The Water Frame The Water Frame The Water Frame The Water Frame In 1762, Richard Arkwright , a wig-maker from Preston, heard about the attempts being made to produce new machines for the textile industry. Arkwright met John Kay , a clockmaker from Warrington, who had been busy for some time trying to produce a new spinning-machine with another man, Thomas Highs. Kay and Highs had run out of money and had been forced to abandon the project. Richard Arkwright was impressed by John Kay and offered to employ him to make this new machine. Arkwright also recruited other local craftsman to help, and it was not long before the team produced the Spinning-Frame . Arkwright's machine involved three sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds. While these rollers produced yarn of the correct thickness, a set of spindles twisted the fibres firmly together. The machine was able to produce a thread that was far stronger than that made by the Spinning-Jenny produced by James Hargreaves . The Spinning-Frame was too large to be operated by hand and so Richard Arkwright had to find another method of working his machine.

After experimenting with horses, Arkwright decided to employ the power of the water-wheel. In 1771 he set up a large factory next to the River Derwent in Cromford, Derbyshire. Arkwright's machine now became known as the Water-Frame. Richard Arkwright biography, list of Richard Arkwright inventions | edubilla.com : Inventor About Inventor Sir Richard Arkwright was an inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. Although the patents were eventually overturned, he is credited with inventing the spinning frame, which, following the transition to water power, was renamed the water frame. He also patented a rotary carding engine that transformed raw cotton into cotton lap. Arkwright's achievement was to combine power, machinery, semi-skilled labour and the new raw material (cotton) to create mass-produced yarn. His skills of organisation made him, more than anyone else, the creator of the modern factory system, especially in his mill at Cromford, Derbyshire. Later in his life Arkwright was known as 'the Father of the Industrial Revolution'.

Life and work Richard Arkwright, the youngest of 13 children, was born in Preston, Lancashire, England on 23 December 1732. His father, Thomas, was a tailor and a Preston Guild burgess. The family is recorded in the Preston Guild Rolls now held by Lancashire Record Office. Richard's parents, Sarah and Thomas, could not afford to send him to school and instead arranged for him to be taught to read and write by his cousin Ellen. Richard was apprenticed to a Mr Nicholson, a barber at nearby Kirkham, and began his working life as a barber and wig-maker, setting up a shop at Churchgate in Bolton in the early 1750s.It was here that he invented a waterproof dye for use on the fashionable 'periwigs' (wigs) of the time, the income from which later facilitated his financing of prototype cotton machinery. Arkwright married his first wife, Patience Holt, in 1755. They had a son, Richard Arkwright Junior, who was born the same year. In 1756, Patience died of unspecified causes.

Arkwright later married Margaret Biggins in 1761 at the age of 29 years. They had three children, of whom only Susanna survived to adulthood. It was only after the death of his first wife that he became an entrepreneur. Water frame On his own, Arkwright took an interest in spinning and carding machinery that turned raw cotton into thread. In 1768, he and John Kay, a clockmaker,briefly returned to Preston renting rooms in a house on Stoneygate, now known as Arkwright House, where they worked on a spinning machine. In 1769 Arkwright patented the spinning frame, which became known as the water-frame, a machine that produced a strong twist for warps, substituting wooden and metal cylinders for human fingers. This made possible inexpensive yarns to manufacture cheap calicoes, on which the subsequent great expansion of the cotton industry was based. Carding engine Lewis Paul had invented a machine for carding in 1748.

Richard Arkwright made improvements to this machine and in 1775 took out a patent for a new carding engine, which converted raw cotton buds into a continuous skein of cotton fibres which could then be spun into yarn. Arkwright and John Smalley set up a small horse-driven factory at Nottingham. Needing more capital to expand, Arkwright partnered with Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need, wealthy hosiery manufacturers, who were nonconformists. In 1771, the partners built the world's first water-powered mill at Cromford, worked with skilled labour. Arkwright spent £12,000 perfecting his machine, which contained the "crank and comb" for removing the cotton web from carding engines. He had mechanised all the preparatory and spinning processes, and he began to establish water-powered cotton mills even as far away as Scotland. His success encouraged many others to copy him, so he had great difficulty in enforcing the patent he was granted in 1775.

His spinning frame was a significant technical advance over the spinning jenny of James Hargreaves, in that very little training was required of his operatives, and it produced a strong yarn suitable for the warp of the cloth. Samuel Crompton was later to combine the two to form the spinning mule. Grand Patent By 1774 the firm employed 600 workers; in the next five years it expanded to new locations. He was invited to Scotland where he helped establish the cotton industry. A large new mill at Birkacre, Lancashire, was destroyed, however, in the anti-machinery riots in 1779. Arkwright in 1775 obtained for a grand patent covering many processes that he hoped would give him monopoly power over the fast-growing industry, but Lancashire opinion was bitterly hostile to exclusive patents; in 1781 Arkwright tried and failed to uphold his monopolistic 1775 patent. The case dragged on in court for years but was finally settled against him in 1785, on the grounds that his specifications were deficient and that he had borrowed his ideas from Leigh reed-maker Thomas Highs.

The story is that clock-maker Kay, who had been commissioned by Highs to make a working metal model of Highs's invention, had given the design to Arkwright, who formed a partnership with him.It was also said that he was an arrogant man. Arkwright factories Arkwright moved to Nottingham, formed a partnership with local businessmen Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need, and set up a mill powered by horses. But in 1771, he converted to water power and built a new mill in the Derbyshire village of Cromford. It soon became apparent that the small town would not be able to provide enough workers for his mill. So Arkwright built a large number of cottages near the mill and imported workers from outside the area. He also built the Greyhound public house which still stands in Cromford market square. In 1776 he purchased lands in Cromford,and in 1788 lands in Willersley, the vendor on both occasions being Peter Nightingale, the great-uncle of Florence Nightingale. Arkwright encouraged weavers with large families to move to Cromford.

Whole families were employed, with large numbers of children from the age of seven, although this was increased to ten by the time Richard handed the business over to his son; However, towards the end of his tenure, nearly two-thirds of Arkwright's 1,150 employees were children. He allowed employees a week's holiday a year, but on condition that they could not leave the village. He returned to his home county and took up the lease of the Birkacre mill at Chorley, a catalyst for the town's growth into one of the most important industrialised towns of the Industrial Revolution. In 1777 he leased the Haarlem Mill in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, where he installed the first steam engine to be used in a cotton mill, though this was used to replenish the millpond that drove the mill's waterwheel rather than to drive the machinery directly. Arkwright also created another factory, Masson Mill. It was made from red brick, which was expensive at the time.

