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Brief Lives, Vol. 2

Chapter 31: Note.
By John Aubrey
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BiographiesBritish LiteratureHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches of contemporaries and earlier figures recorded by an antiquarian observer, combining factual entries—births, offices, publications, and inscriptions—with personal anecdotes, hearsay, heraldic and parish-register notes, bibliographic references, and occasional critical judgments. Entries range from terse records to extended reminiscences, often citing documentary sources or witness statements, and reflect an informal, detail-driven approach aimed at preserving lives, reputations, and local traditions for reference and remembrance.

William Lee (15— -1610).

[111]Mr. William Lee, A.M., was of Oxon[112] (I thinke, Magdalen Hall[Q]). He was the first inventor of the weaving of stockings by an engine of his contrivance. He was a Sussex man borne, or els lived there. He was a poor curate, and, observing how much paines his wife tooke in knitting a payre of stockings, he bought a stocking and a halfe, and observed the contrivance of the stitch, which he designed in his loome, which (though some of the appendent instruments of the engine be altered) keepes the same to this day. He went into France, and there dyed before his loome was made there. So the art was, not long since, in no part of the world but England. Oliver Protector made an act that it should be felonie to transport this engine. Vide Stowe's Chronicle and Baker's Chronicle, if any mention of it. This information I tooke from a weaver (by this engine) in Pear-poole lane, 1656. Sir John Hoskyns, Mr. Stafford Tyndale, and I, went purposely to see it.

Note.

[Q] In MS. Aubr. 8. fol. 4, Anthony Wood notes:—'11 Nov. 1681:—"John Lee, Surrey, son of Thomas Lee, of London, gent., aet. 17, 1624" <matriculated at> "Aul. Magd."—this I set here because one Lee is mentioned in this book,—see page 18,' i.e. fol. 32 as above.