Wolsey Knitting Wools

 

Wolsey leaflet 943

I was aware of Wolsey as a long established brand name of ready-made knitwear and hosiery, and I can just about remember it as a brand of stockings in the 1960s.  But I had not heard of Wolsey as a brand of knitting wool until I found Wolsey knitting patterns in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection. 

The company seems to have kept that side of the business quite quiet - the only ads for the knitting wool I have seen were in the 1930s, while their ready-made clothing was widely advertised over a long period. Below is an ad from 1941, showing that they then made stockings, underwear and outerwear for women  - no mention of knitting wool. 

Wolsey ad in Vogue, October 1941

A bit of history: the company Wolsey Ltd. of Leicester was formed in 1920 as an amalgamation of several existing companies, covering the range of processes from spinners to manufacturers of ready-to-wear clothing.  The main company involved, R. Walker and Sons, had a history in Leicester going back to 1755, and it was claimed that the new company was one of the largest hosiery manufacturing firms in the world.  It made "all classes of knitted fabrics, including underwear, stockings, socks, gloves, sports coats and jerseys".  The company was apparently named for Cardinal Wolsey (who died in Leicester) - and presumably because it is an appropriately woolly name. And it still exists, though now only making menswear, and no longer in Leicester - their website is here.

The first Wolsey knitting pattern in the KCG collection is no. 23, published in 1932. (1932 was a good year for hand knitters - the first issues of Vogue Knitting Book and Stitchcraft magazine appeared then.).  The leaflet is not in the best condition, but the instructions are legible, and it is a pretty pattern. The bands knitted in the darker wool are in feather-and-fan stitch, while the lighter bands have just a single line of eyelets. "A chic jumper", as it says.  

Wolsey leaflet 23

Wolsey knitting wool was sold earlier than 1932 - I have not seen any ads for it from the company, but ads for yarn shops often listed the yarns that they sold, and I have seen a 1921 ad mentioning "Wolsey Art. Knitting Silk" (i.e. rayon, or art. silk). 

The KCG collection has only 10 Wolsey patterns with numbers less than 400 (though presumably there were 400 published) - this is typical of 1930s leaflets, I think because many of them went for salvage during World War 2. Here's one of the survivors. 

Wolsey leaflet 389

A nice cardigan to go for a walk in, as in the little drawing.  It's knitted mostly on size 8 (4mm.) needles, partly single rib and partly the openwork panels shown, on the fronts, back and sleeves.  The leaflet shows (top left) the Cardinal Wolsey trademark. 

Leaflet 433 is from the end of the 1930s, and has an intriguing stitch pattern on the front. (The back and sleeves are in a purl 4, knit 1 rib.)

Wolsey leaflet 433

There are also Wolsey patterns for men - mostly V neck sleeveless pullovers, which I haven't shown, because there were so many similar patterns published in the 1930s.  But after the start of the war in 1939, like many other knitting wool producers, Wolsey produced a leaflet of "Service Woollies" for men in the armed forces, including scarves and gloves as well as the balaclava on the cover. 

Wolsey leaflet 488

And because the Wolsey name was strongly associated with underwear (especially in wool), there were, of course, patterns for you to knit your own. 

Wolsey leaflet 509

During the war, leaflets were printed in a smaller format, to save paper.  Here's an example.  

Wolsey leaflet 633

The jumper has buttons at the back of the neck, so the collar is in two parts, and the cable on the front is repeated on the collar.  A nice design, I think. 

Dating the Wolsey leaflets is difficult, without ads to help, but I think that the leaflets numbered 900+ are from the late 1940s.  We have far more of them in the KCG collection - almost half of those numbered from 950 to 999 (compared with 10 numbered up to 400).  Most of these, like number 943 at the top of the post, are printed with a red background - presumably Cardinal red.  Some of them have very exaggerated shoulders - leaflet 959 has instructions for knitted shoulder pads, to support that very long shoulder seam. 

Wolsey leaflet 959

But the fashions were changing rapidly: leaflet 984 shows a more natural shoulder line.  It is trimmed with stranded colour work in five additional colours - colour work was very popular in the late 1940s.    

