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at Warrington, with whom it is certain that he remained for a considerable time after closely connected. From this moment we may date his entrance upon a new career.

The manufacture of cotton cloths was introduced into this country only towards the end of the seventeenth century; although stuffs improperly called Manchester cottons had been fabricated nearly three centuries before, which, however, were made entirely of wool. It is generally thought that the first attempt at the manufacture of cotton goods in Europe did not take place till the end of the fifteenth century, when the art was introduced into Italy. Before this, the only cottons known had been imported from the East Indies. The manufacture seems to have thriven well even on its first establishment in this country; we are told by a writer whose work appeared in 1641, that the cottons wrought at Manchester were even then "not seldom sent into foreign parts," to be exchanged there, as he intimates, for the raw material.*

The English cottons, for many years after the introduction of the manufacture, had only the weft of cotton; the warp, or longitudinal threads of the cloth, being of linen. It was conceived to be impracticable to spin the cotton with a sufficiently hard twist to make it serviceable for this latter purpose. Although occasionally exported, too, in small quantities, the manufactured goods were chiefly consumed at home. It was not till about the year 1760 that any considerable demand for them arose abroad.

But about this time the exportation of cottons, both to the continent and to America, began to be carried on on a larger scale, and the manufacture of course received a corresponding impulse. The thread had hitherto been spun entirely, as it still continues to be in India, by the tedious process of the distaff and spindle, the spinner drawing out only a single thread at a time. But, as the demand for the manufactured article continued to increase, a greater and greater scarcity of weft was experienced, till at last, although there were 50,000 spindles constantly at work in Lancashire alone, each occupying an individual spinner, they were found quite insufficient to supply the quantity of thread required. The weavers generally, in those days, had the weft they used spun for them by the females of their family; and now "those weavers," says Mr. Guest, in his History of the Cotton Manufacture, "whose families could not furnish the necessary supply of weft, had their spinning done by their neighbours, and were obliged to pay more for the spinning than the price allowed by their masters; and, even with this disadvantage, very few could procure weft enough to keep themselves constantly employed. It was no uncommon thing for a weaver to walk three or four miles in a morning, and call on five or six spinners, before he could

*See "Treasures of Traffic," by Lewis Roberts, as quoted in Supplement to "Encyclopædia Britannica," art. Cotton Manufacture.

collect weft to serve him the remainder of the day; and when he wished to weave a piece in a shorter time than usual, a new riband or gown was necessary to quicken the exertions of the spinner."

It was natural, in this state of things, that attempts should be made to contrive some method of spinning more effective than that which had hitherto been in use; and, in fact, several ingenious individuals seem to have turned their attention to the subject. Long before this time, indeed, spinning by machinery had been thought of by more than one speculator. A Mr. Wyatt, of Lichfield, is stated to have actually invented an apparatus for that purpose so early as the year 1733, and to have had factories built and filled with his machines, both at Birmingham and Northampton. These undertakings, however, not being successful, the machines were allowed to perish, and no model or description of them was preserved.* There was also a Mr. Laurence Earnshaw, of Mottram, in Cheshire, of whom "it is recorded," says Mr. Baines, in his "History of Lancashire," vol. i. p. 115, "that in the year 1753, he invented a machine to spin and reel cotton at one operation, which he showed to his neighbours, and then destroyed it, through the generous apprehension that he might deprive the poor of bread ;”"—a mistake, but

a benevolent one.

It was in the year 1767, as we have mentioned, that Arkwright became acquainted with Kay. In 1768 the two friends appeared together at Preston, and immediately began to occupy themselves busily in the erection of a machine for the spinning of cotton-thread, of which they had brought a model with them. They had prevailed upon a Mr. Smalley, who is described to have been a liquor-merchant and painter of that place, to join them in their speculation; and the room in which the machine was fixed was the parlour of a dwelling-house attached to the free grammar-school, the use of which Smalley had obtained from his friend the schoolmaster. At this time Arkwright was so poor, that, an election contest having taken place in the town, of which he was a burgess, it is asserted that his friends or party were obliged to subscribe to get him a decent suit of clothes before they could bring him into the poll-room (See Baines's "History of Lancashire," vol. ii. p. 484). As soon as the election was over, he and Kay left Preston, and, carrying with them their model, betook themselves to Nottingham, the apprehension of the hostility of the people of Lancashire to the attempt he was making to introduce spinning by machinery having, as Arkwright himself afterwards stated (See his Case, 1781), induced him to take this step. On arriving at Nottingham, he first made arrangements with Messrs. Wright, the bankers, for obtaining the necessary supply of capital; but they, after a short time, having declined to continue their

*See "Essay on the Cotton Trade," by Mr. Kennedy, "Manchester Memoirs," second series, vol. iii.

advances, he took his model to Messrs. Need and Strutt, stocking-weavers of that place, the latter of whom was a particularly ingenious man, and well qualified, from his scientific acquirements, of which he had possessed himself under many disadvantages, to judge of the adaptation of the new machinery to its proposed object. An inspection of it perfectly satisfied him of its great value; and he and Mr. Need immediately agreed to enter into partnership with Arkwright, who accordingly, in 1769, took out a patent for the machine as its inventor. A spinning-mill, driven by horse-power, was at the same time erected and filled with the frames; being, unless we include those erected many years before by Mr. Wyatt, the first work of the kind that had been known in this country. In 1771, Arkwright and his partners established another mill at Cromford, in the parish of Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, the machinery in which was set in motion by a water-wheel; and in 1775 he took out a second patent, including some additions which he had made to his original apparatus.

In what we have hitherto related we have carefully confined ourselves to facts which are universally acknowledged; but there are other points of the story that have been stated in very opposite ways, and have given rise to much doubt and dispute.

The machinery for which Arkwright took out his patents consisted of various parts, his second specification enumerating no fewer than ten different contrivances; but of these the one that was by far of greatest importance was a device for drawing out the cotton from a coarse to a finer and harder-twisted thread, and so rendering it fit to be used for warp as well as weft.* This was most ingeniously managed by the application of a principle which had not yet been introduced in any other mechanical operation. The cotton was in the first place drawn off from the skewers on which it was fixed by one pair of rollers, which were made to move at a comparatively slow rate, and which formed it into threads of the first and coarser quality;† but at a little distance behind the first was placed a second pair of rollers, revolving three, four, or five times as fast, which took it up when it had passed through the others, the effect of which would be to reduce the thread to a degree of fineness so many times greater than that which it originally had. The first pair of rollers might be regarded as the feeders of the second, which could receive no more than the others sent to them; and that, again, could be no more than these others themselves took up from the skewers. As the second pair of rollers, therefore, revolved, we will say, five times for every one revolution of the first pair, or, which is the same thing,

*This was, in truth, the principal subject of Arkwright's first patent; and, accordingly,

on

the great trial (afterwards mentioned) which took place in June, 1785, his opponents accused him of endeavouring unfairly to prolong his first patent by means of his second.

+ In Arkwright's apparatus, which was a

combination of the carding and spinning machinery, this first part of the process was somewhat modified; but the principle of the two pairs of rollers, the one revolving faster than the other, which forms the peculiarity of the machine, was employed as here described,

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