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Richard Arkwright Biography

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ARKWRIGHT, Sir Richard (1732-92). Celebrated for his invention of cotton-spinning machinery, was born at Preston, in Lancashire, England. Of humble origin, the youngest of 13 children, and bred to the trade of a barber, his early opportunities of cultivation were exceedingly limited. In 1761 he gave up his business as a barber in Bolton, to become a traveling dealer in hair, and the profits of his trade were increased considerably by a secret process for dyeing hair which he had acquired. His residence in the midst of a cotton-spinning population naturally led him to take an interest in the processes used in that manufacture, and his mind was soon turned toward improved methods. Having no practical skill in mechanics, he secured the services of a watchmaker, named Kay, to assist him in the construction of his apparatus. About 1767 he seems to have given himself wholly up to inventions in cotton-spinning machinery. In the following year he removed to Preston, where he set up his first machine, the celebrated spinning-frame, consisting chiefly of two pairs of rollers, the first pair, which were in contact, revolving with a slow motion and passing the cotton to the other pair, which revolved with such increased velocity as to draw out the thread to the required degree of fineness A subsequent operation was to spin the yarn from these threads. No previously invented machinery had been able to produce cotton thread of sufficient tenuity and strength to be used as warp. An invention, indeed, by Charles Wyatt of Birmingham, which was patented in 1738, but never succeeded, deprives Arkwright of the honor of having been the first to use rollers in spinning; but there is no reason to behave that he owed anything to this previous attempt. The first suggestion of the idea, he said, was derived from seeing a red-hot iron bar elongated by being made to pass between rollers. At this time Arkwright was so poor that he needed to be furnished with a suit of clothes before he could appear to vote at an election as a burgess of Preston. Soon after, he removed to Nottingham, to escape the popular rage, which had already driven Hargreaves, the inventor of the spinning-jenny, out of Lancashire. Here he fortunately fell in with Jedediah Strutt of Derby, the celebrated improver of the stocking-frame, who entered into partnership with him, in conjunction with his partner, Mr. Reed. In 1769 Arkwright set up his first mill, driven by horses, and took out a patent for his invention. In 1771 he set up a larger factory, with water power at Cromford, in Derbyshire. Not only was his labour-saving machinery well arranged and ingeniously devised, but he effected such a division of labor and organization of his employees that the greatest efficiency of production was secured. From these mills of Arkwright the modern factory system takes its origin. He was one of the first to introduce the steam engine into his factories, and the mill at Nottingham was supplied With a Boulton and watts steam-engine of 1790 . The remarkable capabilities of his mind were strikingly evinced in the management of the great business. In 1775 he took out a fresh patent for various additional improvements in machinery. The success attending these undertakings stimulated rivals to invade his patent; and to such an extent did other cotton-spinners use his designs that he was obliged, in 1781, to prosecute at once nine different manufacturers. The first action against Colonel Mordaunt, backed by a strong combination of Lancashire manufacturers, was lost, solely on the ground that the description in his specification was not sufficiently clear and distinct. The other actions were abandoned; and in the following year Arkwright published a pamphlet containing a statement of his case. In a new trial, in 1785, he obtained a favorable verdict. The whole question, however, was brought finally before the Court of King's Bench, a few months after , when Arkwright's claim to the inventions patented was for the first time called in question. On the doubtful evidence of a person named Highs, or Hayes, combined with that of Arkwright's old assistant, Kay, the jury decided against him, and his patent was annulled. This was but the formal outcome of an opposition which had from the beginning marked out Arkwright as an object of hostility. The manufacturers at first combined to discountenance the use of his yarn. When the yarn was made into calicoes, and Parliament was petitioned to lessen the duty on that cloth, they strenuously opposed the measure, but in vain. Popular animosity was also excited against the man who apparently displaced labor but in reality increased its sphere; and on one occasion a large factory belonging to Arkwright was destroyed in the presence of a powerful military and police force, without a word of interference from the magistrates. The energy and good sense of Arkwright triumphed over all opposition, and at the time of his death, in 1792, the value of his property amounted to about $500,000. In 1786 he was appointed high sheriff of Derbyshire and was also knighted by George III. Consult Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture (London, 1861), and Ure, The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain (London, n.d.). See Spinning