In the mid-1780s, Arkwright lost many of his patents when courts ruled them to be essentially copies of earlier work.Despite this, he was knighted in 1786 and was High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1787. Aggressive and self-sufficient, Arkwright proved a difficult man to work with. He bought out all his partners and went on to build factories at Manchester, Matlock Bath, New Lanark (in partnership with David Dale) and elsewhere. Unlike most entrepreneurs, who were nonconformist, he attended the Church of England. Recognition Arkwright's achievements were widely recognised; he served as high sheriff of Derbyshire and was knighted in 1786.Much of his fortune derived from licensing his intellectual rights; about 30,000 people were employed in 1785 in factories using Arkwright's patents. He died at Rock House, Cromford, on 3 August 1792, aged 59, leaving a fortune of £500,000. He was buried at St. Giles Church in Matlock. His remains were later moved to St. Mary's Church in Cromford.

The Arkwright Society, set up after the bicentenary of Cromford Mill, now owns the site and works to preserve the industrial heritage of the area. Inventions Arkwright had previously assisted Thomas Highs, and there is strong evidence to support the claim that it was Highs, and not Arkwright, who invented the spinning frame. However, Highs was unable to patent or develop the idea for lack of finance. Highs, who was also credited with inventing a Spinning Jenny several years before James Hargreaves produced his, probably got the idea for the spinning frame from the work of John Wyatt and Lewis Paul in the 1730s and '40s. The machine used a succession of uneven rollers rotating at increasingly higher speeds to draw out the roving, before applying the twist via a bobbin-and-flyer mechanism. It could make cotton thread thin and strong enough for the warp, or long threads, of cloth. His main contribution was not so much the inventions as the highly disciplined and profitable factory system he set up at Cromford, which was widely emulated. There were two 13-hour shifts per day including an overlap.

Bells rang at 5 am and 5 pm and the gates were shut precisely at 6 am and 6 pm. Anyone who was late not only could not work that day but lost an extra day's pay. Richard Arkwright - a pioneer of the factory system at Cromford Mill in Derbyshire Richard Arkwright Richard Arkwright 1732-1792 Pioneer of the factory system at Cromford Mill in Derbyshire Richard Arkwright, a pioneer of the factory system, was born in 1732 in Preston, son of a barber. As a young man Arkwright worked as a barber and wig maker, and travelled around the country selling his wigs. His travels brought him into contact with people working in the cotton trade and having had some education and being ambitious, he realised that there was a fortune to be made from designing an efficient spinning machine. In 1768, Arkwright and a clockmaker from Warrington, called John Kay, looked at ways of producing a working model and perfected a roller spinning machine which came to be known as the spinning frame and later the water frame.

Before mechanization, spinning had always been done in houses and small workshops, where a spinning wheel was worked by hand or foot. This was a slow process and not enough yarn could be produced to keep pace with the knitters and weavers who turned the yarn into cloth and garments. James Hargreave's spinning Jenny was invented about 1764 and it has speeded up the production of yarn but it was difficult to operate and required skilled labour. The advantage of Arkwrights machine was that it could be operated by young people with very little learning. Thus with the development of the water frame, factory production became possible. Requiring finance to patent the machine, Arkwright found 2 partners in John Smalley and David Thornley. A patent was obtained in 1769 and with 2 more partners, Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need, they set up a horse powered mill in Nottingham. Horse power, however, proved expensive as well as unfeasable for large scale production. Arkwright was resolved to use water power and in 1771 began to build a water powered mill at Cromford in Derbyshire. Part of his new workforce was supplied locally from lead mining and agricultural families.

He advertised for the rest, often in the Matlock Mercury. He built up a whole new community in Cromford with cottages for his workers, a chapel, a school, the Greyhound Hotel and established a saturday market. The cottages in North Street are still there. Work was carried out in shifts as there was insufficent power available from the water to drive all the machinery at the same time, so spinning was done at night and preparation such as carding and combing carried on during the day. Children were employed from the age of 10 provided they had learnt to read. After success of his first mill, Arkwright spent some time perfecting his machinery, mechanizing carding and cleaning in order to keep pace with the spinning. He aquired a second patent in 1775 to include his new inventions. In 1776 he built a second mill on the same site. This mill was burnt down in 1890. He expanded his operations, building further mills in Derbyshire. Lancashire, Staffordshire and in Scotland. His techniques were copied throughout the world. Arkwright lived at Rock House next to the mill at Cromford.

In 1786 he was knighted by George 111 and in 1787 was made the High Sheriff of Derbyshire. He built Willersley Castle, standing on a hill above the mill at Cromford to match his new status, but died quite early at the age of 60 in 1792. He is buried at the church he built, just below the mill at Cromford. Belper Research Website: Richard Arkwright 1732: Born in Preston, Lancs. 1748: Lewis Paul invented a machine for carding cotton which was to influence Arkwright. 1750: Moved to Churchgate in Bolton, Lancashire and worked as a barber in his own business. 1755 Married Patience Holt, Richard Jnr born the same year. 1761 Married to Margaret Biggens 1762: Started his own wig-making business, which involved him traveling the country to collect people's discarded hair. Opened his first tavern as a money spinner in Bolton. Met John Kay and obtained a spinning-machine idea from him and Thomas Highs of Leigh.

1767: Moved to Preston with John Kay, and joined forces with John Smalley and David Thornley; patented spinning frame. 1768: (April) Moved to Nottingham to avoid the machine-breakers in Lancashire. There he set up a small mill in Woolpack Lane. 1769: Approached Ichabod Wright, a banker from Nottingham, in search of funds to expand his business. He in turn introduced him to Jedediah Strutt of Derby and Samuel Need. 1771: Formed a partnership with Strutt and Need and set up a factory powered by water at Cromford in Derbyshire. 1775: Took out another Patent for modifications to his carding engine machinery. Cotton tarrif removed. 1779: Mill in Chorley, Lancashire destroyed by a mob of labourers. 1781: Prosecuted nine companies for breach of his patents. (April) Samuel Need died and Jedediah Strutt left. He went on to build factories in Manchester, other parts of Lancashire, Staffordshire and Scotland. 1783: Built Masson Mills at Matlock Bath, Derbyshire.

1785: Patents cancelled as it was proved in the Court of King's Bench that the intellectual property for many of the inventions lay not with him but with a selection of his partners, friends and rivals. 1786: Knighted by King George the Third. 1787: Became High Sheriff of Derbyshire 1792: Died at his home Rock House, Cromford Barbering Richard Arkwright received no formal education. He was apprenticed to a Mr. Nicholson, a barber at nearby Kirkham. He therefore began his working life as a barber and wig-maker. In 1750 he moved to Bolton where he worked for Edward Pollit, a peruke maker. He soon set up his own barber shop in Deansgate, and In 1762 Arkwright became the landlord of the Black Boy public house. About this time he moved into a barber's shop in Churchgate and took on a skilled wig maker, John Dean, as his assistant. He was then able to spend part of his time travelling the country to buy women's hair to make into wigs.

