1760-1783.] COTTON SPINNING MACHINE-THE JENNY. 45 Paul's machine, however ingenious, brought losses upon all concerned in it, and was finally abandoned. The demand for fine yarn still went on unsupplied; and it was increased by a growing market for fabrics in which it was endeavoured to compete with Indian muslins. An extensive manufacture of fabrics composed wholly of cotton does not appear to have been contemplated a few years before this period. "Bombaya's wharfs," writes Dyer, " pile up "Wool-resembling cotton, shorn from trees, Not to the fleece unfriendly; whether mixed The demand increased more and more, and it pressed on invention to find modes of supply. In 1764 the Society of Arts voted fifty pounds to Mr. Harrison "for a masterly improvement in the spinning-wheel, by which a child may do double the business that even a grown person can with the common wheel."+ At length a great practical change was achieved. In 1767, James Hargreaves completed his "Spinning-jenny." He was a weaver near Blackburn, and his wife and children were employed in spinning weft for him to work upon at his loom, the warp being supplied by the wholesale manufacturers who gave him employment. The spindle of the spinning-wheel was always horizontal, as may be seen in the following engraving: 46 DOMESTIC COTTON-SPINNING ABOUT TO CEASE. [1760-1783. The spinster's machine in Hargreaves' cottage being accidentally overturned, it was observed that the wheel and the spindle continued to revolve. In the position of the wheel on its side, the spindle became perpendicular. The ingenious man caught the idea, and forthwith constructed a multiplying wheel, with eight rovings and eight upright spindles. He knew what would be the fate of a labour-saving inventor if he made his discovery public. He long worked in secret at his "jenny;" but such mysteries cannot be preserved. His jealous neighbours broke into his house, destroyed his invention, and compelled him to fly for his life to Nottingham. He there received assistance to enable him to take out a patent; but he had sold several of his machines before the date of his patent; the invention became common property; and the instrument, surreptitiously imitated, was soon found in every weaver's cottage in Lancashire. Thomas Highs, about the same period, invented a somewhat similar hand-machine. Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the "mule," which changed the whole course of cotton spinning, when sixteen years of age, in 1769, was spinning upon one of Hargreaves' machines of eight spindles.* The time was fast approaching when the spinning of cotton would cease to be a domestic manufacture. The weaving would long continue under humble roofs; but machines, driven at first by water-power, would gradually banish the wheel and the jenny. The double occupation of weaver and small farmer was very common in Lancashire. This united business was conducted with small profit to the yeoman, who occupied a few acres, and worked at intervals. at one loom. It was far from advantageous to the general interests of the country. Arthur Young described the North of Ireland as "a whole province peopled by weavers: it is they who cultivate, or rather beggar, the soil, as well as work the looms; agriculture is there in ruins. . . . The lands are infinitely subdivided; no weaver thinks of supporting himself by his loom; he has always a piece of potatoes, a piece of oats, a patch of flax, and grass or weeds for a cow." Young held the two occupations to be incompatible. "A weaver who works at a fine cloth can never take the plough or the spade in hand without injury to the web."+ The Lancashire weavers had not driven out the farmers proper, as in the North of Ireland, but the same system was in partial operation in the whole cotton-working district. The father of Samuel Crompton was the occupier of a farm near Bolton; he and his family, "as was the custom at that time, employing their leisure hours in carding, spinning, and weaving." In 1758 he became the tenant of a portion of an old mansion, also near Bolton, called Hall-in-the-Wood. The father died soon after this removal. The widow continued the labours of the little farm, and devoted all her leisure, as before, to the spindle and the loom.‡ Bolton was then a place of very inconsiderable population. Their wants were so small that not more than one cow used to be killed in the town for a week's supply. To the weekly market London and Manchester traders resorted, to purchase the heavy fabrics for which Bolton was the chief mart. "The fustians, herring-bones, cross-overs, quiltings, dimities, and other goods, were carried to market by the small manufacturers (who were for the most Ure's "Cotton Manufacture," vol. i. book iii. chap. i. +Tour in Ireland," vol. ii. p. 305. French; "Life of Crompton," chap. ii. 1760-1783.] RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 47 part equally small farmers) in wallets balanced over one shoulder, while on the other arm there was often hung a basket of fresh butter."* There was one bustling man in Bolton who must have been among the most active on the market-day-Richard Arkwright, the barber, who had come from Preston, his native place, and hung out his attractive invitation to the townsman and the visitor, of " a clean shave for a penny." But he had higher aspirations. He was a peruke maker, and travelled about the country as a merchant in a peculiar line. An adroit man he must have been, and a pleasant; for at the statute fair he marked down the lass with the most attractive locks; and although he might not have played "with the tangles of Neæra's hair," he contrived to possess himself of the treasure for a pecuniary consideration, and bear it off to his wig-making shop in whatever new locality he chose to plant himself for a year or two. He saw many men, and acquired many valuable notions. He had a mechanical genius, and thoughts of "perpetual motion" sometimes engrossed his mind. At Warrington he became acquainted with John Kay, a clock-maker, the son of the fly-shuttle inventor; and the two set their ingenuity to work upon something likely to be more practicable and more profitable than " perpetual motion." Kay had been thinking of schemes for superseding the spinning-wheel, incited probably by having been employed by Thomas Highs in making the wheels and springs of his "jenny." Out of this communication of the ideas of Highs, who is alleged to have conceived the notion of spinning by rollers, was matured, by the ingenuity and perseverance of Arkwright, the invention which was very speedily to convert the region which Gray called "the deserts of Lancashire" into the busiest district of the world. Arkwright went to Preston, and having expended his last shilling in completing, however imperfectly, a machine of a new construction, it was exhibited, in 1768, in that town. In a lucky hour for Arkwright, murmurs and threats reached his ear. He hastily packed up his apparatus in the dread of mob-law; went to Nottingham; obtained two moneyed partners, of whom Jedediah Strutt was one; and took out his first patent in 1769. 