Dave Postles' 'Worlds of Framework Knitters in Leicestershire c.1600-c.1850' 2026

 

The author first paperback edition - 2026 

I recall Dave Postles working in Leicester University’s Local History unit in Salisbury Road, when I did my M.A. in the mid-1990s. He was even then highly regarded as a dedicated local historian of the County, always beavering away on projects. This thoroughly researched monograph on a topic that has always captured his interest, is a very useful addition to our knowledge of one of the staple industries of both Leicester City and its adjacent county.

Chapter 2 ‘The Longest Journey: industrialization and its precedents

Prior to the development of framework knitting, handloom weavers were working throughout Leicestershire. Postles suggests a ‘sort of path dependence: from early pastoral conversion to sheep husbandry and long-staple wool in the area, through handloom-weaving, to the transition to mechanical knitting of woollen stockings’. He concentrates on Shepshed, where, between 1636 and 1647, a dozen weavers – traced through local records - operated in the parish. Framework knitting was introduced into Shepshed by 1710. The earlier concentration of handloom weaving was a precursor to the framework knitting, but the two ‘industries’ overlapped for a considerable period of time. Postles is able to give a fluent account of these developments through a detailed examination of probate materials: inventories, wills and testaments. He has inspected all probate documents between 1712 and 1729 – critical years, as weaving was being displaced by framework knitters. From c.1700 to the mid-19^th century, weaving continued but in an attenuated degree and gradually petered out. Postles also uses probate evidence from weavers in Hinckley; and, for example, the inventory of George Worsley of Loughborough in 1636. He charts hosiery production down the Soar Valley north of Leicester and between Hinckley and Leicester. What becomes apparent is that, although there were some very successful weavers, the rural weavers in the areas studied were predominantly poor. This contrasted with the weavers in the borough of Leicester, who not only supplied the local urban market, but those further afield. The most successful weavers invested in real estate during the 18^th century.

The author then concentrates on the development of framework knitting, traditionally introduced into the county in Hinckley in 1640. By the early 18^th century, it had spread, in particular, to Shepshed and Loughborough. In the former town, the industry became intense. A chart shows 237 nuclear families engaged in hosiery, 1813-22, in Shepshed, compared with 130 families in Loughborough. Hinckley town was still well out in front with 341 families thus engaged. Postles does point out a problem with probate inventories, as they omitted any interest in real estate, land and buildings. The final section of the chapter concentrates on hosiers and frame smiths. There were two main categories of Hosiers: the urban, commercial hosiers and ‘the bag hosiers who acted as middlemen between the commercial hosiers and the knitters’. Like the successful framework knitters, hosiers diverted some of their capital into acquiring real estate - John Parker, a hosier in Barwell, invested in seven messuages in Hog Lane in Hinckley in the 1850s.

Postles concludes this major chapter by reiterating that the transition from handloom weaving to framework knitting was during the early 18^th century. However, framework knitting was path-dependent on the concentration of handloom weaving. ‘Stocking-making on frames developed only where there had existed an agglomeration of weavers in the 17^th and early 18^th centuries’.

Chapter 3 ‘Human Capital and Industrialization: Leicestershire’s hosiery industry, 1754-1870’, concentrates on four occupational groups at the lower end of the socio-economic scale: male and female framework knitters, labourers and female servants. There is a detailed appraisal of framework knitting in Hinckley.

Chapter 4 ‘Mothers of circumstance and illegitimacy in the early nineteenth century’, which is reproduced from the Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and History Society 93 (2019), discusses research into the demographic impacts of bastardy. Two further chapters are devoted to a re-investigation of local industrial society in Shepshed, focusing on 1891 and extrapolating from that year’s census returns; and a list of Landholding in Shepshed in 1823. Postles argues that ‘the industrial organization of Shepshed followed on from a cumulative process which enabled transition from domestic production through frame shops to factory production. The entrepreneurs were local and endogenous’. 

 Postles’ Conclusion draws together his findings. He has shown how Leicestershire’s framework-knitting industry progressed from a domestic set-up to a factory-based enterprise, ‘from proto-industry, often located in the countryside, to industrialism in larger units based in urban centres. Framework knitters and stockingers were usually at the lower end of the economic scale, with small investments and frugal lives, although few seem to have ended up in a Workhouse. The knitters continued to have a low level of involvement in formal education (school fees being an issue), particularly amongst the female knitters.

Occasionally the complex phraseology means the general reader struggles to follow the argument, but one can only be amazed at the sheer depth and width of Postles’ research. Although he rightly pays tribute to other historians’ work in the field, as shown by his useful Bibliography, it is clear that his personal delving into the records of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland (ROLLR) and the National Archives (TNA), for probate files, wills and inventories, as well as the local Leicester newspapers of the time, was immense and time-consuming. Micro history perhaps; but macro research.