In England, pillow-lace making is supposed to have been intro duced by some refugees from Flanders, about 1626, in or near Buck inghamshire ; and for a long time that county maintained a fair rivalry with France and Flanders. In the counties of Buckingham and Bedford the cottagers are largely employed in this branch of industry. In 1800 the number so employed was estimated at 130,000; but the Nottingham machine-lace has since proved a formidable com petitor. The kind called Honiton-lace is made by placing a perforated pattern upon a pillow, and working the thread round pins in the same way as other pillow-lace; but the difference is this, that Honiton-lace only consists of flowers and devices, which are afterwards sewn on to net made either by hand or by machine. Seven or eight thousand women and girls are employed in the south-eastern part of Devonshire making Honiton-lace; and as much as two hundred guineas has been given for a dress of this material. In the Midland counties the pillow-lace makers have had an increased demand for black-lace, thereby in part compensating them for the loss occassioned in other ways. British point, made near London, is an imitation of Brussels and Honiton-lace. Limerick-lace is somewhat similar in character. This branch of industry was founded in 1829, by Mr. Charles Walker, who settled at Limerick, leased a large building, took over with him several lace workers from England, and taught the art to Irish peasant girls ; the pupils were quick in learning and clever in manipulation, and a manu facture has been established, which has greatly benefited the town and neighbourhood. There are now many firms engaged in the trade, one of which employs 600 or 600 hands ; the earnings vary from 3s. to 8s. per week. Tambour-lace, made at Coggeshall and other places, is a sort of medium between lace and embroidery.
Machine-lace or Xct.—The production of light cross-woven goods, previous to the extraordinary development of the bobbin-net manu facture at Nottingham, was carried on only to a limited extent. Net was the generic name for these goods ; and according as slight devia tions were made in the mode of crossing the threads, so were dis tinctive names given to the material produced ; such as whip-net, mail-net, patent-net, drop-net, spider-net, Paris-net, balloon-net, &c. All these varieties were produced at the loom, with warp-threads stretched horizontally, and weft-threads thrown acrose by means of a shuttle ; and the difference between them depended on the manner in which the warp-threads were made to cross one another, and in which the weft-thread was thrown.
In 1758 Mr. Strutt's machine for Derby-rib hosiery, or lace-work ankles and insteps to stockings, was the first approach towards a machine for lace-making. Morris's eyelct-hole machine, in 1763, by which open-work mitts and gloves were made, was a still nearer approach. Crane's Vandyck stocking-web machine, in 1768, pro duced flowered and spider nets; and Else and Harvey's pin machine, about the same time, was the foundation for the machines ever Bince used in France and Austria for making tulle and other kinds of silk net. Frost's point machine, in 1777, consisted of a fine
gauze stocking frame which, by a few delicate changes, was made to produce a perfect web of lace, in hexagonal looped meshes—all weft, without any warp threads. This was soon superseded by another which manufactured what was termed point-nct, invented by Lindley, and afterwards improved by Taylor and Flint. The point-net became so highly approved, that there were no fewer than a thousand machines at work at the beginning of the present century. Next succeeded Dawson's warp-machine, which produced warp-net in successful compe tition with the point-net ; there was warp as well as weft, and the fabric was made to serve both for hosiery and for lace. Still however the net produced did not afford a good imitation of the bobbin-lace or pillow-lace ; and the Nottingham manufacturers threw out every in ducement for the development of a machine which should produce such an imitation. At length, in 1809, Mr. John Heathcoat, a stocking weaver of Loughborough, availing himself of an ingenious principle involved in a machine for making fishing-nets, invented a few years before by Robert Brown, of Nottingham, produced and patented the bobbin-net machine, one of the triumphs of modern ingenuity. From this time a new field of industry became opened, into which capital and skill rapidly entered. The traverse-warp machine of Brown, the straight-bolt machine of Morley, the pusher-machine of Mart and Clark, the circular-bolt machine of Morley, and the lever-machine of Leavers, were successive improvements on Heathcoat's bobbin-net machine, involving its main principle, but working it out more effec tually. In all of these the warp is beamed. At first it required fifty movements to make one mesh ; these have now been reduced to six. No less than 40,000 meshes can be made in a minute.
The main points of difference between the bobbin-net. machine and the common loom may be thus stated. In the former the warp-threads are vertical ; in the latter they are horizontal. In the former the weft is wound on a brass bobbin so thin as to pass between the adjacent threads of the warp ; in the latter it is contained in a Bhuttle an inch or more in width. In the former the transit of the weft-thread, while train= between the warp, is at right angles to the plane of the web ; a the latter it Is parallel with that plane. In the former the succes sive meshes or intersections are driven up close to those before made, by a *miss of pointed wires catching In the loops; in the latter they are driven up by the Lay or batten. In the former there are some times as many as three thousand bobbins or weft-carrying implements to one machine; in the latter there are seldom more than one or two shuttles. in the former each bobbin twists Its weft-thread round a warp-thread by a eerie. of oscillatory movements like those of a pen dulum; in the latter the twisting is effected rather by the movements 1 shows roughly how threads may be twisted to form meshes; while figs. 2 and 3 show two kinds as actually produced.