Athletic British-Made Men's Knitwear — Voted by the Community

Knitting in Britain long predates the factory. Knitted woollen caps were made at Monmouth by the fifteenth century, and hand-knitted stockings were available during the sixteenth. Mechanisation came early. In 1589 William Lee, curate of Calverton in Nottinghamshire, invented the stocking frame, the first knitting machine. Framework knitting spread across the East Midlands, and by 1851 Leicester and Nottingham each had thousands of frames. The trade moved into factories in the second half of the nineteenth century. Lea Mills in Derbyshire was founded in 1784 by Peter Nightingale and John Smedley to spin cotton, and moved into knitting towards the end of the eighteenth century. John Smedley still makes knitwear there, and the company describes it as the world's longest-running factory. Regional styles added variety. The guernsey, or gansey, a fisherman's jumper named after the Channel Island, was knitted in fishing communities around the British coast. Fair Isle colourwork from Shetland became fashionable after the Prince of Wales wore it in public in 1921. British-made knitwear today draws on both these hand and machine traditions.