need in his time of mechanical aids, and secondly, he was highly
talented as a business man. In 1775 he followed up his patent of
1769 with another relating to machinery for carding, drawing and
roving. The latter patent was widely infringed, and Arkwright
was compelled to institute nine actions in 1781 to defend his
rights. An association of Lancashire spinners was formed to
defend them, and by the one that came to trial the patent was
set aside on the ground of obscurity in the specifications.
Arkwright again attempted to recover his patent rights in 1785,
after the first patent had been in abeyance for two years. Before
making this further trial of the courts he had thought of proceeding
by petition to parliament, and had actually drawn up his
“case,” which he was ultimately dissuaded from presenting.
In it he prayed not only that the decision of 1781 should be set
aside, but that both patents should be continued to him for the
unexpired period of the second patent, i.e. until 1789. In his
“case” (i.e. the petition mentioned above) Arkwright stated that
he had sold to numbers of adventurers residing in the different
counties of Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Worcester, Stafford,
York, Hertford and Lancaster, many of his patent machines, and
continued: “Upon a moderate computation, the money expended
in consequence of such grants (before 1782) amounted
to at least £60,000. Mr Arkwright and his partners also expended
in large buildings in Derbyshire and elsewhere upwards of
£30,000, and Mr Arkwright also erected a very large and extensive
building in Manchester at the expense of upwards of £4000.
Thus a business had been formed which already (he calculated)
employed upwards of five thousand persons, and a capital on the
whole of not less than £200,000.”[1] It is impossible to discover
exactly the rights of the matter. Certainly Arkwright had been
intentionally obscure in his specifications, as he admitted, and
for his defence, namely that it was to preserve the secret for his
countrymen, there was only his word. He may have hoped to
keep the secret for himself; and as to the originality of both
inventions there were grave doubts. But Arkwright has received
little sympathy, because his claims were regarded as grasping in
view of the large fortune which he had already won. He began
work with his first partners at Nottingham (when power was
derived from horses) and started at Cromford in 1771 (where the
force of water was used). Soon he was involved in numerous
undertakings, and he remained active till his death in 1792.
He had met throughout with a good deal of opposition, which
possibly to a man of his temperament was stimulating. Even in
the matter of getting protective legislation reframed to give
scope to the application of the water-frame, a powerful section of
Lancashire employers worked against him. This protective
legislation must here be shortly reviewed.
In 1700 an act had been passed (11 & 12 William III. c. 10) prohibiting the importation of the printed calicoes of India, Persia and China. In 1721 the act 7 George I. c. 7 prohibited the use of any “printed, painted, stained or dyed calico,” excepting only calicoes dyed all blue and muslins, neckcloths and fustians. This act was modified by the act 9 George II. c. 4 (allowing British calicoes with linen warps). Thus the matter stood as regards prints when Arkwright had demonstrated that stout cotton warps could be spun in England, and at the same time the officers of excise insisted upon exacting a tax of 6d. from the plain all-cottons instead of the 3d. paid by the cotton-linens, on the ground that the former were calicoes. Arkwright’s plea, however, was admitted, and by the act 14 George II. c. 72 the still operative part of the act of 1721 was set aside, and the manufacture, use, and wear of cottons printed and stained, &c., was permitted subject to the payment of a duty of 3d. per sq. yd. (the same as the excise on cotton-linens) provided they were stamped “British manufactory.” The duty was varied from time to time until its repeal in 1832.
Some more powerful force than that of man or horse was soon needed to work the heavy water-frames. Hence Arkwright placed his second mill on a water-course, fitting it with a water-wheel, and until the steam-engine became economical most of the new twist mills were built on water-courses. On rare occasions the old fire-engines seem to have been tried.
The following passage quoted from a note in Barnes’s History illustrates the pressing need of the early mills: “On the river Irwell, from the first mill near Bacup, to Prestolee, near Bolton, there is about 900 ft. of fall available from mills, 800 of which is occupied. On this river and its branches it is computed that there are no less than three hundred mills. A project is in course of execution to increase the water-power of the district, already so great and so much concentrated, and to equalize the force of the stream by forming eighteen reservoirs on the hills, to be filled in times of flood, and to yield their supplies in the drought of summer. These reservoirs, according to the plan, would cover 270 acres of ground, and contain 241,300,000 cub. ft. of water, which would give a power equal to 6600 horses. The cost is estimated at £59,000. One reservoir has been completed, another is in course of formation, and it is probable that the whole design will be carried into effect.”[2]
As early as 1788 there were 143 water-mills in the cotton industry of the United Kingdom, which were distributed as follows among the counties which had more than one.[3]
| Lancashire | 41 | Flintshire | 3 |
| Derbyshire | 22 | Berkshire | 2 |
| Nottinghamshire | 17 | Lanarkshire | 4 |
| Yorkshire | 11 | Renfrewshire | 4 |
| Cheshire | 8 | Perthshire | 3 |
| Staffordshire | 7 | Midlothian | 2 |
| Westmorland | 5 | Isle of Man | 1 |
The need of water to drive Arkwright’s machinery, and its value for working other machinery, caused a strong decentralizing tendency to show itself in the cotton industry at this time, but more particularly in the twist-spinning branch. Ultimately the steam-engine (first used in the cotton industry in 1785) drew all branches of the industry into the towns, where the advantages of their juxtaposition—i.e. the external economies of centralization—could be enjoyed. Out of the crowding of the mills in one locality sprang the business specialism which has continued up to the present day. Here it will not be out of place to notice the appearance of the new power, electricity, in the cotton industry, the extension of which may involve striking economic changes. The first electric-driven spinning-mill in Lancashire, that of the “Acme” Spinning Company at Pendlebury, the work of which is confined to the ring-frame, was opened in 1905. Power is obtained from the stations of the Lancashire Power Company at Outwood near Radcliffe, some 5 m. distant.
The chief principle of the water-frame was the drawing out of the yarn to the required degree of tenuity by sets of gripping rollers revolving at different speeds. This principle is still applied universally. Twist was given by a “flyer” revolving round the bobbin upon which the yarn was being wound; the spinning so effected was known as throstle-spinning. The plan is still common in the subsidiary processes of the cotton industry, but for spinning itself the ring-frame, which appears to have been invented simultaneously in England and the United States (the first American patent is dated 1828), is rapidly supplanting the throstle-frame,[4] though the “ooziness” of mule yarn has not yet been successfully imitated by ring-frame yarn. The great invention relating to weft-spinning was the jenny, introduced by James Hargreaves probably about 1764, and first tried in a factory four years later.[5] Hargreaves unfortunately was unable to maintain his patent, because he had sold jennies before applying for protection. Crompton’s mule, which combined the principles of the rollers and the jenny, was perfected about 1779. Both jennies and mules were known as “wheels,” because they were worked in part by the turning of a wheel. As they could be set in motion without using much power, being light when of moderate
- ↑ Baines p. 183.
- ↑ Baines’s History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 86 n.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ See article on Cotton-spinning Machinery.
- ↑ 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.