Wolsey leaflet 984

Some of the late 1940s Wolsey patterns were printed in colour, which shows off the stranded colour work in leaflet 987 very well. 

Wolsey leaflet 987

And then...  there were no more Wolsey patterns, apparently.  We have leaflets numbered up to 997 in the KCG collection.  Some of the leaflets advertise other Wolsey leaflets on the back, and leaflets numbered up to 998 are shown there.  It is as though the company realised they were about to run out of three-digit numbers for their leaflets and just decided to .... stop. 

If anyone knows any more about Wolsey knitting wools and leaflets produced in Leicester around 1950, please let me know in the comments. I know that there was a company Sunbeam Wolsey based in Millfield, County Cork, who were also using the Wolsey name and trademark.  It appears to be an entirely separate company, and operating in another country, but perhaps it had something to do with Wolsey on Leicester ceasing to publish knitting patterns. I'd love to know. 

Copies of any of the patterns shown in this post are available free to members of the Knitting & Crochet Guild.  Please email requests to collections@kcguild.org.uk. 

 

Two 1920 Knitting Patterns

Some time ago, the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection was given two knitting patterns - this is a long-overdue post about them. You might think that it is not worth writing about a donation of two pattern leaflets, when there are more than 50,000 in the collection. But these are special - not so much for their appeal to vintage knitters, but because they are rare survivors. 

One of the patterns is a Beehive recipe card.  

Beehive Recipe Card No. 11

The Beehive Recipe Cards are rare, but not unknown. We now have five of the cards in the KCG collection, and the British Library has a set of 86. (I wrote about the cards here in a previous post.) Like several of the designs on the cards, this one was designed by Marjory Tillotson, who had begun designing knitting and crochet patterns for J. & J. Baldwin & Partners in Halifax before WW1, and continued to work for the company until the early 1920s. The British Library copy of Card No. 11 has a date stamp of December 1921, but comparing it with the one illustrated above shows that it is a later reprint. Unlike the BL copy, ours does not mention that the company had become part of Patons & Baldwins Ltd., and so must date from before the merger in 1920 of the two companies. I am dating it to early 1920, though it could be 1919 - not earlier, I think, or it would have been too out of date to be reprinted in 1921.  

When knitted outerwear for women started to become common around 1910, it was usually in the form of a sports coat. The description of the Phyllida coat points to the raglan sleeves as being "very suitable for sports' wear" - a set-in sleeve might be tighter round the armholes and give less room for movement. I think though that in the 1910s and 1920s, sports coats for women were often worn as casual wear, without any connection to sports. 

The coat is mainly stocking stitch, with the shawl collar, belt and integral button band in garter stitch. There is an odd sentence in the description: "There is extra shaping at the lower edge of each front and back, to prevent the side seam from dropping." And indeed, the fronts and back have short row shaping at the lower edge to make the centre front and centre back longer than the sides. The shaping won't have any effect on the side seams, so I assume that the intention is that if the side seams drop, the shaping will compensate. But any reasonable method of stitching the side seams that I can think would prevent them from stretching, and it's the centre front and back that are more likely to stretch in wear (especially the back), so making them longer will not help at all.  If anyone has any idea why Marjory Tillotson might have added the shaping,  please let me know.

The other pattern given in the same donation is a Sirdar leaflet, for "A Tested and Reliable Jumper". From the style of the jumper it also dates from around 1920. The Sirdar brand still exists, as any UK knitter will know. It was originally the brand name of Harrap Brothers, a company going back to 1880, and the Sirdar name was in use by 1903 when Sirdar Rug Wool was advertised. But I have never seen or heard of any Sirdar leaflets published in the 1920s, so I believe this leaflet is extremely rare. 

Sirdar 'Lady's Knitted Jumper' leaflet

Sirdar wools, including the Sirdar Sports Wool in the leaflet, began to be advertised by 1914, mostly by yarn shops. In 1917 the company published the Sirdar Knitting & Crochet Book, subtitled "A Miscellaneous Collection of Useful Articles". (The KCG doesn't have a copy, but there is one in the British Library.)  The "useful articles" are mostly things like socks, scarves, gloves and mittens; because it was published during World War 1, many of them are intended for men in the armed forces. 

