Lock stitch sewing machine made by Charles Kyte, Snowshill, Gloucestershire, England, 1842.

This is a crudely made lock stitch sewing machine, and the date of manufacture is unknown but claimed to be 1842. If this is the case then it precedes Howe, Singer, and the other early pioneers of the sewing machine, making this potentially the first practical sewing machine ever produced - if the date of manufacture could be confirmed. It was discovered in a shop in Broadway near Evesham, Worcestershire in 1892 by Birmingham surgeon Lawrence Tait, who firmly believed that what he discovered dated to 1842 and was the work of a local man known as Charles 'Schemer' Kyte.