The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

The spinning-frame of Arkwright was the result of inventive power of a higher and rarer order than that necessary to originate the spinning-jenny. It was much more than a mere development of the old hand-wheel. It involved the application of a new principle, that of spinning by rollers, and in the delicate adjustment of its various parts and the nice regulation of the different mechanical forces called into operation, so as to make them properly subordinate to the accomplishment of one purpose, we have the first adequate examples of those beautiful and intricate mechanical contrivances that have transformed the whole character of the manufacturing industries. The spinning-frame consisted of four pairs of rollers, acting by tooth and pinion. The top roller was covered with leather to enable it to take hold of the cotton, the lower one fluted longitudinally to let the cotton pass through it. By one pair of rollers revolving quicker than another the rove was drawn to the requisite fineness for twisting, which was accomplished by spindles or flyers placed in front of each set of rollers. The original invention of Arkwright has neither been superseded nor substantially modified, although it has of course undergone various minor improvements.

The first spinning-mill of Arkwright was driven by horses, but finding this method too expensive, as well as incapable of application on a sufficiently large scale, he resolved to use water-power, which had already been successfully applied for a similar purpose, notably in the silk-mill erected by Thomas Lombe, on the Derwent at Derby in 1717. In 1771 Arkwright therefore went into partnership with Mr. Reed, of Nottingham, and Mr. Strutt, of Derby, the possessors of patents for the manufacture of ribbed stockings, and erected his spinning-frame at Cromford, in Derbyshire, in a deep, picturesque valley near the Derwent, where he could obtain an easy command of water-power from a never-failing spring of warm water, which even during the severest frost scarcely ever froze. From the fact that the spinning-frame was driven by water, it came to be known as the water-frame; since the application of steam it has been known as the throstle. As the yarn it produced was of a much harder and firmer texture than that spun by the jenny, it was specially suited for warp, but the Lancashire manufacturers declined to make use of it. Arkwright and his partners therefore wove it at first into stockings, which, on account of the smoothness and equality of the yarn, were greatly superior to those woven from the hand-spun cotton.

In 1773 he began to use the thread as warp for the manufacture of calicoes, instead of the linen warp formerly used together with the cotton weft, and thus a cloth solely of cotton was for the first time produced in England. It met at once with a great demand, but, on account of an act passed in 1736 for the protection of the woollen manufactures of England against the calicoes of India, it was liable to a double duty, which at the instance of the Lancashire manufacturers was speedily enforced. Notwithstanding their strenuous opposition, Arkwright, however, in 1774 obtained an act specially exempting from extra duty the "new manufacture of stuffs wholly made of raw cotton-wool." Up to this time more than twelve thousand pounds had been expended by Arkwright and his partners on machinery, with little or no return; but after the new act the cotton manufacture created by his energy and genius developed with amazing rapidity, until it became the leading industry of the North of England.