In the 1920s, patterns specifying Sirdar wool sometimes appeared in magazines - that was true for other manufacturers too. As far as I knew (before I saw this pattern leaflet), Sirdar did not publish any knitting patterns themselves in the 1920s. This changed around 1934, when Sirdar started to produce and advertise a numbered series of pattern leaflets. I think that the numbering probably started at 100 or 101 - leaflet 106 is in the Sirdar Heritage Collection. Was the Lady's Knitted Jumper pattern the only Sirdar pattern leaflet published before 1934? If so, why weren't there more? Patons & Baldwins were publishing pattern leaflets at an increasing rate throughout the 1920s, and the two separate companies had produced their first pattern leaflets before WW1. Presumably Sirdar saw no need to - or maybe this leaflet was testing the market, and convinced them that it wasn't worthwhile. It would be nice to know. 

But let's look at this jumper pattern in more detail. The jumper is knitted in one piece, starting at the bottom edge of the front and finishing at the bottom edge of the back, casting on extra stitches at either side for the sleeves, making the neck opening along the way, and casting off the sleeve stitches while working the back. The only seams are at the sides and under the arms. This was a typical construction for jumpers in the 1920s. The collar and cuffs are worked separately and sewn on. It is mostly worked in garter stitch, apart from the deep striped section at the bottom edge, the cuffs and the band around the waist (under the belt) which are all worked in double rib. The main practical problem, it seems to me, is knitting the stitches of both sleeves and the back of the jumper, all at the same time, on straight needles. (It's less of a problem on the front: the neck opening starts before the sleeve stitches are added, so from then on, the two halves of the front are worked separately.) The pattern sort of acknowledges the difficulty - under 'materials required' it lists 3 bone needles, and says, at the point where the two sides of the front are rejoined: "There should now be 248 stitches. (You will need the 3 needles, as there are too many stitches to knit easily on 2 needles.)" The bone needles would have to be double pointed, and you would need 124 on each of two needles and knit with the third. Double pointed bone needles in a 15 inch (38 cm.) length were available, but even so, this seems like a very awkward way to knit and an almost guaranteed way of losing stitches, unless you used some kind of stopper on the ends of the needles to stop the stitches falling off.  

I think that it was published at the same time as the early Beehive Recipe Cards (i.e. around 1920), because the jumper is very similar in style to some of the jumpers in the recipe cards, shown below. 

  

From Beehive Recipe Card No. 3

The Priscilla "jumper sweater" from Card No. 3, is also designed by Marjory Tillotson. Like the Sirdar jumper, it has a deep band of double rib around the waist to pull the garment in without any shaping. 

From Beehive Recipe Card No. 15

The "Suzanne" jumper, again designed by Marjory Tillotson, is described as "a very serviceable garment for school wear". The garter stitch collar and belt, with tassels, match the Sirdar jumper. 

I don't think anyone would want to wear either the Beehive sports coat or the Sirdar knitted jumper now - the shapes don't work well with current styles. Jumpers from the later 1920s, with loose boxy shapes and often with interesting stitch patterns, would be much more wearable. But the designs in the leaflets are nice examples from a time when knitted outerwear had only recently become a regular item of clothing for women. The 'sports coat' evolved into a cardigan, and women have been wearing cardigans and jumpers ever since.   

If anyone would like to see the card and the leaflet in full, copies are free to members of the Knitting & Crochet Guild - email requests to collections@kcguild.org.uk.   

   

Marriner's Knitting Patterns

Marriner's leaflet No. 163

I have been compiling a catalogue of Marriner's leaflets in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection from the late 1940s and early 1950s.  They are now out of copyright, so that we can copy the leaflets for Guild members.  Marriner's leaflets were first published in the late 1940s, and from the start were colour leaflets, nicely designed and attractive.  

