Born in Preston, Lancashire on 23rd December 1732, Richard Arkwright was the youngest of thirteen children of a poor family. Originally trained to be a barber through an apprenticeship, around 1760, he switched trades and became a hair dealer, travelling around the country collecting hair and selling it on to wig makers.
Arkwright Builds his First Spinning Machine in Preston
At this time in industrial history, no method had yet been devised to spin cotton into a yarn that was strong enough to be used as warp threads. Consequently, calico was made using linen for the warp and cotton for the weft. The cotton was carded and spun by women and then woven by men. Because it was a manually intensive process, there was often not enough cotton ready for when the weaver needed it.
Arkwright set his mind to thinking about how to create a machine to spin cotton. In 1768, he built his first machine at Preston. However, faced with serious opposition from the local spinning community, he moved to Nottingham where he joined forces with Jedediah Strutt (the inventor of the stocking frame) and his business partner, Samuel Need.
Arkwright Builds his First Mills
In 1769 he patented his first spinning frame. This invention, which was different to the spinning jenny, because it used rollers, was capable of spinning many threads of different degrees of strength and thickness automatically. The only human intervention required was that someone had to feed the raw cotton into it and join the threads if they broke.
Arkwright, in partnership with Strutt and Need, built his first mill in Nottingham and used horses to power the machinery. However, this was a costly method of providing the necessary energy to turn the rollers, so, in 1771, the business consortium built a second mill at Cromford, near Matlock, Derbyshire, which was powered by a water wheel. It was this method of power that gave rise to Arkwright’s invention being called the water frame.
Arkwright was faced with serious opposition and animosity from other manufacturers once again, particularly in Lancashire, and they refused to buy his cotton yarn even though it was the best on the market. So, Arkwright, Strutt and Need began to weave their yarn into stockings and then began to produce their own calico cotton using the yarn as the warp thread.
Arkwright’s Patents are Challenged
Arkwright continued to perfect his machine and took out a new patent in 1775 which included other elements of the cotton yarn making machinery. His business empire continued to expand with more mills being built in the Midlands. In 1779, in a series of uprisings by disgruntled workers, one of his mills in Lancashire was severely damaged. He built Masson Mill at Matlock in 1783 which is now the home of a working textile museum.
However, in 1781, his right to this patent was challenged by other manufacturers on the grounds that the additional elements of the machinery were not his original idea. A lengthy court case ensued and finally, in November 1785, he lost the argument and his patent was cancelled by the Court. This allowed other businesses to build their own versions of his inventions but still Arkwright was able to amass a vast fortune.
Arkwright – High Sheriff of Derbyshire and Knight
Richard Arkwright was married twice, first in 1755 to Patience Holt who bore him his son and ultimate heir, Richard, and secondly, in 1761, to a Margaret Biggins from Pennington who bore him at least one daughter. In 1786 he was appointed by the King as the High Sheriff of Derbyshire. It was also in 1786 that he received his knighthood.
He died at his home of Rock House, Cromford on 3rd August 1792 and was initially buried at the church at Matlock before being re-interred at Cromford once the church there was completed. On his death, he left a fortune estimated to be in the region of half a million pounds.
References:
- Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction journal 1836
- Matlock Manor and Parish, Benjamin Bryan, 1903
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