| Who
was Richard Arkwrigh? Inventor of the first practical
method of mechanical spinning of fibres by using rollers.

Date and Place of
Birth: 23rd December 1732, Preston, Lancashire, England.
Family Background:
The youngest of seven children born to the tailor Thomas
Arkwright and his wife Ellen, who were working, but not poor,
parents.
Education:
Taught to read and write by his Cousin Ellen. Apprenticed
to a barber.
Chronology:
1748: Lewis Paul
invented a machine for carding cotton which was to influence Arkwright.
1750: Moved to
Churchgate in Bolton, Lancashire and worked as a barber in his
own business. He was one of the first people to make a profitable
business dyeing hair.
1762: Started
his own wig-making business, which involved him traveling the
country to collect people's discarded hair. Opened his first tavern
as a money spinner in Bolton. On his travels Arkwright met John
Kay in Warrington who was a clockmaker and inventor. He had been
working on a spinning-machine with Thomas Highs of Leigh but due
to shortage of funds they could not continue their project. Arkwright
took them on as he was impressed by their ideas for improving
James Hargreave's "Spinning Jenny". In short the three
rollers made threads far stronger than anything that had come
before.
1767: Moved to
Preston with John Kay, and joined forces with John Smalley and
David Thornley where he took out his patent on what has become
known as the spinning frame. This was the first industrial scale
spinner to give cotton thread weave strong enough to form the
warp for commercial cloths. Arkwright realised that horse power
was not enough to power his machinery and investigated water power.
1768: (April)
Moved to Nottingham to avoid the machine-breakers in Lancashire.
There he set up a small mill in Woolpack Lane near Hargreaves's
jenny mill.
1769: Arkwright
approached Ichabod Wright, a banker from Nottingham, in search
of funds to expand his business. He in turn introduced him to
Jedediah Strutt of Derby and Samuel Need.
1771: He formed
a partnership with Strutt and Need and set up a factory powered
by water at Cromford in Derbyshire next to the River Derwent and
the machinery became known as the water frame. He employed local
families and while the women and children worked in the factories
the men worked at home making the yarn into cloth.
1775: Took out
another Patent described modifications to his carding engine machinery.
Arkwright and his partners finally persuaded the Government to
remove the crippling import tariff on raw cotton, which had been
imposed earlier in order to protect the woolen industry.
1779: His mill
in Chorley, Lancashire was destroyed by a mob of labourers who
burnt it down as a protest against his machinery which reduced
the need for manual labour.
1781: Several
rival manufacturers were setting up using his ideas and he prosecuted
nine companies for breach of his patents. (April) Samuel Need
died and Jedediah Strutt decided to break up the partnership as
he was worried that Arkwright was expanding his factories too
fast. He went on to build factories in Manchester, other parts
of Lancashire, Staffordshire and Scotland.
1783: Built Masson
Mills at Matlock Bath, Derbyshire.
1785: His Patents
were cancelled as it was proved in the Court of King's Bench that
the intellectual property for many of the inventions lay not with
him but with a selection of his partners, friends and rivals.
His talent, however, if not as an inventor was to turn these machines
into practical reality. His main invention was to start the factory
system.
1786: Knighted
by King George the Third.
1787: Became High
Sheriff of Derbyshire.
1790: Always looking
towards new technology he introduced the steam engine, originally
developed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton,
into his plant in Nottingham. Arkwright's employees worked mainly
from six in the morning to seven in the evening and unlike many
other factory owners who used children of five he said that they
should be over six years old. At this time nearly three quarters
of his factory employees were children. At his death he was a
very rich man and the "Gentleman's Magazine claimed that
his fortune was well over £500,000 pounds at his death which
would be several hundred millions today.
Marriage:
1. 1755 to Patience Holt.
2. 1761 to Margaret Biggens.
Places of Interest
DERBYSHIRE:
Cromford
Masson Mills, Matlock Bath, (Still in existence but no longer
a working mill).
LANCASHIRE:
Lewis Textile Museum, Exchange Street, Blackburn
holds replica machine.
Preston Museum
Bolton Museum
Date and Place of
Death: 3rd August
1792, Cromford, Derbyshire, England.
Age at Death:
59.
Site of Grave:
St. Mary’s Church, Cromford, Derbyshire, England.
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