Lace machine

Lace machines took over the commercial manufacture of lace during the nineteenth century. The stocking frame was a mechanical weft-knitting knitting machine used in the textile industry. It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589. Framework knitting, was the first major stage in the mechanisation of the textile industry at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was adapted to knit cotton, do ribbing and by 1800, with the introduction of dividers (divider bar) as a lace making machine. Bobbinet machines were invented in 1808 by John Heathcoat. He studied the hand movements of a Northamptonshire manual lace maker and reproduced them in the roller-locker machine. The 1809 version of this machine (patent no. 3216) became known as the Old Loughborough, it was wide and was designed for use with cotton. The Old Loughborough became the standard lacemaking machine, particularly the 1820 form known as the Circular producing two-twist plain net. The smooth, unpatterned tulle produced on these machines was on a par with real, handmade lace net. Heathcoat's bobbinet machine is so ingeniously designed that the ones used today have suffered little alteration. However during the next 30 years inventors were patenting improvements to their machines. The ones that stand out are the Pusher machine, the Levers machine (now spelled Leavers) and the Nottingham lace curtain machine. Each of these developed into separate machines. Others were the Traverse Warp machine and the Straight Bolt machine. 1589 – William Lee of Calverton, a village some 7 miles from Nottingham, invented the stocking frame 1768 – Josiah Crane invents the hand-operated warp knitting machine. 1791 – The Englishman Dawson solves the mechanization of the warp knitting machine. 1801 – Joseph Marie Jacquard invents the Jacquard punched card loom. 1808 – John Heathcoat patented the bobbin net machine in Loughborough 1813 – John Levers adapted Heathcoat's machine in Nottingham producing the Leavers machine (sic), which could work with a Jacquard head.