THE EAGLE.

THE INVENTOR OF THE STOCKING-FRAME.

Ta Public Meeting, held under the presidency of the Mayor of Nottingham in the Council Chamber of that Borough, on November 7, 1888, it was unanimously resolved that an effort should be made to raise a memorial to the Inventor of the Stocking-frame, from which was also developed the Lace-making machine. Moreover, it was agreed that this memorial should take the form, in the first place, of an Institute, providing Reading Room, Library, &c., for the village of Calverton, of which parish the inventor, the Rev William Lee, of St John's College, Cambridge, was Vicar in the year 1589, the year of the invention.

William Lee was born at Woodborough in Nottinghamshire, and is said to have been heir to a good

He matriculated as a sizar of Christ's College in May 1579. He subsequently migrated to St John's, and as appears from the University records graduated as a member of the College in 1582 as an ordinary B.A., not getting honours. He is believed to have taken his M.A. degree in 1586, but on this point there is some ambiguity in the University record.

In 1589, at which time he was curate of Calverton, about five miles from Nottingham, he invented the Stocking-frame. One tradition is that he was deeply

VOL. XVI.

B.