patent, and they commenced the manufacture at Derby, where their " Derby-ribs " became exceedingly popular. The idea of adding parts to the plain frame of Lee, thus originated by Strutt, became the fertile source of a great number of the later adaptations and modifications of the apparatus. Strutt s invention was the starting-point of a great and most honourable business in the hands of himself arid his family, and the elevation of his grandson, Lord Belper, to the peerage was a direct tribute to the industrial interests of the nation.