First, some history of the company behind the brand.  This account is mainly based on the book 'Marriner's Yarns: The Story of the Keighley Knitting Wool Spinners', by George Ingle, published in 2004.  The address on the pattern leaflets is R. V. Marriner, Greengate Mill, Keighley.  The company originated in 1784, when the mill was owned by a partnership, one of the partners being Abraham Smith whose niece and heir Ann Flesher married William Marriner.  Their sons bought out the other partners, and the company became B & F Marriner from 1817, and switched from cotton to wool. In 1908, after the death of his father, the company came under the control of Raymond Victor Marriner, a great-grandson of William and Ann, and the company was renamed R. V. Marriner.  

In the 1920s, the company formed an association with L. Copley-Smith & Sons, who sold Copley's wools.  According to George Ingle, they were "supplying Copley-Smith with about 80% of their yarns and much of their output was hand knitting wool." By the 1930s, one of the R. V. Marriner directors was one of the Copley-Smith sons, so the two businesses were very closely linked.  During WW2, production was disrupted, and after the war, the agreement with Copley's was ended, apparently from the Copley's side.  Although R. V. Marriner had previously sold some of their knitting wools themselves, by mail order or through their own shops in Keighley, the need to find a new market for the bulk of their production led the company to start selling to yarn shops more widely.   The company started to advertise nationally and introduced knitting patterns under the Marriner's brand. 

Back to the pattern leaflets.  The earliest ad I have seen for Marriner's knitting wool appeared in 1948 and featured leaflet no. 21.  The ad emphasises that the leaflets are 'printed in natural colour', so that a knitter could see exactly what the finished garment would look like in the suggested colours.  Here is another of the earliest Marriner's leaflets, probably also from 1948, for a Lady's Jumper Coat:

Marriner's leaflet No. 6

The company played up the seafaring connotations of the family name by using a logo of a pair of knitting needles and a skein of wool, arranged to look something like a sailing boat.  The colours of the wool copy the colours in the garment - in leaflet No. 6, the skein alternates scarlet and white wool, with a bit of dark blue for the tie. 

Marriner's advertised quite widely in women's magazines and needlecraft magazines such as Pins & Needles, and almost always featured at least one pattern leaflet, which is very helpful for dating them.  Some of the leaflets in the catalogue have the message "Marriner's have been spinning wool during the reigns of nine Kings and Queens".  These must date from after the death of George VI in 1952, and tie in with the starting date of 1784, which was during the reign of George III.  That does give nine reigns (George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II) - but since Greengate Mill was originally a cotton mill, the claim isn't entirely accurate.  The slogan gives a handy way of dating some of the Marriner's leaflets, though it was not used consistently, so its absence does not imply an earlier date. Another dating point is the Coronation in June 1953: leaflet 186 has a sticker on the front reading "One of the Marriner Coronation Series".  Again, the sticker was not used consistently -  another copy of the same leaflet in the KCG collection does not have it.  But we can safely say that any Marriner's leaflet with a number less than 186 was published in 1953 or earlier.  

Marriner's leaflet No. 186

The embroidered 'Hungarian Cardigan' in leaflet 186 is knitted in DK wool, and so is perhaps more accessible than many of the earlier patterns which are almost all in 3-ply wool (or even 2-ply) - a hangover from the clothes rationing period of the 1940s, when a little wool had to go a long way.  

Many of the leaflets have a black-and-white drawing inside, as well as the cover photo, showing an idealised version of the garment.  Here's a pattern for a very fancy bed jacket, with frills everywhere and stranded colour work on the yoke:

Marriner's leaflet No.107

And here is the sketch inside, showing an improbably slender woman in an elegant 1950s boudoir. 

Here's another pair of cover photo and sketch: 

Marriner's leaflet No. 133

The sweater has an unusual construction, with the sleeves knitted sideways in a twisted double rib (also used for the collar and welts).  The sketch shows a very smart 1950s sitting room, with up-to-the-minute built-in furniture. 

Copies of any of these patterns are available to KCG members - just email collections@kcguild.org.uk to ask.  The catalogue showing 69 Marriner's patterns will be available shortly on the KCG website (kcguild.org.uk).

