The early English cotton industry

by George W. Daniels

Certainly there was faith in the invention, and Paul himself claimed that, in the course of twenty years, he made more than £20,000 out of it as patentee.[249] It was used in at least one factory at London, in one at Birmingham, and in one at Northampton. The machinery at Birmingham was turned by animal-power, and at Northampton by water-power, and at the latter place fifty hands were employed in the factory.[250] It seems evident, however, that, whatever the reason, when the term of the patent expired in 1752 faith in the invention had also largely expired, and Paul attempted to get it introduced into a Foundling Hospital in London.[251] During the next six years he made improvements in the machine, and in 1758 obtained another patent for it, but shortly afterwards he died, and the honour of carrying the use of rollers in spinning to a successful issue was left to others.[252]

But it is not only in connection with spinning that Paul’s name has to be remembered. Whatever failings he may have had, he was certainly a man of an inventive turn of mind. It is recorded that in 1742 he granted a licence in consideration of £200, for the right to use a “pinking” machine he had invented.[253] But more important in relation to the cotton industry was his invention of a carding-machine, for which he secured a patent in 1748.[254] Earlier in the same year a man named Daniel Bourne had also taken out a patent for a carding-machine,[255] and after a time the principal processes of the two machines were combined in one machine, though it is to Paul’s invention that the most important method of carding the finer qualities of cotton at the present day is traced.[256] Both these machines, however, were lacking in that they had no “doffing” arrangement, which prevented continuous working, but the deficiency in this respect was afterwards removed by Arkwright with his crank and comb device, while others improved the imperfect feeding arrangement.[257]

Paul’s carding-machine did not find its way into Lancashire until about 1760, when it was introduced by a man named Morris, who lived in the neighbourhood of Wigan.[258] Soon afterwards it was adopted, or one based upon it made, by the founder of the famous Peel family at Blackburn, who, in carrying on his experiments, employed James Hargreaves, best known in connection with the “spinning-jenny.” For a long time it was supposed that the credit for the crank and comb was due to Hargreaves, but later it was recognised that it more properly belonged to Arkwright.[259]

By 1760 the need for improvements in spinning had become more than pressing, and this decade marks a period of great activity and great achievements, though, as already suggested, it was not so much a period of new achievements as one in which efforts extending over more than a generation attained success. In 1754 a patent for a spinning-machine had been taken out by a man named Taylor, but it does not appear to have come to anything.[260] In 1761 the Society of Arts issued an advertisement offering rewards “for the best invention of a machine that will spin six threads of wool, flax, hemp, or cotton at one time, and that will require but one person to work and attend it,” and several were forthcoming, but apparently none was completely satisfactory. One six-thread machine, however, was examined by the Committee of Manufacturers in 1763 and a reward granted to the person who had presented it.[261]

In the year following the grant of this reward, James Hargreaves is supposed to have conceived the invention of the “spinning-jenny,”[262] though it did not become prominent before 1767 and was not patented until 1770. In the meantime, Arkwright had brought the method of spinning by rollers to a stage at which he could apply for a patent, which he obtained in 1769. When the two methods of spinning are compared, it may be seen that spinning by rollers was the greater departure from the customary method of spinning cotton.

When cotton has been carded, its transformation into yarn consists in gradually attenuating the cotton and twisting it into a thread. In the eighteenth century, the whole process could be definitely divided into two stages. In the first, the carded cotton was made into a continuous but comparatively thick cord called roving; in the second, the roving was attenuated and spun into yarn. The spinning operation was therefore a continuation of the roving operation, and with the ordinary spinning-wheel both were performed in essentially the same way. In spinning, the roving was attached to the spindle, and the spinner with one hand extended the roving, and with the other turned the wheel, which caused the spindle to revolve, and thus gave the necessary twist to the attenuated roving. When this operation had been performed, the spinner, with one hand, again turned the wheel, the spindle again revolving, this time to wind the yarn upon it, while the other hand was engaged in giving in the yarn for the winding. Clearly this system admitted of only one thread being spun at a time.

In the invention of the “jenny” the action of that hand of the spinner which attenuated the roving and gave in the yarn for winding was mechanically reproduced, but instead of the spinner being able to operate only one spindle, as many could be operated as could be conveniently introduced. The bobbins round which the rovings were coiled, and the spindles, were fixed in a frame. The ends of the rovings were attached to the spindles, passing between a clasp arrangement which formed part of a movable carriage. While the clasp was open, the carriage was first drawn out from the spindles until the required length of rovings for spinning had passed through. Then the clasp was closed, and the rovings, thus gripped, were attenuated by the carriage being drawn further out. Simultaneously, the wheel, which caused the spindles to revolve, was turned to give the required twist to the thread. Then, as the carriage was moved back to its first position, the wheel was again slowly turned, this time to wind the spun thread on the spindles. Thus the action of one hand of the spinner remained the same, but the other was now used in opening and closing the clasp and in moving the carriage to and fro.

From the beginning, the effect of this invention was to multiply many times the amount of yarn that could be spun by a spinner, and the size of the jenny was soon increased. In 1767 it was said to contain eight spindles; when Hargreaves took out his patent in 1770 the specification mentioned sixteen or more; in 1784 the number had increased to eighty; and ultimately as many as one hundred and twenty are said to have been introduced.[263] Although the jenny did not make the rovings, and its movements depended upon hand power, it represented a great advance in spinning, and its mechanism was so simple that it could be worked by children.[264] The thread it produced, however, was not completely satisfactory for the warp in cotton goods, as it was not “capable of giving that hardness of twist and fineness which was necessary to form the threads of the warp.”[265]

This defect was supplied by the invention of spinning by rollers patented by Arkwright—the water-frame as it came to be called—as the characteristic feature of the yarn thus spun was its suitability for the warp. The jenny and the water-frame, therefore, were complementary rather than substitutional machines. When the patent for spinning by rollers was taken out in 1769, as with the jenny, it was still intended that the rovings should be made on the spinning-wheel. But with Arkwright’s method, instead of the rovings being attenuated by a long stretch, the operation was performed by their passing between rollers moving at different velocities, which had the same effect. For the twisting and the winding of the thread the “Flier” spindle mentioned in connection with the “Saxony” wheel was utilised. Consequently, the spinning and winding operations proceeded simultaneously, whereas with the jenny they were intermittent.[266]

Before Arkwright obtained his second patent in 1775, sometimes called the “carding” patent, the roller method had been extended to the rovings, and as he and others had effected the improvements, already mentioned, in the carding machine, the whole of the operations required in transforming the raw cotton into yarn could be performed by machinery.[267]