After this, Hargreaves moved to Nottingham, where, with a Mr. Thomas James, he raised sufficient capital to erect a small mill; here he took out a patent in 1770,—one year after Arkwright had patented the water-frame. Before leaving Lancashire, Hargreaves made and sold to other weavers a number of jennies; and in spite of all opposition the importance of the invention led to its general use.
A desperate effort was made in 1779, during a period of distress, to put down the machine. A mob scoured the country for miles around Blackburn demolishing jennies and with them all carding-engines, water-frames, and other machinery; but the rioters spared the jennies which had only twenty spindles, as these were by this time admitted to be useful to the craftsmen. Not only the working classes, but the middle and even the upper classes entertained at this time a profound dread of machinery. The result of these riots was to drive spinners and other capitalists from the neighborhood of Blackburn to Manchester, increasing the importance of that rapidly growing town which was destined to become the world centre of the cotton industry.
The story of this early opposition to the introduction of machinery deserves attention not only as an interesting episode in the history of the factory, but because even to-day a similar opposition comes to the surface with each new improvement in the method of manufacture. It is also an interesting fact that Lord Byron made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in opposition to the Nottingham Riot Bills, introduced into Parliament for the protection of owners of machinery. There were two of these bills, one “for the more exemplary punishment of persons destroying or injurying any stocking- or lace-frames, or other machines or engines used in the frame-work knitting manufactory, or any articles or goods in such frames or machines”; the other “for the more effectual preservation of the peace within the county of Nottingham.”
These two bills were the result of rioting among the lacemakers of this county and their object was to increase the penalty for breaking machinery, from transportation to death, to permit the appointment of special constables in times of disturbance, and to establish watch and ward throughout the disturbed parts. These bills and the debates upon them throw a strong light upon the extent of the disturbances, and indicate the attitude of the government, at that time, toward the laboring poor.
The important inventions in carding and spinning led to a rapid advance in cotton manufacture; the new machines not only turned off a greater quantity of yarn than had been produced by hand, but the yarn was also of a superior quality. The water-frame spun a hard, firm yarn, well adapted for warps, while the jenny produced a soft yarn suitable for spinning weft; but the yarn produced on neither of these machines could be advantageously used for making the finer qualities of goods.
This defect in the spinning-machinery was remedied by still another device called the mule jenny, but now termed simply the mule, so named because it combined the principles of both Arkwright’s water-frame and Hargreaves’ jenny. The mule was invented by Samuel Crompton, a weaver living at Hall-in-the-Wood near Bolton. He commenced his experiments in 1774, but it was five years before he completed the machine. Crompton took out no patent and only regretted that public curiosity would not allow him to keep his little invention for himself. The mule was first known as the Hall-in-the-Wood wheel, then as the muslin wheel because it made yarn sufficiently fine for weaving that fabric, and finally by its present name.
As the inventor made no effort to secure a patent, the mule became public property, and was generally adopted by manufacturers, but Crompton himself received no other reward than a grant of five thousand pounds voted him by Parliament in 1812. Although his means were small, he was always in easy circumstances, until the latter part of his life, when, being no longer able to work, he was reduced to poverty. Certain manufacturers who had profited by his invention then subscribed for the purchase of a life annuity, to which fund foreign as well as English spinners contributed. Crompton died on January 26, 1827.
Having considered the inventions in the art of spinning, we now turn to the power loom built in 1785 by the Reverend Edmund Cartwright, of Hollander House, Kent. A loom moved by water power had been contrived as early as the seventeenth century by one De Gennes, and described as “a new engine to make linen cloth without the help of an artificer.” But the machine never came into general use; and in about the middle of the eighteenth century there is record of another power loom, also a French invention, which suffered a similar fate. Describing his own loom Cartwright says that in the summer of 1784 he fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester who were discussing Arkwright’s spinning-machinery. One of the company observed that, as soon as Arkwright’s patents expired, so many mills would be erected and so much cotton spun that hands could not be found to weave it.
To this observation the ingenious clergyman replied that Arkwright should set his wits to work to invent a weaving-mill. But the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impractical. Cartwright argued, however, that, having seen exhibited in London an automaton figure which played at chess, he did not believe it more difficult to construct a machine which would weave. He kept this conversation in mind and later employed a carpenter and a blacksmith to carry his ideas into effect. Thus he built a loom which, to his own delight, produced a piece of cloth. The machine, however, required two powerful men to work it, but Cartwright, who was entirely unfamiliar with the art of weaving, believed that he had accomplished all that was required, and on the 4th of April, 1785, he secured a patent. It was only then that he commenced to study the method by which the craftsmen wove cloth, and he was astonished when he compared the easy working of the hand loom with his own ponderous engine. Profiting by his study, however, he produced a loom which in its general principles is precisely the same as the looms used to-day.
Thus was invented the machinery of the cotton mill; but there remains to be considered the one other contrivance without which the vast extension of manufactures would have been impossible and the manufacturing towns, which we are about to consider, would never have attained the size and importance which enabled them to become factors in the political life of England. I refer to the steam engine.