A 1949 Sports Jersey

 

The sweater shown in the photo was donated to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection more than 30 years ago, in 1994.   We have the matching pattern, too - in fact, probably the copy that the sweater was knitted from, though that wasn't recorded at the time of the donation.  

Don Maid leaflet no.212

The leaflet has clearly been kept folded in four for a long time, and mended with Sellotape (not a good idea for a long-lasting repair).  But the instructions are just about legible, and there isn't another copy in the collection.    

'Don Maid' was a brand of knitting wool manufactured by Donisthorpe & Co. of Leicester, a very long established spinning company, dating back to the 18^th century.  Knitting wool was a minor part of their business, starting just before World War 2 with knitting wool for children's clothes, under the label  'Little Pals'.  The company seems to have seen the end of clothes rationing in the late 1940s as an opportunity to extend their range of knitting wools and patterns and hence introduced the Don Maid brand.  

We currently have just 17 Don Maid leaflets in the KCG collection: a few children's patterns, numbered between 1 and 18, and the rest adult patterns, numbered from 201 to 246 - I suspect that the gap in numbering reflects two different ranges of numbers for children's v. adult patterns.  Don Maid leaflets aren't common, and I don't think that many were produced after no. 246, published around 1952.

Judging by the dates when Don Maid patterns with numbers close to 212 were advertised, Don Maid leaflet 212 was issued in 1949.  Our sweater is described in the leaflet as a Sports Jersey.  The pattern instructions are to knit with 2 strands of 3 ply wool, held together, making a double knitting (DK) thickness, and that is how the sweater is knitted – the two strands are easily seen in the floats on the stranded knitting sections.  I think that Don Maid knitting wool was only made in 3-ply at that time, judging by the other leaflets in the collection and Don Maid ads I have seen.  Many spinners had produced DK knitting wool before WW2, but it had disappeared during the war, and was not reintroduced until the 1950s. Even so, Donisthorpe & Co. evidently thought that a pattern for a sweater in the equivalent of DK wool would be popular - and of course would sell a lot more wool. 

The sweater is knitted on size 7 needles (4.5mm).  The body and sleeves are in brioche stitch, i.e. on a multiple of 3 stitches, plus 1:

Row 1: Slip1 purlwise, (knit 2 together, yarn over, slip 1 purlwise) to last 3 stitches, knit 2 together, slip 1 purlwise.

Row 2:  Knit 1, (yarn over, slip 1 purlwise, knit 2 together), to last 2 stitches, yarn over, slip 1 purlwise, knit 1.  

This gives a very soft, warm and squishy fabric.  

The stranded colour bands are the most noticeable feature of the sweater.  The bands round the yoke and cuffs are knitted in with the rest of the sweater, but the bands along the raglan seams are knitted separately and stitched in place when the sweater is made up. 

It was very different from most 1949 knitwear designs, and I think could be worn now, with minimal adaptation.  I have only recently studied the sweater in the KCG collection in detail and realised how distinctive and unusual it was for its time  - it's now one of my favourite pieces. 

Patons' Embroidered Badges

 I found two embroidered badges in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection quite a while ago. They are machine-embroidered on felt, with a stiff backing, vaguely heraldic in design, with 'PATONS', a beehive and 'HANDKNITS', and measure about 5in. (13cm.) by 3½ in. (9cm.). 

'PATONS HANDKNITS' embroidered badge

They were mixed with with assorted publications (patterns, magazines, ...) with no clue about what they were for or when they were produced.  I thought of them as a pair, like elbow patches, but clearly that's not what they are.  

Then quite recently, a Guild member asked me for a copy of a Patons pattern leaflet, number 3196. She had knitted the skirt and sweater for herself in the late 1980s, and would like to make them again.  She had the original pattern but it had been torn and she needed a new copy. (Copies of vintage patterns are a benefit of Guild membership, with permission from Patons in this case, as they own the copyright.)