It was here that he got hold of and developed a waterproof dye for use on the in fashion 'periwinkles' (wigs) of the time, the income from which later facilitated his financing of prototype cotton machinery. The barber shop in Churchgate, Bolton was demolished early in the last century. There is a small plaque above the door of the building that replaced it, recording Arkwright's occupancy. Marriage On 31 March 1755 he had married Patience, the daughter of Robert Holt, a school master. A son, also Richard, was christened on 19 December 1755. Patience died on 6 October 1756 and it was only after the death of his first wife that he became an entrepreneur. His second marriage to Margaret Biggins on 24 March 1761 brought a small income that enabled him to expand his barber's business. He acquired a secret method for dyeing hair and travelled around the country purchasing human hair for use in the manufacture of wigs.

During this time he was often in contact with weavers and spinners and when the fashion for wearing wigs declined, he looked to mechanical inventions in the field of textiles to make his fortune. A daughter, Susanna, was born on 21 December 1761. They had three children, of whom only Susanna survived to adulthood. First Inventions By 1763, weaving had been greatly automated, since the invention of the Spinning Jenny by James Hargreaves, but spinning was still done by hand wheel. No method had 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. Research into using mechanical rollers to replace hand spinning had started in the first half of the century; Lewis Paul had the first model in 1738, but further development was needed to make it profitable.

Seven miles down the road from Arkwright's home in Bolton is Leigh, where reedmaker Thomas Highs lived. Highs (1718-1803) originally produced a spinning-jenny that pre-dated, and was probably the prototype for, James Hargreaves's effort. Highs and his neighbour John Kay - a Clockmaker of Warrington - got together to design a machine that utilised draw rollers, in the style of Lewis Paul. But they had no investment funding. Arkwright was always quick to spot a business opportunity. Desperate to keep Kay away from Highs, who was totally in the dark, Arkwright employed Kay the clockmaker and took him with him, first to Manchester, then Liverpool and on to Preston. In 1767, he engaged Kay's clockmaking skills in the construction of brass wheels (ostensibly for a "perpetual motion machine"). Six months later, after Kay had moved back to Warrington, Arkwright persuaded him to make a roller-based spinning-machine. Kay, helped by two other local craftsmen, built a full-size version of what was to become the water frame, a machine with three sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds.

While these rollers produced yarn of the correct thickness, a set of spindles twisted the fibres firmly together. The machine was able to produce a thread that was far stronger than that made by the Spinning-Jenny produced by James Hargreaves. 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. The new Spinning Frame could produce stronger thread than the contemporary Spinning Jenny, but was far too large to be operated by hand. (Following the patent trials of the 1780s, it was variously claimed that: Arkwright had envisaged the design before meeting Kay, that Kay had stolen High's ideas,or that Kay conceived the machine as well as building it. There is strong evidence to support the claim that it was Highs, and not Arkwright, who invented the spinning frame. However, Highs was unable to patent or develop the idea for lack of finance.

Highs, who was also credited with inventing a Spinning Jenny several years before James Hargreaves produced his, probably got the idea for the spinning frame from the work of John Wyatt and Lewis Paul in the 1730s and 40s.) After Kay's prototype convinced Arkwright of its feasibility, they moved to a secluded room in Preston, where Kay improved the technology through 1768, claiming to be developing a longitude machine. The secrecy and humming noises emanating from their experimental parlour led to accusations of witchcraft. Though Arkwright was not rich, he had taken Kay to Preston as a "servant", with Kay giving his bond to serve Arkwright for twenty-one years and to keep their methods secret. Relocation to Nottingham In 1768, Arkwright built his first machine at Preston. He engaged the interest of two well-off relatives, John Smalley and David Thornley from Preston. Using their funding, he applied for a patent for his machine and took out a lease on premises in which to build and set up the machines. The leased property was converted into a mill, driven by horses turning a capstan.

This was an inefficient form of power and before the mill was in production Arkwright and his partners decided to experiment with water power. John Smalley, a forty-year old merchant and landlord of The Bull, was the second son of John Smalley of Blackburn, who in Feb 1750 in Preston had married Elizabeth Baxter. Elizabeth's mother Ellen was the widow of Arkwright's uncle Richard who died in 1727. (Ellen had married, after the death of uncle Richard, a Christopher Baxter.) David Thornley, born 1741 had a father of the same name who had married in June 1738 Sarah Arkwright, the daughter of Richard Arkwright and Ellen.(This is the same Ellen above who was eventually Ellen Baxter.) However, faced with serious opposition from the local spinning community, he and Kay moved to Nottingham in April, 1768, to avoid Lancashire machine-breakers. They set up a small mill in Woolpack Lane in the Hockley district, close to Hargreaves's jenny mill. It was horse-powered, but Arkwright began to realise that this could be only a stop-gap arrangement.

Arkwright patented the machine in 1769, without mentioning Kay, his "workman". Patent Squabble Begins James Hargreaves, who lived in Nottingham, learned about the patent and told John Kay. He responded by claiming it was HE (Kay) who was the machinery's true inventor. Arkwright then accused Kay of leaking its design to Hargreaves, and the two fell out; Kay accused Arkwright of stealing his work tools, and Arkwright filed a counter-charge. In the end, Kay fled Arkwright's Nottingham house (where he lived at the time) - permanently dissolving their relationship. Ichabod Wright and Strutt & Need Arkwright and John Smalley found their funds were dwindling and in 1769 Arkwright went to Ichabod Wright, a banker from Nottingham, in search of funds to expand the business. Wright introduced Arkwright to Samuel Need, a wealthy Nottingham hosier, and Jedediah Strutt, co-inventor of the Derby Rib stocking frame, for financial backing. They became co-partners in January 1770.

The newcomers financed the construction of the water-powered Cromford Mill on the River Derwent in Derbyshire, with Strutt and Need agreeing to take Arkwright's entire initial output of thread for their Nottingham stocking-knitting business. Cromford was the start of a massive expansion of the cotton trade, and it was given a further boost in 1774 when Arkwright and his partners persuaded the Government to end the crippling import tariff on raw cotton, which had been imposed to protect the British woollen industry. Cromford Arkwright and his team had tried various experiments using horse-power, but the reliability and cheapness of water-power won the day. In 1771, the partners, Thornley excepted, decided to go to Cromford to build a water-powered spinning mill. Here there was a plentiful supply of water - Cromford Sough drained the Wirksworth lead mines and joined Bonsall Brook just above its confluence with the River Derwent. The sough had never been known to freeze so ensuring the water would not fail. The site chosen for the mill lay west of Cromford Bridge by the Derwent.

