John Kay: Flying Shuttle
John Kay was born in Lancashire, England in 1704. In 1733, at the age of 29, Kay patented his flying shuttle. "Kay placed shuttle boxes at each side of the loom connected by a long board, known as a shuttle race. By means of cords attached to a picking peg, a single weaver, using one hand, could cause the shuttle to be knocked back and forth across the loom from one shuttle box to the other." (web311.pavilion.net/SCkay.htm)
Weavers using Kay's Flying Shuttle were producing wider cloth at speeds unheard of. However, many woollen manufacturers using Kay's Flying Shuttle neglected to pay him royalties. The costs of using the courts to obtain the money owed to him nearly ruined Kay.
In 1753 Kay's house in Bury was ransacked by a mob of textile workers who feared that his machines would destroy their livelihood. This caused Kay to leave England for France where he is believed to have died a pauper in about 1780.
Source: web311.pavilion.net/SCkay.htm
(Flying Shuttle)
James Hargreaves: Spinning-Jenny
James Hargreaves was born in Blackburn in 1720. He received no formal education and was unable to read or write. In 1764 Hargreaves built what became known as the Spinning-Jenny. "The machine used eight spindles onto which the thread was spun from a corresponding set of rovings. By turning a single wheel, the operator could now spin eight threads at once. The thread that the machine produced was coarse and lacked strength, making it suitable only for the filling of weft, the threads woven across the warp. Originally Hargreaves produced the machine for family use but when he began to sell the machines, spinners from Lancashire, fearing the possibility of cheaper competition, marched on his house and destroyed his equipment. Hargreaves did not apply for a patent for his Spinning-Jenny until 1770 and therefore others copied his ideas without paying him any money." (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SChargreaves.htm)
Eventually improvements were made to the Spinning-Jenny by others, and the number of threads was increased from eight to eighty. By the time of James Hargreaves death in 1778, over 20,000 Spinning-Jenny machines were in use in Britain. Source:www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SChargreaves.htm
(Spinning-Jenny)
Richard Arkwright: Water Frame
Richard Arkwright was born in Preston, England in 1732. Arkwright employed Kay along with other craftsment to help him work on a new machine, not long after they produced the Spinning-Frame. "Arkwright's machine involved three sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds. While these rollers produced yarn of the correct thickness, a set of spindles twisted the fibres firmly together. The machine was able to produce a thread that was far stronger than that made by the Spinning-Jenny produced by James Hargreaves." (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRarkwright.htm) The Spinning-Frame was too large to be operated by man-power and so it was decided to use power from the water-wheel. The first factory was set up in 1771 next to the Derwent River in Cromford, Derbyshire. The machine now became known as the Water-Frame. Upon Richard Arkwright's death in 1792, it is claimed by the Gentleman's Magazine that Arkwright was worth over £500,000. Source: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRarkwright.htm
(Water Frame)
Samuel Crompton: Spinning Mule
The Spinning Mule was invented by Samuel Crompton in 1775. It was really a hybrid that combined features of both the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame. The Spinning Mule turned out a much stronger, finer, and softer yarn which could be used in a variety of different textiles. However, it was particualary suited for the making of muslins.
Crompton sold the rights to his invention to a Bolton manufacturer because he was too porr to apply for a patent himself. The first generation of mules were small enough to be operated by hand, but by the 1790's larger versions were built with up to four hundred spindles!
Many factory owners purchased Crompton's mules, and many were now driven by the newly invented steam engines being produced by James Watt and Matthew Boulton. However, Crompton had sold the rights for his machine, and never saw a penny for it. Source: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TEXmule.htm
(Spinning Mule-1823)
Edmund Cartwright: Power Loom
In 1785, Edmund Cartwright took out a patent for his first Power Loom. However, in it's first stages it performed poorly. It was supposed to help with the speed and quality of weaving. (Power-Loom)
Eli Whitney: Cotton Gin
After travelling down south, Eli Whitney saw all the time wasted in extracting seeds from cotton. Within several months he had invented a small hand-cranked cotton gin. Later, larger ones could be driven by water or horse power. "One man and a horse will do more than fifty men with the old machines," wrote Whitney to his father. (www.eliwhitney.org/cotton.htm)
However, the cotton gin was easy to copy, and many farmers instead of paying Whitney for the invention, made their own version and called them "new inventions."
In 1802, Whitney sold his patent to South Carolina and aranged to sell the patent right to North Carolina and Tennessee. He never made the fortune of his cotton gin that he had dreamed of. Source: www.eliwhitney.org/cotton.htm
After opening a weaving mill in Doncaster in 1787, Cartwright began powering his looms with steam engines. The main task of his employees was to repair the broken threads on the machine. Although this generation of looms were performing well, Cartwright was poor and eventually went bankrupt.
"In 1802 William Horrocks patented an improved power-loom. It featured a more effective way of winding the woven cloth onto a beam at the back of the loom." (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TEXloom.htm) Eventually over a period of twent years, the Power Loom had been so improved that it was claimed a boy or girl of age fourteen to fifteen could manage two power-looms which would be able to produce over three times as much cloth as the best handweaver. The power-loom quickly became recognized and by 1850 over 250,000 cotton power-looms were being employed in Britain.
Source: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TEXloom.htm
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