Patons leaflet 3196

And there, on the sleeve of the sweater, was an embroidered badge like the two in the collection.  The list of materials required has 'Decorative badge (optional)'  and also 'Shoulder pads (optional)' - those were the 1980s, when women's coats and jackets had shoulder pads, and often cardigans, sweaters and blouses did too, so that you could end up with a stack of three or four on each shoulder. 

The pattern was published in 1987, and I looked at other pattern leaflets with neighbouring numbers to see if any others showed the badges.  I found seven more, all for Patons Diploma yarn, which was a 60% wool, 40% acrylic mix, sold in a chunky weight and a DK.  The sweater in leaflet 3196 is knitted in Diploma Chunky and the skirt in Diploma DK - all the other patterns are for Chunky. 

You could have the badge on your sleeve, or on the front of your sweater or jacket....

Patons leaflet 3191

... or on a pocket...

Patons leaflet 3195 

...and a child might like one too. 

Patons leaflet 3206

I am very pleased to be able to assign a date to the badges in the collection, and to know how they were intended to be used.  But I wonder how many knitters did actually sew them onto their finished garments.

Spattees and Silk Winders

I bought a copy of the magazine Needlework for All on eBay recently — I'll donate it to the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection after I've written this post.  It's the December 1926 issue (there is no date given in the magazine, but it's clearly a Christmas issue, from the content, and I worked out the year from the information in the British Library catalogue and the other issues that we have in the collection already). 

Needlework for All No. 202, December 1926.  

I bought this issue partly because the eBay listing showed that it includes a pattern for spattees — a garment I have covered in previous posts. 

Spattees in Needlework for All No. 202

There was a brief fashion for spattees (or spats) for women which were launched at an event in the summer of 1926, as I described here and here, so in December 1926 they were still very new and fashionable. The Editor of Needlework for All emphasised this in the introduction to the issue: 

"Needlework for All" is nothing if not up-to-date — a statement which we may safely say is borne out by our current number, with its practical designs for the new Spattees and the fashionable Beret."  

Here's the beret, crocheted, with a tassel:

Beret from Needlework for All no. 202

There was a unexpected bonus for me when the magazine arrived, in an ad for Stratnoid knitting pins, crochet hooks and other needlecraft tools, including Silk Winders. 

As soon as I read the description of Stratnoid Silk Winders, I realised that I have one: "Collapsible. 4½in. long, price 6½d.  Knitting Pin Gauge and Winder combined."  

Stratnoid Silk Winder

And here it is folded up:

Actually, I didn't know until I saw the ad that it was a silk winder.  I bought it as a knitting needle gauge, which it is as well — the holes in the arms measure knitting needles from sizes 5 to 12 (5½mm. to 2¾mm.)  Sheila Williams, in The History of Knitting Pin Gauges describes it as 'a strange propeller-shaped gauge which folds neatly'.  She dates it to 'late 1920s/30s' — I think that probably the 1926 ad in Needlework for All marks its introduction, so 'late 1920s' seems correct.  

Once I thought of it as a silk winder, it is clearly similar to silk winders that we have in the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection, like the three shown below.  One of them still has silk wound onto it — or rather 'art. silk'. i.e. rayon.  

These gadgets were designed to handle rayon, which was very popular for knitting and crochet in the 1920s.  Like other knitting yarns at the time, rayon was sold in hanks. It is a very slippery yarn, and would be unmanageable if you wound the hanks into a ball as you would with wool, so instead it was wound onto something like one of the winders shown here.   You could make your own winder from a piece of stiff card - we have one in the collection cut from a box which originally had something like perfumed soap in it.  It has survived because it still has the rayon wound onto it, otherwise it would have been thrown out long ago.  Winders that were not home-made were generally made of cheap materials: two of those in the photo above are of plywood, and the one with 6 arms is compressed cardboard.  Many of the winders in the KCG collection have the name of a shop printed on them.  The winder above still with rayon on it was from The Grand Pygmalion, Boar Lane, Leeds, a large department store.  The six-armed winder is printed with "Rowntrees of Scarborough - Artificial Silk Specialists".   I suspect that these cheaply-produced winders were given free with a purchase of rayon, though I have no concrete evident of that. The 'Felix Keeps on Knitting' winder is relatively common, and may have been a free gift with a magazine, or something of that sort.

