Cotton Manufacturing

by Christopher Parkinson Brooks

In the general acceptance of the term, manufacturing is understood to refer to the whole range of processes which convert a raw material into the finished article, but whatever that word may usually signify, in the Cotton Trade it is technical for that department only, which comprises the conversion of cotton yarn into woven fabric, and as such is understood in the ensuing pages.

This department is frequently worked apart from spinning, and the gradual and marked severance of the cotton industry into the two great departments of spinning and manufacturing is a striking feature of this great trade, although the reason of cotton spinning finding so fertile a soil in South Lancashire is no more apparent than the cause of North Lancashire being so favourable to the prosperity of cotton weaving. Probably accidental causes in the early days of the trade had much to do with its future division—the fixing upon a South Lancashire town for the establishment of the first spinning machinist’s works, the fact that the factory system was firmly established in the spinning department before the working of looms in one building was possible, or at any rate advisable, and the existence of large warehouses in North Lancashire for distributing to the hand-loom weavers their materials for use, were probably some of these causes.

The fact of the trade being carried on in two divisions, each in different districts, has its disadvantages, the greatest being that of additional carriage—an extra cost of no inconsiderable amount. To remove this and other disadvantages, many attempts have been made to introduce the lacking department both in the North and South of Lancashire, but such attempts have generally failed to a greater or less extent, mainly in consequence of the incompetence of the hands, or rather the insufficient number of competent ones. Where the majority may excel in weaving, the number of good spinners is generally very small, and vice versâ. Another objection is the disadvantage at which the one party is placed should the production of one part of the industry exceed that of the other, the margin which might serve to provide remunerative occupation for both being at present often unequally distributed, the over-producer taking the lower position. On the contrary, there is no doubt that the skill of the operative is more greatly developed where one district takes up a specific branch of the sub-divided labour, and conducts it in a more fully equipped style, than would be the case were it to be attempted on a small scale.

The known pre-eminence of Manchester as the market town is attributed in part to the necessity for some common centre where a meeting of the representatives of each of these industries could take place to transact the business of the trade. The Exchange of Cottonopolis is that centre. Here, every day of the week, but more especially on the Tuesday and Friday market days from all parts where the cotton trade is conducted, the spinner goes to meet the manufacturer, the manufacturer to meet the merchant, who in turn represents all countries to which our manufactures are exported; and thus the Exchange has become, as it were, the heart of the trade, for on it depends the prosperity of the whole industry, and a stoppage or diminution of the business there paralyses the trade.

The movement of the cotton trade, like that of civilisation, has ever been westward. India is recognised as having been from time immemorial its home, and although there cotton has probably been in use for ages as clothing, there is no evidence to show that the substance was even known in Europe till the tenth, or that its manufacture was commenced in England till the end of the sixteenth, century. At that time the weavers used yarn made from “cotton wool,” as it was called, but which yarn was furnished by the Levant and only used for weft, linen forming the warp. However, the invention of simple hand-spinning apparatus rendered it possible for the ever-increasing demand for cotton yarn to be adequately supplied for a time by English spinsters, and it is chronicled that, in 1701, 1,900,000lb. of raw cotton were imported, although it is improbable that the whole of it was required for conversion into cloth. At the beginning of the eighteenth century such inventions as that of Kay’s fly shuttle so increased the output of the hand loom as to cause for some years a dearth of yarn. This had a good effect in inducing the great era of invention in cotton-spinning machinery, from 1760 to 1780; during which time Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and many lesser lights brought before the world the results of their labour. These inventions, the importance of which it is not necessary to refer to—their details and the story of their invention having been so frequently dilated upon—these created the cotton manufacture.

The cause which influenced the development of spinning machinery was antithetical to that which now caused an extension of the weaving, which was an excess of the supply of yarn, and for which the only consumers were the loomshops attached to scattered houses on the country side, containing one or two ponderous hand-looms.

It is rather more than a century since the Rev. E. Cartwright, a Kentish minister, first gave his attention to the invention of a power loom, and although his first patent in 1785 was not satisfactory, yet it is to this clergyman’s efforts that the world is indebted for the first power loom. In 1787, he patented such a machine, fitted with spring motion, batten or slay, temples, etc., with the addition of a protector and weft stop motion in an imperfect form. Nine years afterwards Robert Millar, of Glasgow, applied to it the means of picking by plates and shedding by tappets or wipers.

Here all the principles of the modern loom were present, although in very different form, and it is only in details that the loom of a century later presents a different aspect. In 1834 the weft stop motion was patented by Messrs. Ramsbottom and Holt, which was perfected seven years later and patented in its present form by Messrs. J. Bullough and Kenworthy, of Blackburn. To these gentlemen is due the invention of an improved dressing machine called a “tape,” the forerunner of slashing; also the take-up motion for cloth. They, too, patented the loose reed loom and the roller temple; but from records of the time and tales told by the older section of the community in Blackburn to-day, apparently, it is to John Osbaldeston "that the honour is due of breaking the concussion of the loom and inventing an improved temple. He also originated many of those inventive appliances so essential to adapt the power loom for weaving fancy goods, but was not successful in securing any pecuniary advantage to himself, thus illustrating the fact that not every benefactor of his species meets with the reward due to his merits."[1] The creative spirit which carried cotton-spinning machinery to so high a degree of perfection, was directed also to the improvement of the preparatory machinery of the weaving department.