1550?-1610?

English Inventor

According to legend, William Lee invented the first knitting machine because the woman he was in love with spent more time knitting than she did with him. Whatever the cause, his 1589 invention would create an economic revolution, and would establish principles of operation still used in modern textile equipment.

Lee was born in about 1550 in the town of Calverton in Nottinghamshire, England. He later became a minister in the town, and though he may indeed have begun his work on the knitting machine out of romantic frustration, the actual facts are not known. Perhaps Lee married the preoccupied woman in the end.

The initial machine of Lee's design was made to produce coarse wool for knitting stockings. As was the law in England at that time, he presented it to Queen Elizabeth I for a patent, but she refused it. Not daunted, Lee...