Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/94

Arkwright to the wigmakers (, Compendious History, p. 21).

The gradual disuse of wigs is assigned by some as the reason why Arkwright began to turn his attention to mechanical inventions as likely to afford him a new source of income; but, as during his journeys he was brought into constant intercourse with persons engaged in weaving and spinning, his inquisitive and strongly practical intelligence would in any case have been naturally led to take a keen interest in inventions which were a constant topic of conversation among the manufacturing population. The invention of the fly shuttle by Kay of Bury had so greatly increased the demand for yarn, that it began to be impossible to meet it merely by hand labour. A machine for carding cotton had been introduced into Lancashire about 1760 (, History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 175), but until 1767 spinning continued to be executed wholly by the old-fashioned hand wheel. It was in that year that Hargreaves had completed his invention of the spinning-jenny, which he patented in 1770. The thread spun by the jenny was, however, suitable only for weft, and the roving process still required to be performed by hand. Probably Arkwright knew nothing of the experiments of Hargreaves, when, in 1767, he asked Kay, a clockmaker then residing at Warrington, to ‘bend him some wires and turn him some pieces of brass’ (Evidence of Kay, Trial, June 1785, p. 62). Shortly afterwards Arkwright gave up his business at Bolton, and devoted his whole attention to the perfecting of a contrivance for spinning by rollers. After getting Kay to construct for him certain wooden models, which convinced him that the solution of the problem had been accomplished, he is said to have applied to a Mr. Atherton of Warrington to make the spinning-machine, who, from the poverty of Arkwright's appearance, declined to undertake it (, General Biography, 1799, i. 391). He, however, agreed to lend Kay a smith and watch-tool maker to do the heavier part of the engine, and Kay undertook to make the clockmaker's part of it. Arkwright and Kay then proceeded to Preston, where with the co-operation of a friend of Arkwright, Mr. John Smalley, described as a ‘liquor merchant and painter,’ the machine was constructed and set up in the parlour of the house belonging to the Free Grammar School. The room seems to have been chosen for its secluded position, being hidden by a garden filled with gooseberry trees; but the very secrecy of their operations aroused suspicion, and popular superstition at once connected them with some kind of witchcraft or sorcery. Two old women who lived close by averred that they heard strange noises in it of a humming nature, as if the devil were tuning his bagpipes and Arkwright and Kay were dancing a reel; and so much consternation was produced that many were inclined to break open the place (, History of Preston, ii. 216). The building has since been changed into a public-house, which is known as the Arkwright Arms. As a proof of the straits to which Arkwright was then reduced and the degree to which he had sacrificed his comfort in order to obtain the means of completing his invention, it is stated that his clothes were in such a ragged state that he declined, unless supplied with a new suit, to go to record his vote at the Preston election of 1768, which took place while he was engaged in setting up his machine. Having thoroughly satisfied himself of the practical value of his invention, Arkwright removed to Nottingham, already an important seat of the stocking trade, whither Hargreaves, the inventor of the spinning-jenny, had the year previously removed, after his machines had been destroyed by a mob at Blackburn. Arkwright entered into partnership with Smalley from Preston, Kay continuing with him under a bond as a workman; and they erected a spinning-mill between Hockley and Woolpack Lane, a patent being taken out by Arkwright for the machine 3 July 1769.

The spinning-frame of Arkwright (see the drawing of the orginal one in History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 153, and  History of the Cotton Manufacture, i. 255; and of the water-frame in, p.276, and  Compendious History, plate 9) 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 implied 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 example of those beautiful and intricate mechanical contrivances which 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 rove was drawn to the requisite fineness for twisting, 