Nearby was a corn mill on Bonsall Brook and a short distance away near the bridge were smelting mills where lead ore was melted and formed into pigs (bricks) of lead. The land was leased from William and Mary Milnes for a yearly rent of £14, and the partners were given permission to divert Bonsall Brook and to construct mills, waterwheels, warehouses, workshops, smithies and anything else necessary for the working of the mills. The first water-powered cotton spinning mill was speedily erected, and Arkwright's spinning machines soon came to be called Water Frames. The first Cromford mill was built in 1772 and a further mill at Lumford in Bakewell, was in operation by 1783 CROMFORD MILL IN 2008 The first mill was built from the stone of Steeple Hall, Wirksworth, which Arkwright had bought from a Mr Greensmith, and demolished. The mill was 5 storeys high and the machinery was driven night and day. About 200 people worked there in 12 hour shifts, spinning at night and carding, combing etc in the day.

At Nottingham and at Crumford, near Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, there are mills that go by water and horses, that employ a number of industrious people in spinning of cotton yarn on a new principle, and in a very expeditious manner. That the yarn is of excellent quality, and peculiarly adapted to the making of warps for weaving; by which it is supposed the Manufacturers of cottons will be enabled to extend that branch of trade to many useful articles hitherto not made in England, such as muslins & cotton for printing in imitation of those called callicoes, ... Letter in Creswell's Nottingham Journal - January 2, 1773. it soon became apparent that small town would not be able to provide enough workers for his mill. So he built a school so that his child workers could read and write, a chapel, and a large number of cottages near the mill to entice imported workers from outside the area.. Terraced three-storey buildings, constructed in 1776 for his workers, can still be seen in North Street. Arkwright preferred weavers with large families.

While the women and children worked in his spinning-factory, the weavers worked at home turning the yarn into cloth. He also built the Greyhound public house (Greyhound Hotel) which still stands in Cromford market square. The hotel is planned to become a museum of Richard Arkwright. Sir Richard Arkwright transformed the small village of Cromford. In 1776 he purchased lands in Cromford, and in 1788 lands in Willersley, the vendor on both occasions being Peter Nightingale, the great-uncle of Florence Nightingale. As well as workers' housing he built a hotel, a new corn mill and established a market. Willersley Castle and St Mary's Church were started by him and finished after his death on 3 August 1792. EXTRACT OF ARKWRIGHT'S WAGE BOOKS FROM LUMFORD MILL 1786-88 Richard Arkwright's employees worked from six in the morning to seven at night. Although some of the factory owners employed children as young as five, Arkwright's policy was to wait until they reached the age of six. Two-thirds of Arkwright's 1,900 workers were children.

Like most factory owners, Arkwright was unwilling to employ people over the age of forty. The wage books are some of the earliest surviving records for any of the Richard Arkwright Company mills, and demonstrate the differentiation between types of workers, reflected in a wide variation in rates of pay. The books cover the period 1786 to 1811, with significant gaps. It may be that some volumes remained at the mill after the sale in 1860, and were destroyed by the fire of 1868. Ralph Mather described the work of the children in Richard Arkwright's factories in his book An Impartial Representation of the Case of the Poor Cotton Spinners in Lancashire (1780) Arkwright's machines require so few hands, and those only children, with the assistance of an overlooker. A child can produce as much as would, and did upon an average, employ ten grown up persons. Jennies for spinning with one hundred or two hundred spindles, or more, going all at once, and requiring but one person to manage them.

Within the space of ten years, from being a poor man worth £5, Richard Arkwright has purchased an estate of £20,000; while thousands of women, when they can get work, must make a long day to card, spin, and reel 5040 yards of cotton, and for this they have four-pence or five-pence and no more. Expansion By 1774 the firm employed 600 workers; in the next five years it expanded to new locations. Arkwright now started to mechanise other parts of the process in order to keep pace with the spinning. On 16 December 1775 he took out a patent covering ten machines, including machines for carding and cleaning the cotton. The Cromford mill was a great success, and other cotton mills followed; Cressbrook in 1779, Bakewell in 1782, and Masson (Matlock) in 1783. Cromford Mill was only the first in Arkwright's large and profitable empire of factories. which spread from Derbyshire into Staffordshire, Lancashire and up into Scotland.

Masson Mill was built a short distance away from the Cromford factory and was the only mill powered by the river In 1777 he leased the Haarlem Mill in Wirksworth, Derbyshire where he installed the first steam engine to be used in a cotton mill, though this was used to replenish the millpond that drove the mill's waterwheel, rather than to drive the machinery directly. A large new mill at Birkacre, Lancashire, was destroyed in the anti-machinery riots in 1779. ( see this link .) In his factories he used the steam-engine that had recently been developed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton. When businessmen heard about Arkwright's success, they sent spies to find out what was going on in his factories. In exchange for money, some of Arkwright's employees were willing to explain how the factory was organised. Businessmen then used this information to build their own water-powered textile factories. When Samuel Need died on 14th April, 1781. Arkwright and Jedediah Strutt decided to dissolve their partnership.

Strutt was disturbed by Arkwright's plans to build mills in Manchester, Winkworth, Matlock Bath and Bakewell. Strutt believed that Arkwright was expanding too fast and without the support of Need, his long-time partner, he was unwilling to take the risk of further investments. He was also worried about the patent battles that were looming between Arkwright and men he claimed had pirated "his" inventions. Masson Mill In 1783 Arkwright created another factory, Masson Mill seen right. The factory was made from red brick, which was expensive at the time. Masson Mill was the only mill to continue in production for any length of time, finally closing in 1991. It is now the home of a designer discount outlet and textile museum. Court Cases From 1775, a series of court cases challenged Arkwright's patents as copies of others work, and they were revoked in 1785. Arkwright in 1775 had obtained a grand patent covering many processes that he hoped would give him monopoly power over the fast-growing industry, but Lancashire opinion was bitterly hostile to exclusive patents.

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. Four years later, after seeing his patents restored temporarily, in another, definitive court battle, Thomas Highs, a remorseful John Kay, Kay's wife and the widow of James Hargreaves all testified that Arkwright had stolen their inventions. The court agreed: Arkwright's patents were finally laid aside. Finally, in November 1785, Arkwright 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. Nonetheless, In 1786 he was appointed by the King as the High Sheriff of Derbyshire. It was also in 1786 that he received his knighthood. Post Mortem on Richard Arkwright History has a habit of painting men as heros after the event. Many are the books and articles that present Sir Richard Arkwright as a beneficent clever inventor who transformed this country and launched the Industrial Revolution.

The court cases are said to be the result of jealous rivals who envied Arkwright's business acumen. Whatever he undoubtedly achieved - for which credit is due - Arkwright was not an inventive genius. He gladly used the inventions of others to build his empire. Indeed he stole the intellectual property of Thomas Highs and others to make his fortune, leaving Highs to die a poor man. (But then much the same could be said about Strutt and Woolatt who paid off the man who had the original concept of the Derby Rib and developed it into a viable machine, making their fortunes. This is little different to modern business practise such as the rip-off of Apple's original programming by Microsoft's Bill Gates. All is fair in love, war and big business!) Arkwright's strength was in opportunism, spotting a good idea, and employing men with the talent to turn that idea into reality. He was more than happy to use the talents of other men as stepping stones for his ambition. The Court of King's Bench said as much in 1785 when they rescinded his patents. The court heard evidence from Highs, Kay, Kay's wife, and James Hargreaves's widow, Elizabeth, among others.

