TEXTILE MACHINES Industrial Revolution
In the early 18th century, British textile manufacture was based on wool which was processed by individual artisans, doing the spinning and weaving on their own premises. This system is called a cottage industry. Flax and cotton were also used for fine materials, but the processing was difficult because of the pre-processing needed, and thus goods in these materials made only a small proportion of the output.
Use of the spinning wheel and hand loom restricted the production capacity of the industry, but incremental advances increased productivity to the extent that manufactured cotton goods became the dominant British export by the early decades of the 19th century. India was displaced as the premier supplier of cotton goods.
Lewis Paul patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system for drawing wool to a more even thickness, developed with the help of John Wyatt in Birmingham. Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey. In 1743, a factory was opened in Northampton with fifty spindles on each of five of Paul and Wyatt's machines. This operated until about 1764. A similar mill was built by Daniel Bourn in Leominster, but this burnt down. Both Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn patented carding machines in 1748. Using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds, it was later used in the first cotton spinning mill. Lewis's invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright in his water frame and Samuel Crompton in his spinning mule.
Other inventors increased the efficiency of the individual steps of spinning (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling) so that the supply of yarn increased greatly, which fed a weaving industry that was advancing with improvements to shuttles and the loom or 'frame'. The output of an individual labourer increased dramatically, with the effect that the new machines were seen as a threat to employment, and early innovators were attacked and their inventions destroyed.
To capitalise upon these advances, it took a class of entrepreneurs, of which the most famous is Richard Arkwright. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were actually developed by people such as Thomas Highs and John Kay; Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power—first horse power and then water power—which made cotton manufacture a mechanised industry. Before long steam power was applied to drive textile machinery.
Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution
With the establishment of overseas colonies, the British Empire at the end of the 17th century/beginning of the 18th century had a vast source of raw materials and a vast market for manufactured goods. The manufacture of goods was performed on a limited scale by individual workers – usually on their own premises (such as weavers' cottages) – and was transported around the country by horse and cart, or by river boat. Power was supplied by draught animals for agriculture and haulage.
There was a marketplace to service, but the scale of industry; the sources of energy; and the lack of an inland communications infrastructure were the unseen hurdles to overcome.
In this context, the scene was set for the Kingdom of Great Britain to develop the industry of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution.
Industry and Invention
The Industrial Revolution, in this logic, has been a worldwide occurrence, at least insofar as it has occurred in all those parts of the world, of which there are few exceptions, where the control of Western civilization has been felt. Industrialization occurred first in Britain, and its effects spread only gradually to continental Europe and North America. Equally clearly, the Industrial Revolution that eventually transformed these parts of the Western world surpassed in magnitude the achievements of Britain, and the process was carried further to change radically the socioeconomic life of the Far East, Africa, Latin America, and Australasia. The reasons for this succession of events are complex, but they were implicit in the earlier account of the buildup toward rapid industrialization. Partly through good fortune and partly through conscious effort, Britain by the early 18th century came to possess the combination of social needs and social resources that provided the necessary preconditions of commercially successful innovation and a social system capable of sustaining and institutionalizing the processes of rapid technological change once they had started. Therefore be concerned, in the first place, with events in Britain, although in discussing later phases of the period it will be necessary to trace the way in which British technical achievements were diffused and superseded in other parts of the Western world.
In 1733 in Bury, Lancashire, John Kay invented the flying shuttle — one of the first of a series of inventions associated with the cotton industry. The flying shuttle increased the width of cotton cloth and speed of production of a single weaver at a loom. Resistance by workers to the perceived threat to jobs delayed the widespread introduction of this technology, even though the higher rate of production generated an increased demand for spun cotton.
In 1738, Lewis Paul (one of the community of Huguenot weavers that had been driven out of France in a wave of religious persecution) settled in Birmingham and with John Wyatt, of that town, they patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing wool to a more even thickness. Using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds yarn could be twisted and spun quickly and efficiently. This was later used in the first cotton spinning mill during the Industrial Revolution.
1742: Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by donkey; this was not profitable and soon closed.
1743: A factory opened in Northampton, fifty spindles turned on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines proving more successful than their first mill. This operated until 1764.
1748: Lewis Paul invented the hand driven carding machine. A coat of wire slips were placed around a card which was then wrapped around a cylinder. Lewis's invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton, although this came about under great suspicion after a fire at Daniel Bourn's factory in Leominster which specifically used Paul and Wyatt's spindles. Bourn produced a similar patent in the same year.
1758: Paul and Wyatt based in Birmingham improved their roller spinning machine and took out a second patent. Richard Arkwright later used this as the model for his water frame.
1762 Matthew Boulton opened the Soho Foundry engineering works in Handsworth, Birmingham. His partnership with Scottish engineer James Watt made the steam engine into the power plant of the Industrial Revolution and was to provide many mills with a new form of power.
In 1764, James Hargreaves is credited as inventor of the spinning jenny which multiplied the spun thread production capacity of a single worker — initially eightfold and subsequently much further. Sources credit the original invention to Thomas Highs, who had a daughter named Jenny for whom the invention might have been named. Industrial unrest and a failure to patent the invention until 1770 forced Hargreaves from Blackburn, but his lack of protection of the idea allowed the concept to be exploited by others. As a result, there were over 20,000 Spinning Jennies in use by the time of his death.
Again in 1764, the first cotton mill in the world was constructed at Royton, Lancashire, England.
In 1771, Richard Arkwright used waterwheels to power looms for the production of cotton cloth, his invention becoming known as the water frame. (Frame is another name for the machinery for spinning or weaving.) The water frame was developed from the spinning frame that Arkwright had developed with (a different) John Kay, from Warrington. (The original design was probably by Thomas Highs, again.) This he had patented in 1769 (see: Press the 'Ingenious' button and use search key '10302171' for the patent). Initial attempts at driving the frame had used horse power, but the innovation of using a waterwheel demanded a location with a ready supply of water. One of the first cotton mills (at Cromford, Derbyshire; preserved as part of the Derwent Valley Mills) was a factory in the vein of the Soho Manufactory. Arkwright protected his investment (from industrial rivals and potentially disruptive workers), and generated jobs for which workers' accommodations were constructed, leading to a sizeable industrial community. Arkwright expanded his operations to other areas of the country.
In 1779, Samuel Crompton of Bolton combined elements of the spinning jenny and water frame to create the spinning mule. This produced a stronger thread, and was suitable for mechanisation on a grand scale. As with Kay and Hargreaves, Crompton was not able to exploit his invention for his own profit, and died a pauper.
In 1784, Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom, and produced a prototype in the following year. His initial venture to exploit this technology failed, although his advances were recognised by others in the industry. Others – such as Robert Grimshaw (whose factory was destroyed in 1790 as part of the growing reaction against the mechanization of the industry) and Austin – developed the ideas further.
In 1803, William Radcliffe invented the dressing frame (patented under the name of Thomas Johnson) which enabled power looms to operate continuously, and this fueled the take-off of steam-powered weaving such that by 1823 there were estimated to be 10,000 power looms in operation in Great Britain.
The use of water power to drive mills was quickly adopted by many entrepreneurs, and one example is Samuel Greg. He joined his uncle's firm of textile merchants, and, on taking over the company in 1782, he sought out a site to establish a mill. Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire still exists as a well preserved museum, having been in use from its construction in 1784 until 1959. It illustrates how the mill owners exploited child labour, taking orphans from nearby Manchester, but also shows that these children were housed, clothed, fed and provided with some education. This mill also shows the transition from water power to steam power, with steam engines to drive the looms being installed in 1810.
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