[25] Baines’s History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 86 n.
[26] These figures are quoted from a pamphlet published in 1788 entitled “An Important Crisis in the Calico and Muslin Manufactory in Great Britain explained.” Many of the estimates given in this pamphlet are worthless, but there seems no reason why the figures quoted here should not be at least approximately correct.
[27] See article on Cotton-spinning Machinery.
[28] Hargreaves’ claim to this invention has been disputed, but no satisfactory evidence has been brought forward to disprove his claim. Hargreaves was a carpenter and weaver of Stand-hill near Blackburn, and died in 1778.
[29] See Chapman’s Lancashire Cotton Industry, pp. 59 et seq.
[30] See Baines p. 207.
[31] “Counts” are determined by the number of hanks to the lb. A hank is 840 yds. The origin of the hank of 840 yds. is probably that spinners used a winding-reel of 1½ yds. in circumference, so that 80 threads (one “lea” or “rap” according to old phraseology) would contain 120 yds., and seven leas (i.e. a hank) would contain 840 yds. A hank of seven leas was the common measure in the woollen industry, in which the reels were 1 yd. or 2 yds. in circumference. For details see an article on the subject in the Textile World Record, vol. xxxi. No. 1.
[32] The author of the memoir of Crompton (see bibliography).
[33] Specification 257.
[34] For further analysis of the arguments current see Chapman’s Lancashire Cotton Industry, pp. 66 et seq.