Back to the Stratnoid collapsible winder.  It obviously seemed like an excellent idea to the manufacturers, and the reverse of the winder says that a provisional patent had been taken out, though I haven't been able to find it.   

It doesn't seem to have sold well, though — very few seem to have survived to now, and none of the other Stratnoid ads that I have seen mention it. It is not too surprising that it didn't catch on when you think that at the end of a knitting or crochet project, it is common to have some yarn left over.  Most knitters have a cache of part-used balls of yarn that we keep because we might find a use for it one day. If that happened with an art silk project, you would want to keep the remaining rayon on its winder (and that's why we have winders in the KCG collection that still have silk wound onto them).  That's OK if the winder was free or home-made, and you could easily get another winder for your next project — not so good if it cost you 6½d.  But I am very pleased to have found out more about my Stratnoid needle gauge, and that it was not primarily a gauge at all, but a silk winder. 

The Wheel of Fortune

I recently acquired a new addition to my collection of knitting needle gauges.  An exciting acquisition, as I had never seen one for sale before, though I knew of it from Sheila Williams book 'The History of Knitting Pin Gauges'.  On one side, it reads 'THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE WIRE GAUGE'. 

It is steel, about 6 cm. in diameter, and it measures needles from size 1 (7.5mm.) to size 24 (0.5mm).  Very roughly, the finer the smallest needle measured, the older the gauge.  Most needle gauges made since the 1950s have not measured needles smaller than size 14 (2mm.), while Chambers' Bell Gauge, patented in 1847, measured needles down to size 28 (0.375mm.).  

  

The Wheel of Fortune gauge dates, I believe, from the early 1900s. The other side of the gauge has the address 'Head & Son, 191A & 192A Sloane St., London S.W.'   W. H. Head & Son was a haberdashery shop - the Knitting & Crochet Guild has a copy of their catalogue and price list for Autumn and Winter, 1918-1919.  (KCG members can download a copy of the catalogue from the KCG website, and see the whole range of needlecraft supplies that the shop stocked.)  

The catalogue has two knitting needle gauges.  One is Walker's Bell Gauge, descended from Chambers' bell gauge, and the other is the shop's own Wheel of Fortune gauge.    

The description says: 'Made in Steel, very hard, exact in measurement will not alter in use, indispensable to all Ladies who Knit or Crochet. THE BEST GAUGE YET PRODUCED.'

The Wheel of Fortune gauge was on sale by at least 1909, when it was mentioned in The Queen magazine. In spite of being the BEST YET PRODUCED, it doesn't seem to have sold well.  

On the other hand, Walker's bell gauge which was also illustrated in W. H. Head's catalogue, with a small figure of an archer drawing a bow, seems to have sold much better, judging by the fact that many have survived - they can be easily found on eBay.  According to Sheila Williams' book, it had been in production for many years before the 1918-19 catalogue.  The bell had become a popular shape for needle gauges, with many different versions made. (My post on Chambers' bell gauge, linked to above, shows more than a dozen variations.)     

The 'Wheel of Fortune' was a phrase often used at the time - newspapers used it for stories of rich people who had lost all their money or people in modest circumstances who had inherited a large legacy from a long-lost relative.  It was also used more literally for roulette wheels.  I don't know why the gauge is called the 'Wheel of Fortune' - maybe just because it is circular?  

It was not in fact the first circular needle gauge: Sheila Williams shows illustrations of circular needle gauges in knitting and crochet books from the 1840s.  One of these books, by Elizabeth Jackson, says that her gauge is based on those used by wire drawers.  The Wheel of Fortune is itself called a wire gauge, because the sizes of knitting needles were the same as wire sizes at that time - metal knitting needles were basically lengths of wire.  It seems that the circular shape has been a standard for wire gauges for a long time.  I don't know anything about the history of wire gauges; I'm looking into it and will report if I find out anything interesting to knitters.