A knitting frame was a hand powered machine, of about 2,000 parts, that allowed the worker to knit 100 stiches in the same time as one hand stich. The technology originated in the mid 17th Century, and by JA's time knitting frames could produce ribbed, patterened or lace trimmed stockings.

The stocking industry in JA's time worked on the putting out system. Capitalists called master hosiers owned the frames, supplied the yarn, and sold the finished goods. They dealt with the actual knitters through middlemen known as bag hosiers, who were generally the local shopkeepers. Cotton stockings were primarily knitted in Nottinghamshire, silk in Derbyshire, and wool in Leicestershire. There were about 30,000 knitting frames nationwide.

Framework knitters were among the most poorly paid workers in England. Paid by piecework, they earned about 18 shillings a week in good years and 12 shillings or less when the market was glutted, from which 1 shilling a week in frame rent was deducted. In addition, the bag hosiers with whom the knitters dealt often cheated them by short measurement, by refusing to pay full rates for work they said was of poor quality, while keeping the work, and by paying the knitter in credit at the store rather than cash. In any event, the bag hosier's profit was the spread between what he paid the knitter and what he had contracted to receive from the master hosier, so he had every incentive to squeeze the price down.

Owning knitting frames to be rented out, on the other hand, was considered a good investment, returning better than 11% per year. Gentlemen in the Nottingham/Derbyshire area, where the framework knitting industry was centered, frequently invested in knitting frames by placing the money with the master hosiers. A frame cost between £20 and £25, and about 40 percent of them were owned by investors outside the industry. (Who knows, maybe Mr. Darcy had a few hundred pounds in stocking frames.)

"The artisans of hosiery manufacture were in loud protest against the remorseless competition which prevailed among the hosiers, against the bad quality of the raw material, against the low wages they were receiving, against overproduction. Illogically enough, they complained simultaneously that the number of frames was excessive and the rent was too high. A movement of insurrection on a large scale was organized in 1811. For two years the Luddites, as these revolted workmen were called, smashed frames by the hundreds, pillaged houses, and assaulted or killed obnoxious persons." -- Halevy, England in 1815.

The source for all this is the report of a Parliamentary commission which investigated the stocking industry in 1812, during the Luddite disturbances, summarized by Halevy.