48 ARKWRIGHT'S WATER-FRAME SPINNING MACHINE. [1760-1783. Arkwright's Original Patent Water-frame Spinning Machine. [We must suppose that by the previous operation of carding, the cotton wool has been so combed and prepared as to be formed into a long untwisted line of about the thickness of a man's finger. This line so formed (after it has been introduced into the spinning-machine), is called a roving, the old name in hand-spinning. In order to convert this roving into a thread, it is necessary that the fibres, which are for the most part curled up, and which lie in all directions, should be stretched out and laid lengthwise, side by side; that they should be pressed together, so as to give them a more compact form; and that they should be twisted, so as to unite them all firmly together. In the original manner of spinning by the distaff, those operations were performed by the finger and thumb, and they were afterwards effected with greater rapidity, but less perfectly, by means of the long wheel and spindle. For the same purpose, Arkwright employed two pairs of small rollers, the one pair being placed at a little distance in front of the other. The lower roller in each pair is furrowed or fluted lengthwise, and the upper one is covered with leather; so that, as they revolve in contact with each other, they take fast hold of the cotton which passes between them. Both pairs of rollers are turned by machinery, which is so contrived that the second pair shall turn round with much more swiftness than the first. Now, suppose that a roving is put between the first pair of rollers. The immediate effect is merely to press it together into a more compact form. But the roving has but just passed through the first pair of rollers, when it is received between the second pair; and as the rollers of the second pair revolve with greater velocity than those of the first, they draw the roving forwards with greater rapidity than it is given out by the first pair. Consequently, the roving will be lengthened in passing from one pair to the other; and the fibres of which it is composed will be drawn out and laid lengthwise side by side. The increase of length will be exactly in proportion to the increased velocity of the second pair of rollers. Two or more rovings are generally united in this operation. Thus, suppose that two rovings are introduced together between the first pair of rollers, and that the second pair of rollers moves with twice the velocity of the first, the new roving thus formed by the union of the two will then be of exactly twice the length of either of the original ones. It will therefore contain exactly the same quantity of cotton per yard. But its parts will be very differently arranged, and its fibres will be drawn out longitudinally, and will be thus much better fitted for forming a thread. This operation of doubling and drawing is repeated as often as is found necessary, and the requisite degree of twist is given by a machine similar to the spindle and fly of the common flax-wheel.] 1760-1783.] THE FIRST WATER-SPINNING MILL. 49 Such, as exhibited in the opposite page, was the machine described in Arkwright's original patent of 1769. Those who look upon the operations of a cotton-factory of the present day may feel surprise that such complete machinery as now exists, with its wonderful results, should have grown out of so apparently simple and rude a machine as that claimed by Arkwright as his design. But the principle existed in that machine, out of which all the more elaborate contrivances of ninety years have proceeded. "The principle remains the same, namely, to enable rollers to do the work of human fingers, with much greater precision, and incomparably cheaper." The machines of the small factory at Nottingham, which Arkwright was enabled to establish with his partners, were worked by horse-power. In 1771 a site was selected by them where water-power might be applied. In the beautiful valley of the Derwent, at Cromford, was erected the first water-spinning mill. Henceforward the machine was called the water-frame, and the yarn which it produced was called water-twist. But the great merit of Arkwright, however disputable his claim as an inventor, was as an organizer of the labour required in a cotton-factory. The mechanics who made his machines had to be formed; the workmen had to be trained to accommodate their irregular habits to automatic precision. All the difficulties that interpose between the completion of an invention and its commercial value had to be overcome; and but for the wondrous energy of Arkwright, his career might have been as unsuccessful as that of Lewis Paul. "We find that so late as the year 1779, ten years after the date of his first patent, his enterprise was regarded by many as a doubtful novelty." It was five years before any profit was realised at Cromford. But in the meantime Arkwright had, in 1775, taken out a second. patent. His right to the inventions therein claimed was contested. His monopoly was invaded on every side. Actions at law were decided at one time in his favour; at another time the decisions of the courts were adverse. In October, 1779, a mill which he had erected in the neighbourhood of Chorley was burned by a mob; who in a similar manner destroyed the cottonspinning machines at Manchester, Wigan, Blackburn, Bolton, and Preston. The Lancashire weavers had been reasoned out of their opposition to the jenny, and it was generally adopted. They abstained from destroying the water-frame only through the terror of the sword and the halter. The combinations of rivals and the violence of mobs had no power to turn the courageous Arkwright from pursuing the career which had opened to his sanguine view. To the fullest measure of success which could be reached by indomitable industry and perseverance, he devoted himself without relaxation, even when enormous wealth was accumulating around him. As he rose into rank and importance, he felt the necessity of correcting the defects of his early education; and after his fiftieth year, he applied two hours of each day, snatched from sleep, to improve himself in grammar, orthography, and writing. The The career of Samuel Crompton presents as striking a contrast to that of Richard Arkwright, as the difference in the characters of the two men. orphan boy of Hall-in-the-Wood was shy, sensitive, studious, a mathematician, a musician, an inventive artisan. Arkwright was pushing, callous, ignorant, "Knowledge is Power," by Charles Knight, p. 219. VOL VII. + Ure, vol. i. p. 237. |