Historic knitting machine back on display

The machine behind the man credited with helping start the Industrial Revolution returns to a Derbyshire town.

The Framework Knitting Machine, invented in 1589, made socks and stockings but they had to be tied up with a garter to stop them falling down.

Almost 200 years later, Jedediah Strutt, the founding father of the Belper Mills, developed an attachment to the machine to solve the problem and produce ribbed socks and stockings.

The machine, which was once on display at North Mill Museum before it closed in 2022, is now on show at Belper Library.

Derbyshire-born Strutt later helped to create the world's first factories - cotton mills - at Cromford with Richard Arkwright in 1771 and then in Belper along the River Derwent in 1776.

In 2014, a blue plaque commemorating Strutt was unveiled at Friar Gate House, his final home.

Ian Hill, chair of Belper North Mill Trust, said the machine, which had been in storage since the museum closed, was "unique".

He said the trust and the Volunteers Association were "delighted to be able to bring home this important piece of Belper's history".

"Without this invention, who knows how Belper would have developed," he added.

Mr Hill thanked the Belper Library Team, Belper Historical Society, Belper Town Council and Derbyshire County Council for their .

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