All testified that Arkwright had, in fact, stolen the inventions on which he had based his fortune. Despite that, however, his work-force were fiercely loyal, and hundreds of armed men were on instant call to defend the mill against the threat from machine breakers. Arkwright kept a cannon loaded with grapeshot just inside the main factory gate, to emphasise the point. (see photo). The Derby Mercury wrote on 22nd October, 1779: There is some fear of the mob coming to destroy the works at Cromford, but they are well prepared to receive them should they come here. All the gentlemen in this neighbourhood being determined to defend the works, which have been of such utility to this country. 5,000 or 6,000 men can be at any time assembled in less than an hour by signals agreed upon, who are determined to defend to the very last extremity, the works, by which many hundreds of their wives and children get a decent and comfortable livelihood.

Arkwright's lasting achievement, perhaps, was in doing for cotton what others had done for silk - and with the potential market for cheap cotton products so much bigger, his efforts at Cromford, elsewhere in Derbyshire, and in Lancashire and Scotland inevitably triggered that quantum leap in national productivity that became known as the Industrial Revolution. Historians have pointed out that, although his machinery ideas were "borrowed," Arkwright did at least invent the factory system, the organisation and regimentation of labour in one specialised workplace giving the employer total control over the product and the means and cost of production. But even this was not strictly true. Factories - particularly silk mills - had existed in England for more than 50 years before Arkwright opened his first big mill at Cromford in Derbyshire in 1771. A testament to Arkwright's keen business sense came on his death in 1792, when it was found that he was worth half a million pounds, a staggering amount of money in the 18th century. In the twenty years to his death, in 1792, he had made sufficient fortune to have personally paid off the national debt!

He died in 1792 at his home of Rock House, Cromford on 3rd August 1792 and was initially buried at the church at Matlock. His remains were later moved to Saint Mary's Church at Cromford. Saint Mary's was a private chapel for Willersley Castle that was to have been his new Cromford residence. Memorials Sir Richard Arkwright lived at Rock House in Cromford, opposite his original mill. In 1788 he purchased an estate from Florence Nightingale’s father, William, for £20,000 and set about building Willersley Castle for himself and his family. However just as the building was completed it was destroyed by fire, and Arkwright was forced to wait a further two years whilst it was rebuilt. He died aged 59 in 1792, never having lived in the castle, which was only completed after his death. Willersley Castle is now a hotel owned by the Christian Guild company. (See below). Following is an obituary for Richard Arkwright written a few days after his death. The youngest of thirteen children, Sir Richard Arkwright was born in Preston on 23 December 1732.

Arkwright will be remembered by most for his reformation of the way that people work. No one has had greater influence and indeed revolutionized industry than Sir Richard Arkwright. At 59 years of age, Arkwright died one of the richest men in England. It is estimated that his fortune amounted to something in the region of £500,000. In 1762 Arkwright started a wig-making business. This involved him traveling the country collecting people's discarded hair. While on his travels, Arkwright heard about the attempts being made to produce new machines for the textile industry. Arkwright also met John Kay, a clockmaker from Warrington, who had been busy for some time trying to produce a new spinning-machine with another man, Thomas Highs of Leigh. Kay and Highs had run out of money and had been forced to abandon the project. To Arkwright’s amazement, John Kay invited him to help produce this remarkable new machine. Arkwright accepted Kay’s offer and employed a local craftsman, and miraculously, it wasn’t long until the four actually produced the brand new “Spinning Frame”.

Arkwright patented this and his “Water Frame” in 1769, which caused great rivalry between him and other cotton spinning entrepreneurs. In 1771 Arkwright invented the world’s first water powered cotton mill at Cressbrook in Derbyshire. A series of court cases followed as Arkwright attempted to prosecute rivals who had infringed his patents, culminating in an action brought by The Crown in 1785. Surely, Arkwright’s contribution to the cotton industry entitles him to be referred to the father of the industrial revolution and will always be remembered for his great, albeit stolen, inventions. WEB LINKS Richard Arkwright Richard Arkwright References Richard Arkwright, the sixth of the seven children of Thomas Arkwright (1691–1753), a tailor, and his wife, Ellen Hodgkinson (1693–1778), was born in Preston on 23rd December, 1732. Richard's parents were very poor and could not afford to send him to school and instead arranged for him to be taught to read and write by his cousin Ellen. (1) Richard became a barber's apprentice at Kirkham before moving to Bolton .

He worked for Edward Pollit and in 1754 he started his own business as a wig-maker. The following year he married Patience Holt, the daughter of a schoolmaster. Their only child, Richard Arkwright, was born on 19th December 1755. After the death of his first wife he married Margaret Biggins (1723–1811) on 24th March 1761. (2) Arkwright's work involved him travelling the country collecting people's discarded hair. In September 1767 Arkwright met John Kay, a clockmaker, from Warrington , who had been busy for some time trying to produce a new spinning-machine with another man, Thomas Highs of Leigh. Kay and Highs had run out of money and had been forced to abandon the project. Arkwright was impressed by Kay and offered to employ him to make this new machine. Arkwright also recruited other local craftsman, including Peter Atherton, to help Kay in his experiments.

According to one source: "They rented a room in a secluded teacher's house behind some gooseberry bushes, but they were so secretive that the neighbours were suspicious and accused them of sorcery, and two old women complained that the humming noises they heard at night must be the devil tuning his bagpipes." (3) Richard Arkwright and the Spinning Frame As the economic historian, Thomas Southcliffe Ashton , has pointed out, Arkwright did not have any great inventive ability, but "had the force of character and robust sense that are traditionally associated with his native county - with little, it may be added, of the kindliness and humour that are, in fact, the dominant traits of Lancashire people." (4) In 1768 the team produced the Spinning-Frame and a patent for the new machine was granted in 1769. The machine involved three sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds. While these rollers produced yarn of the correct thickness, a set of spindles twisted the fibres firmly together. The machine was able to produce a thread that was far stronger than that made by the Spinning-Jenny produced by James Hargreaves .

(5) Adam Hart-Davis has explained the way the new machine worked: "Several spinning machines were designed at about this time, but most of them tried to do the stretching and the spinning together. The problem is that the moment you start twisting the roving you lock the fibres together. Arkwright's idea was to stretch first and then twist. The roving passed from a bobbin between a pair of rollers, and then a couple of inches later between another pair that were rotating at twice the speed. The result was to stretch the roving to twice its original length. A third pair of rollers repeated the process... Two things are obvious the moment you see the wonderful beast in action. First, there are 32 bobbins along each side of each end of the water frame - 128 on the whole machine. Second, it is so automatic that even I could operate it." (6) On 29th September 1769 Arkwright rented premises in Nottingham . However, he had difficulty finding investors in his new company. David Thornley, a merchant, of Liverpool , and John Smalley, a publican from Preston , did provide some money but he still needed more to start production.

