Daily AncestorHosier
A hosier made or sold hose, meaning stockings and socks, and often other knitted goods.
Hose was the old word for stockings, and hosiery covered stockings and other knitted goods; a hosier was the maker or seller of them.
Stockings were among the first things knitted by machine. William Lee of Nottinghamshire invented the stocking frame, an early knitting machine, in 1589, though he was refused a patent partly from fear that it would put hand knitters out of work.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1900 census
Wm. Ashby, 50, Hosier, England
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Daily Ancestor. "Hosier." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/hosier. Last checked 2026-10-10.