Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/532

Rh 500 COTTON qualities, it is spun by a process differing a little from that employed for ordinary twist. Being from two roves in place of one, it is called double-spun twist. The introduc tion of this article produced a great change in the stocking manufacture. Hand-spun cotton was entirely laid aside ; and stockings made of twist were of so superior a quality, that in a short time they wholly supplanted those made from thread. About the year 1773 Need and Strutt made the important discovery, that the yarn produced by the spinning frame had sufficient strength to fit it for warp, although its firmness and hardness rendered it less suitable for weft. The weft, therefore, continued to be spun by Hargreaves s jenny ; and from this time the calicoes, and other articles in imitation of India goods, which had hitherto been manu factured with linen warp, came to be made wholly of cotton ; and the progressive increase of these manufactures, particularly of calicoes, after this time, was unexampled. After having made a considerable quantity of those goods, Need and Strutt discovered that, when printed, they were subject to double the duty charged upon calicoes woven with linen warp, and that their sale was even pro hibited in the home market. After a long and expensive application to the legislature, they succeeded in procuring the repeal of those impolitic laws. Nearly about the same period, calicoes entirely of cotton were begun to be made at Blackburn, and also at Preston, which places soon became the seat of their manufacture, and for a long time the great market to which the printers from all parts of the kingdom resorted for their supplies. This branch went on increasing for many years in a most extraordinary degree. About the year 1805, it was calculated that the number of pieces sold annually in the Blackburn market was not less than a million ; and by that time the manu facture of this article was not confined to the country around Blackburn, but had spread into the north-west district of Yorkshire, principally about Colne and Bradford, from which part of the country 20,000 pieces weekly are said to have been sent to Manchester. The first attempts to make muslins in Britain com menced simultaneously in Lancashire and at Glasgow about the year 1780, but were without success. There was no yarn fitted for the weft of these goods, except that spun upon Hargreaves s jenny; and when made of this, it vras found they were not of a marketable quality. Recourse was then had to wefts brought from India ; and although a better article than the former was by this means produced, it was still not of a quality to compete successfully with Indian muslin. As soon, however, as the invention of the mule jenny enabled the spinner to produce yarns suited to such fabrics, the manufacture of the finest cotton articles became an important branch of trade in this country. That machine, as has been mentioned, came into use at the end of the year 1785, upon Arkwright s patent being cancelled; and it is from that period we ought to date the commence ment of this part of the manufacture. So rapid was its increase, that in 1787 it was computed that 500,000 pieces of muslin were in that year manufactured in Great Britain. Power Loom Weaving. The credit of the invention of the power loom is due to the Rev. E. Cartwright of Hollander House, Kent. The circumstances of his discovary, which will be found fully detailed in the following letter, are curious, and of interest in the history of inventions. Mr Cartwright says &quot;Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen O f Manchester, when the conversation turned on Arkwright s spinning machinery. One of the company observed, that as soon as Arkwright s patent expired, so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands never could be found to weave it. To this observation I replied, that Arkwright must then set his wits to work and invent a weaving mill. This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable ; and, in defence of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer, or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject, having never at that time seen a person weave. I controverted, however, the impracticability of the thing, by remarking that there had lately been exhibited in London an automaton figure which played at chess. &quot; Some little time afterwards, a particular circumstance recalling this conversation to my mind, it struck me that, as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, there could only be three movements, which were to follow each other in suc cession, there would be little difficulty in producing and repeating them. Full of these ideas I immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect. As soon as the machine was finished, I got a weaver to put in the warp, which was of such materials as sail-cloth is usually made of. To my great delight a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the produce. As I had never before turned my thoughts to anything mechanical, either in theory or practice, nor had ever seen a loom at work, or knew anything of its construction, you will readily suppose that my first loom must have been a most rude piece of machinery. The warp was placed perpendicularly, the reed fell with a force of at least half a hundrid- weight, and the springs which threw the shuttle were strong enough to have thrown a Congreve rocket. In short, it required the strength of two powerful men to work the machine at a slow rate, and only for a short time. Conceiving in my great simplicity that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property by a patent, 4th April 1785. This being done, 1 then condescended to see how other people wove ; and you will guess my astonishment when I compared their easy mode of operation with mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom, in its general principles nearly as they are now made ; but it was not till the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my last weaving patent, August 1st of that year.&quot; But the idea of weaving by machinery was not new, although it had never been carried into practice. About the close of the preceding century, a drawing and a description of a similar loom (a circumstance unknown to Cartwright) had been presented to the Royal Society of London. The movements, too, in both are the same in principle with those of the inch or tape loom, a machine which had long been in use. Cartwright, after obtaining his second patent, erected a weaving factory at Doncaster, which he filled with looms. This concern was unsuccessful, and was at last abandoned. But still the invention was considered so important to the country, that some years after, upon an application from a number of manufacturers at Manchester, Parliament granted Cartwright a sum of money as a remuneration for his ingenuity and trouble. About the year 1790, Grimshaw of Manchester, under a licence from Cartwright, erected a weaving factory, which was to have contained 500 looms, for weaving coarse sack ing cloth. He intended also to attempt the weaving of fustians. But after a small part of the machinery had been set agoing, the work was destroyed by fire ; and as the cone am during the short trial that had been made did not promise to be successful, the mill was not rebuilt. Weaving by power, in fact, could never have succeeded but for the discovery, by Mr Radcliffe of Stockport, of a process for dressing the web before it is put into the loom. The stoppage of the work from time to time for dressing the web made it impossible to do more than attend to one loorr ; but owing to the introduction of this process, one person was soon enabled to attend to two looms, and can now attend even to four. The contrivances for &quot;dressing&quot; are very ingenious, the Dress: machinery employed in it deriving its movement from the power which gives motion to the looms. The yarn is first wound from the cop upon bobbins by a winding machine. These are then taken to the warping mill and made into warps of such number of ends and such lengths as may be required by the manufacturer. The warp is taken to the beaming machine to be wound on to beams, and then to the dressing machine, and passed through strong starch liquid, &c. Where the manufacturer is also a spinner