Arkwright approached a banker Ichabod Wright but he rejected the proposal because he judged that there was "little prospect of the discovery being brought into a practical state". (7) Wright introduced Arkwright to Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need . Strutt was a manufacturer of stockings and the inventor of a machine for the machine-knitting of ribbed stockings. (8) Strutt and Need were impressed with Arkwright's new machine and agreed to form a partnership. On 19th January 1770, for £500, Need and Strutt joined the partners; Arkwright, Thornley and Smalley, were to manage the works, each having £25 a year. Financially secure, the partners commissioned Samuel Stretton to convert the premises into a horse-powered mill. (9) Arkwright's machine was too large to be operated by hand and so the men had to find another method of working the machine. After experimenting with horses, it was decided to employ the power of the water-wheel. In 1771 the three men set up a large factory next to the River Derwent in Cromford , Derbyshire.

Arkwright later that his lawyer that Cromford had been chosen because it offered "a remarkable fine stream of water… in an area very full of inhabitants". (10) Arkwright's machine now became known as the Water-Frame. It not only "spun cotton more rapidly but produced a yarn of finer quality". (11) Arkwright did not build the first factory in Britain. It is believed that he borrowed the idea from Matthew Boulton , who financed the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham in 1762. However, Arkwright's factory was much larger and was to inspire a generation of capitalist entrepreneurs. According to Adam Hart-Davis : "Arkwright's mill was essentially the first factory of this kind in the world. Never before had people been put to work in such a well-organized way. Never had people been told to come in at a fixed time in the morning, and work all day at a prescribed task. His factories became the model for factories all over the country and all over the world. This was the way to build a factory.

And he himself usually followed the same pattern - stone buildings 30 feet wide, 100 feet long, or longer if there was room, and five, six, or seven floors high." (12) Child Labour In Cromford there were not enough local people to supply Arkwright with the workers he needed. After building a large number of cottages close to the factory, he imported workers from all over Derbyshire. Within a few months he was employing 600 workers. Arkwright preferred weavers with large families. While the women and children worked in his spinning-factory, the weavers worked at home turning the yarn into cloth. (13) Cottages in Cromford built by Richard Arkwright for his weavers (1992) A local journalist wrote: "Arkwright's machines require so few hands, and those only children, with the assistance of an overlooker. A child can produce as much as would, and did upon an average, employ ten grown up persons. Jennies for spinning with one hundred or two hundred spindles, or more, going all at once, and requiring but one person to manage them.

Within the space of ten years, from being a poor man worth £5, Richard Arkwright has purchased an estate of £20,000; while thousands of women, when they can get work, must make a long day to card, spin, and reel 5040 yards of cotton, and for this they have four-pence or five-pence and no more." (14) Peter Kirby , the author of Child Labour in Britain, 1750-1870 (2003) has argued that it was poverty that forced children into factories: "Poor families living close to a subsistence wage were often forced to draw on more diverse sources of income and had little choice over whether their chidren worked." (15) Michael Anderson has pointed out, that parents "who otherwise showed considerable affection for their children... were yet forced by large families and low wages to send their children to work as soon as possible." (16) The youngest children in the textile factories were usually employed as scavengers and piecers. Piecers had to lean over the spinning-machine to repair the broken threads.

One observer wrote: "The work of the children, in many instances, is reaching over to piece the threads that break; they have so many that they have to mind and they have only so much time to piece these threads because they have to reach while the wheel is coming out." (17) Scavengers had to pick up the loose cotton from under the machinery. This was extremely dangerous as the children were expected to carry out the task while the machine was still working. David Rowland , worked as a scavenger in Manchester : "The scavenger has to take the brush and sweep under the wheels, and to be under the direction of the spinners and the piecers generally. I frequently had to be under the wheels, and in consequence of the perpetual motion of the machinery, I was liable to accidents constantly.

I was very frequently obliged to lie flat, to avoid being run over or caught." (18) Illustration of scavengers and piecers at work that appeared in Trollope's Michael Armstrong (1840) John Fielden , a factory owner, admitted that a great deal of harm was caused by the children spending the whole day on their feet: " At a meeting in Manchester a man claimed that a child in one mill walked twenty-four miles a day. I was surprised by this statement, therefore, when I went home, I went into my own factory, and with a clock before me, I watched a child at work, and having watched her for some time, I then calculated the distance she had to go in a day, and to my surprise, I found it nothing short of twenty miles." (19) Unguarded machinery was a major problem for children working in factories. One hospital reported that every year it treated nearly a thousand people for wounds and mutilations caused by machines in factories.

Michael Ward , a doctor working in Manchester told a parliamentary committee: "When I was a surgeon in the infirmary, accidents were very often admitted to the infirmary, through the children's hands and arms having being caught in the machinery; in many instances the muscles, and the skin is stripped down to the bone, and in some instances a finger or two might be lost. Last summer I visited Lever Street School. The number of children at that time in the school, who were employed in factories, was 106. The number of children who had received injuries from the machinery amounted to very nearly one half. There were forty-seven injured in this way." (20) William Blizard lectured on surgery and anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons.

He was especially concerned about the impact of this work on young females: "At an early period the bones are not permanently formed, and cannot resist pressure to the same degree as at a mature age, and that is the state of young females; they are liable, particularly from the pressure of the thigh bones upon the lateral parts, to have the pelvis pressed inwards, which creates what is called distortion; and although distortion does not prevent procreation, yet it most likely will produce deadly consequences, either to the mother or the child, when the period." (21) Illustration of scavengers and piecers at work that appeared in Edward Baines' book The History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835) Elizabeth Bentley , who came from Leeds , was another witness that appeared before the committee. She told of how working in the card-room had seriously damaged her health: "It was so dusty, the dust got up my lungs, and the work was so hard. I got so bad in health, that when I pulled the baskets down, I pulled my bones out of their places." Bentley explained that she was now "considerably deformed".

