There is always a strain of romance, or at least adventure, in the life of the itinerant pedlar, something of the free-footedness of the gypsy, and something of the acumen of those Eastern traders who traveled in caravans from the Orient. But doubtless we see the charm more clearly than the traveler himself. It may have been, and most likely was, a workaday job for Richard Arkwright. But consider the romance that underlay it! This country vendor of hair was to become one of the world’s great inventors, and to kneel before his sovereign for the accolade that was to make him knight. Figaro of Seville, famed as he was, was none superior to the Lancashire barber.
He traveled much through South Lancashire and Cheshire, and there he came in daily contact with the cotton-spinners. A weaver of great ingenuity and tireless purpose, James Hargreaves, had invented what was known as a spinning-jenny, an arrangement by which many spindles, fastened in a wooden frame, would work together by the turning of a fly-wheel. This machine could do the work of many spinners, and in a much shorter time. The rovings of cotton went under a bar-clasp that took the place of the spinner’s finger and thumb. This bar-clasp could be moved backward and forward on a rod as the spinner’s hand would do when stretching the thread and winding it on. It had a precision of action that resulted in a much greater regularity in the spun thread than by the earlier process. It was a very ingenious device, and Hargreaves deserved the greatest credit for the skill with which he solved the problem.
But the spinners did not take kindly to this improvement. When they discovered that Hargreaves could do more spinning with less work with his machine, and could supply his own loom with all the woof that was needed instead of keeping three or four spinners employed, they grew highly indignant. They did not realize that the demand for cotton cloth was far greater than the supply, and that they could all be profitably employed operating the spinning-jenny. That panic which has so often come over people when they learn of a new device entering their field of action struck the cotton-spinners, and Hargreaves was regarded as a foe rather than a friend. Hargreaves was driven from Lancashire to Nottingham, and many of his larger jennies were broken by mobs. A few of the smaller machines were saved, but the people’s mind was very evident.
Hargreaves’ improvement on the old-fashioned spinning-wheel dates from 1767, though he himself, it is said, had first used such a machine in 1764. Two men, Wyatt and Paul, of Birmingham, had earlier built a machine to spin stronger yarn than that usually used, but their machine had shown many defects, and they had abandoned its use. Arkwright knew of Hargreaves’ jenny, but not of the other machine, and as he came upon none in use in his travels he cannot be held to have been under any obligations to this earlier device.
The manufacture of cotton goods was in a primitive state in England. Pure cotton fabrics could not be made, and the fustians that were produced had a warp of linen yarn in them, due to the fact that no way was known by which cotton yarn of sufficient strength could be spun. Arkwright soon learned these difficulties that arose from the absence of cotton warp and the deficiency of cotton weft, and his alert mind commenced to wonder whether he could not so improve on Hargreaves’ jenny as to overcome these difficulties. He was not a skilled mechanic himself, and so, when he decided to take up the subject, he employed a clockmaker, named Kay, to help him. Realizing the hostility to any improvement on the part of the cotton-spinners, he gave out that he was engaged in building a machine to solve the world-old problem of perpetual motion.
Under this cloak he worked, and soon found that his new occupation was vastly more interesting than that of dealer in wigs had been. He was a shrewd man, and therefore, when he withdrew from that trade in 1767, it is probable that he foresaw that he was on the track of something better. His idea was that cotton could be spun by rollers, and he said that this thought occurred to him as he happened to watch a red-hot iron bar lengthened out by passing between two rollers. But the iron would necessarily have to be drawn out in such a process, while the cotton wool could be indefinitely packed together. It would have to be taken hold of, and forcibly stretched as it passed through the pair of rollers, if it were to be drawn out, and not merely compressed. His solution of this problem was a machine that had two pairs of rollers, which were called drawing-rollers, the first pair of which revolved slowly in contact with each other, while the second pair revolved more rapidly in a similar way. One roller of each pair was covered with leather, and the other was fluted lengthwise. The two were pressed together by means of weights. In this manner the adhesion of the cotton wool was safely secured, and there was no chance of the rollers slipping around without drawing it in. The cotton passed through the two pairs of rollers, and its extension depended entirely on the difference in the velocity of the revolutions of the two pairs. When the proper fineness had been obtained in this way, the cotton, as it passed from the second pair of rollers, was twisted into a firm strong thread by spindles attached to the frame.
Arkwright realized that he must have assistance in order to put his machines on the market. He applied to a Mr. Atherton, and the latter, although he considered the venture a hazardous one, sent him two workmen to help in building his first machine. When this was finished Arkwright went with it to Preston, and there set up his spinning-frame and began to use it in a room of the house that belonged to the Free Grammar School. His experiments convinced him of its success. Then he thought how he could best introduce his machine with least risk of rousing the popular fury. John Smalley, a liquor merchant and painter, had helped him build his machine, and after consultation, the two men decided to take the spinning-jenny to Nottingham, which lay in the heart of the frame-work stocking trade.
Sir Richard Arkwright
Arkwright’s great opportunity lay in the fact that the manufacture of cotton hosiery had hitherto had to be carried on on a limited scale, owing to the difficulty of obtaining yarn that was sufficiently strong for the stocking-frames that were then used. At first he and John Smalley were associated with the Messrs. Wright, Nottingham bankers, but these bankers, figuring on the experience that had befallen the inventors of other spinning machines, soon withdrew their aid. But Arkwright was more fortunate in his next step. Samuel Need, a Nottingham manufacturer of stockings, and his partner, Jedediah Strutt, of Derby, who had himself invented a device for making ribbed stockings, became interested in his machine, tested it carefully, and with the experience they had already gained as practical manufacturers, decided in its favor. It was their approval that started Arkwright on the road to fortune.