Knitting Together

The Heritage of the East Midlands Knitting Industry

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Themes

Categories in Themes

Costume
Throughout the last four hundred years knitted fashions have continued to evolve and new types of garment and material have been introduced. Gaiters, undersleeves and wristlets are no longer the familiar garments that they once were, so the costume theme provides a glossary guide to them and helps to explain where they occurred in history.

Brand Advertising
A well established brand name was a prized possession for any manufacturer because it enabled the firm to promote its own products through advertising and focus its sales on its chosen market sector. In recent years there has been an increase in the popularity of sports and other brands on the global network of advertising. Manufacturer's brands have become less important with the development of the chain stores and other multiple suppliers own labels. Some brand names with a long tradition still survive although the vast majority are no longer owned by UK manufacturing enterprises.

Technology
Since 1589 manufacturers have used a range of different technologies to produce their knitted goods. Each technology has been exploited by framework knitters and designers to produce varied and unique finishes to goods, in the hope that people will want to buy them. Flat bed frames, wide frames, circular machines, and rotaries produced goods that sold around the world. The technology theme provides an explanation of the key technologies and processes relating to the industry.

Companies
Demand for knitted goods provided entrepreneurs with an opportunity to manufacture and sell their wares. Over time hosiers established businesses and their names became associated with the industry. Consumers increasingly used the names of successful companies and their brands as a guide to quality when buying goods. The companies theme presents a selection of histories that includes some of the leading companies of recent centuries.

Places
Many of the villages, towns and cities in the East Midlands have played a role in the knitting industry's history at some point. Framework knitting was introduced to places such as Nottingham, Belper and Shepshed from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The wealth generated by the industry stimulated growth and shaped today's towns and cities. This theme provides an overview of a selection of the Region's locations. Within many of these places evidence of the past industry survives in the form of workers' cottages, frameshops and factories.

People
William Lee, William Cotton, and Jedediah Strutt are a few of the names associated with the history of the knitting industry. Unlike the names of James Watt, Richard Arkwright and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, they are not the well-known inventors of the industrial revolution, but without their contributions, the fashions of today would have looked completely different. This theme provides a background to key people from the industry and their role in history.

Organisations & Associations
The knitting industry, like many other industries, developed a range of organisations and associations to support its companies and workers. This theme provides details of the associations that brought employers together to organise and regulate the trade as well as the unions that fought on behalf of the workers for better conditions. Improvements in the industry were also brought about by the various research bodies and training organisations that supported the industry.