She went on to say: "I was about thirteen years old when it began coming, and it has got worse since." (22) Samuel Smith , a doctor based in Leeds explained why working in the textile factories was bad for children's health: "Up to twelve or thirteen years of age, the bones are so soft that they will bend in any direction. The foot is formed of an arch of bones of a wedge-like shape. These arches have to sustain the whole weight of the body. I am now frequently in the habit of seeing cases in which this arch has given way. Long continued standing has also a very injurious effect upon the ankles. But the principle effects which I have seen produced in this way have been upon the knees. By long continued standing the knees become so weak that they turn inwards, producing that deformity which is called 'knock-knees' and I have sometimes seen it so striking, that the individual has actually lost twelve inches of his height by it." (23) John Reed later recalled his life aa a child worker at Cromford Mill: "I continued to work in this factory for ten years, getting gradually advanced in wages, till I had 6s. 3d.

per week; which is the highest wages I ever had. I gradually became a cripple, till at the age of nineteen I was unable to stand at the machine, and I was obliged to give it up. The total amount of my earnings was about 130 shillings, and for this sum I have been made a miserable cripple, as you see, and cast off by those who reaped the benefit of my labour, without a single penny." (24) Business Methods Arkwright originally produced cotton yarn for stockings, but its possibilities as warp for the loom led, in 1773, to the manufacture of calicos. Jedediah Strutt took responsibility for lobbying Parliament and eventually persuaded its members to reduce excise duties on British-made cotton goods. (25) By February 1774 the partners could, according to Elizabeth Strutt, "sell them … as fast as we could make them." (26) As J. J. Mason has pointed out: "From the mid-1770s he sought to dominate the trade.

In 1775 he successfully applied for a patent for certain instruments and machines for preparing silk, cotton, flax, and wool, for spinning. Covering a range of preparatory and spinning machines, it was an attempt to extend the length and terms of his monopoly to the whole cotton industry". (27) When businessmen heard about Arkwright's success, they sent spies to find out what was going on in his factories. In exchange for money, some of Arkwright's employees were willing to explain how the factory was organised. Businessmen then used this information to build their own water-powered textile factories. This included spies sent from "many different countries, from Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia, but the most eager of the spies were from Britain's greatest rival, France." (28) Ralph Mather reported that Arkwright feared that Luddites would destroy his factory: "There is some fear of the mob coming to destroy the works at Cromford, but they are well prepared to receive them should they come here. All the gentlemen in this neighbourhood being determined to defend the works, which have been of such utility to this country.

5,000 or 6,000 men can be at any time assembled in less than an hour by signals agreed upon, who are determined to defend to the very last extremity, the works, by which many hundreds of their wives and children get a decent and comfortable livelihood." (29) Eric Hobsbawm has argued that in his dealings with his partners he was an "unscrupulous operator". (30) Matthew Boulton described him as a "tyrant". (31) John Smalley suggested to Jedediah Strutt that they should force Arkwright out of the company. Strutt replied. "We cannot stop his mouth or prevent his doing wrong.... but it is not in our power to remove him… for he is in possession and as much right there as we." (32) Arkwright made further money by selling the rights to use his machines. With the 1769 patent due to expire in the summer of 1783, Arkwright faced losing his controlling hold on the cotton industry. He petitioned parliament that his patents be consolidated and the 1769 patent extended to 1789.

However, as Jenny Uglow points out: "Since 1781 Lancashire cotton-spinners had spent a fortune on buildings and machines, employing around thirty thousand people - men, women, and children. They could not afford to become his licensees at prohibitive rates." (33) In April, 1781, his competitors applied to have the decision annulled. The trial took place in June. Arkwright employed the finest lawyers and an array of witnesses. John Kay and Thomas Highs both gave evidence against Arkwright. He lost the case and a broadsheet in Manchester crowed that "the old Fox is at last caught by his over-grown beard in his own trap". (34) Arkwright was furious with this decision and he argued that the court's decision would halt the work of other inventors. James Watt , was one of those who gave his support to Arkwright's campaign to extend his patents. Rumours circulated that he was trying to buy up the world's cotton crop. This did not happen but he did set up a company to establish cotton plantations in Africa.

(35) Despite this set-back Arkwright he remained the country's largest cotton spinner; he made huge gains in the 1770s, and even in the early 1780s his profits from the industry seem to have been at 100 per cent per annum. Thomas Carlyle described Arkwright as "a plain, almost gross, bag-cheeked, pot-bellied man, with an air of painful reflection, yet almost copious free digestion". (36) When Samuel Need died on 14th April, 1781. Arkwright and Jedediah Strutt decided to dissolve their partnership. Strutt was disturbed by Arkwright's plans to build mills in Manchester, Winkworth, Matlock Bath and Bakewell. Strutt believed that Arkwright was expanding too fast and without the support of Need, his long-time partner, he was unwilling to take the risk of further investments. Arkwright's textile factories were very profitable. He now built factories in Lancashire, Staffordshire and Scotland. In these factories he used the new steam-engine that had recently been developed by James Watt and Matthew Boulton . Wealth and Honours Arkwright's biographer, J.

J. Mason , claimed that: "In 1782 he bought Willersley manor and in 1789 the manor of Cromford. These acquisitions established him more firmly with the local gentry, including the Gells and Nightingales, with whom he was already connected through business.... Society sneered at his extravagance and ridiculed his gauche behaviour... but enjoyed his lavish entertainments in... Rock House, perched high and overlooking the mills and his more stately home, Willersley Castle." (37) Arkwright was made Sheriff of Derbyshire and was knighted in 1787. King George III told Wilhelmina Murray, that he did not deal very well with the ceremony. "Tthe little great man had no idea of kneeling but crimpt himself up in a very odd posture which I suppose His Majesty took for an easy one so never took the trouble to bid him rise." (38) Sir Richard Arkwright by Mather Brown (1790) Richard Arkwright's employees worked from six in the morning to seven at night. Although some of the factory owners employed children as young as five, Arkwright's policy was to wait until they reached the age of six.

Two-thirds of Arkwright's 1,900 workers were children. Like most factory owners, Arkwright was unwilling to employ people over the age of forty. (39) William Dodd carried out a study into the long-term impact on the physical health of these child workers. This included an interview with John Reed: "Here is a young man, who was evidently intended by nature for a stout-made man, crippled in the prime of life, and all his earthly prospects blasted for ever! Such a cripple I have seldom met with. He cannot stand without a stick in one hand, and leaning on a chair with the other; his legs are twisted in all manner of forms. His body, from the forehead to the knees, forms a curve, similar to the letter C. He dares not go from home, if he could; people stare at him so." Dodd compared the life of John Reed with that of Richard Arkwright: "I have taken several walks in the neighbourhood of this beautiful and romantic place, and seen the splendid castle, and other buildings belonging to the Arkwrights, and could not avoid contrasting in my mind the present condition of this wealthy family, with the humble condition of its founder in 1768.

One might expect that those who have thus risen to such wealth and eminence, would have some compassion upon their poor cripples. If it is only that they need to have them pointed out, and that their attention has hitherto not been drawn to them, I would hope and trust this case of John Reed will yet come under their notice." (40) Arkwright had difficulty making friends and Josiah Wedgwood claimed that "he shuns all company as much as possible". Archibald Buchanan, who lived with him and found him "so intent on his schemes" they "often sat for weeks together, on opposite sides of the fire without exchanging a syllable". (41) Richard Arkwright died aged 59 on 3rd August 1792 at his home in Cromford, after a month's illness. On 10th August, over 2,000 by two people attended his funeral. (42) The Gentleman's Magazine claimed that on his death, Arkwright was worth over £500,000 (over £200 million in today's money).

(43) (17) James Turner, interviewed by Michael Sadler's Parliamentary Committee (17th April 1832) (18) David Rowland interviewed by Michael Sadler's Parliamentary Committee (10th July 1832) (19) John Fielden , speech in the House of Commons (9th May 1836) (20) Dr. Ward from Manchester was interviewed about the health of textile workers on 25th March, 1819. (21) Sir William Blizard was interviewed by Michael Sadler's House of Commons Committee on 21st May, 1832. (22) Elizabeth Bentley was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 4th June, 1832. (23) Samuel Smith , interviewed by Michael Sadler's House of Commons Committee on 16th July, 1832. (24) William Dodd interviewed John Reed from Arkwright's Cromford's factory in 1842.

Richard Arkwright | 10 Facts On The Industrial Revolutionist | Learnodo Newtonic #1Â Â He didn’t receive a proper education Richard Arkwright Born on 23 December 1732 in Preston, Lancashire, England; Richard Arkwright was the youngest of 13 children of Thomas Arkwright, who was a tailor, and his wife Sarah. As he was the last child of a large family of humble origin, there was not enough money to school him due to which Richard was taught to read and write by his cousin Ellen. #2 Arkwright initially worked as a barber and wig-maker Richard was apprenticed to a barber named Mr Nicholson. In early 1750s he opened his own shop at Churchgate in Bolton. He realized wig-making would be a more profitable business and started manufacturing male wigs. Arkwright invented a waterproof dye for use in the fashionable wigs of the time and the income this generated was used by him for the development of his first spinning machine. #3 His second wife hated his machines and destroyed his models In 1755, Arkwright married Patience Holt. However she died the next year leaving behind a son named Richard Arkwright Junior.

In 1761, Arkwright married Margaret Biggins. They had three children but only Susanna survived to adulthood. Arkwright’s wife Margaret was very irritated with his obsession with spinning machines. She once destroyed all his development models hoping to force him back to working with hair. Richard Arkwright Junior with his wife and children #4 Arkwright contributed in the invention of the first automatic textile machine Between 1763 and 1764, reed-maker Thomas Highs and clockmaker John Kay worked on inventing a mechanical spinning machine. In 1767, Arkwright teamed up with John Kay and provided him financial assistance to create a working spinning frame. The first spinning frame was put to use in 1768. It was the first powered, automatic, and continuous textile machine. Arkwright’s Spinning Frame #5 Arkwright patented the water frame in 1769 After his experimentation with horses failed, Arkwright used water wheel to power the spinning frame due to which the invention was renamed water frame. In 1769, Arkwright patented the water frame. Before the water frame, the textile business was essentially a cottage industry.

Its invention made mass manufacturing possible which led to great expansion of the textile industry. An Arkwright water frame that was made in 1775 #6 His Cromford Mill was the first successful cotton spinning factory In 1771, Arkwright established the world’s first water-powered mill in Cromford, Derbyshire. Known as Cromford Mill it was the first successful cotton spinning factory and laid the foundation of Arkwright’s fortune. It showed the way ahead and was quickly copied by mills in Lancashire, Germany and the United States. It is now a World Heritage Site and attracts visitors from all over the world. Arkwright’s Mill at Cromford #7 He patented a carding machine in 1775 Arkwright’s Carding Machine In 1748, Lewis Paul had invented a machine for carding, which is the process of disentangling, cleaning and intermixing fibres to produce a continuous web. Richard Arkwright made improvements to this machine that produced a stronger yarn and required less physical labour. In 1775 he took out a patent for this new carding engine.

#8 Arkwright employed mostly children, some as young as six years old Arkwright established factories in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire and Scotland which were equipped with machinery for carrying out all phases of textile manufacturing from carding to spinning. His machines required cheap unskilled labour which was often done by children, some as young as six years old. This made many skilled workers jobless. Towards the end of his tenure, nearly two-thirds of Arkwright’s 1,150 employees were children. #9 He amassed a fortune of over Â£200 million in today’s money From 1775 a series of court cases challenged Arkwright’s patents as copies of others work. In 1785, his patents were revoked. However by then Arkwright had interests in over a hundred companies through leasing, shares and financing. By the time he died on 3 August 1792 at the age of 59, he had amassed an estimated personal fortune of around half a million pounds, which would be over Â£200 million in today’s money.

Blue plaque marking the occupancy by Arkwright in Adam Street, London #10 Richard Arkwright is considered the ‘Father of the Modern Factory System’ Arkwright’s contributions were recognized by King George III who knighted him in 1786. His cotton spinning empire helped kick-start the industrial revolution and later in his life he was known as ‘the Father of the Industrial Revolution’. Arkwright was a brilliant businessman and efficient manager who built a successful manufacturing model which was imitated by others. He is considered the ‘Father of the Modern Factory System’. Portrait of Sir Richard Arkwright by Mather Brown Famous Inventors | Primary Facts Here are some facts about Richard Arkwright. Richard Arkwright was born in Preston, England on 23 December 1732. He was one of the key inventors and businessmen during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. Many people believe that he is the architect of the modern factory system. Richard was the youngest of seven children. Thomas Arkwright, his father, was a tailor. When he had completed his education -Thomas was taught at home by his cousin, Ellen- Richard became an apprentice barber and wig-maker. When his apprenticeship was over, he set up on his own as a wig-maker.

He invented a waterproof dye for wigs and this made him a good income. In 1755, Richard married Patience Holt. They had a son, Richard Arkwright Junior. Unfortunately, Patience died in 1756. In 1761, Richard married Margaret Biggins. In 1769 Richard Arkwright patented the spinning frame (later called the water-frame), a machine to produce inexpensive spun cotton. In 1771, Arkwright and his business partners built the first water-powered cotton mill at Cromford in Derbyshire. In 1776, Arkwright constructed a larger mill at Cromford. He then built other mills at Wirksworth and Bakewell. The Cromford Mill employed more than 1000 people, many of whom had been relocated by Arkwright from outside of the Cromford area. Many of the employees were children, some as young as ten. In 1786, Arkwright was knighted. In 1787, Sir Richard Arkwright became High Sheriff of Derbyshire Arkwright died in Cromford on 3 August 1792. He was 59 years old.

In 1788, Sir Richard Arkwright purchsed a plot of land from Florence Nightingale ‘s father. He started to build Willersley Castle, but due to a fire which resulted in much rebuilding, Richard Arkwright never got to stay. The castle was only completed after his death. What next? Learn more about some other famous inventors .

Question: Which inventor of the 'Spinning-Frame' set up a large water-powered factory at Cromford in Derbyshire?
Answer: RICHARD ARKWRIGHT