Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/395

1922 of such problems that Salte made a visit in September 1786 to Oldknow's new country residence at Heaton [Mersey]. On his return south he was accompanied by Oldknow as far as Cromford, and shared in a conference with Richard Arkwright and William Strutt. Salte had evidently gathered that some new arrangement was pending between the Arkwrights and Oldknow. 'I suppose he would keep you longer,' he writes from London on 18 September,

"… and I believe he wishes to show you every kind of Civility. … Young Mr. Strutt told me in going to Derby, no other person could accomplish fine Spinning and such as you want; the old Gentleman was sanguine or apparently so that he would accomplish it—indeed my good Friend something must be done to perfect this yet infant business. We find ourselves pressed very hard from every Quarter. We want a Glaze or Dress upon the goods not yet accomplished. … There is a new invented Cylinder made of paper that does wonderfull well and gives muslins the India Gloss. Think and Think again on this matter."

Oldknow had now reached a further stage in his progress towards the factory system. The spinners and weavers—by this time upwards of eight hundred at Stockport and Anderton for whom he now found employment—worked either in their homes or in small workshops, but the preparatory and finishing processes carried on in his warehouses under the superintendence of foremen were assuming factory dimensions. More than a score of warping-mills were at work in his warehouse at Stockport, and the record of the daily output of half of them for the years 1787–94 affords the best continuous clue we possess to the character of his business. In another workshop fifty girls were engaged in finishing muslins upon twenty-five frames and trimming the patterns with scissors. But so far no use of water- or steam-power is recorded. The decisive step in this respect was taken when a water-wheel was erected for the new bleaching ground and print-works at Heaton, and a mill-race constructed to provide power towards the end of 1786. Oldknow had consulted William Strutt on this project at Cromford, and invited him in November to see the working of the experiment. 'I do think', he adds, 'you should have a bleach-field of your own.'

The new venture was under the management of Thomas Oldknow as partner of his brother. One part of the advice offered by Arkwright in 1784 was now fully adopted, and the other suggestion—that Oldknow should start a spinning-mill—had obviously been again under consideration at Cromford in September 1786, when partnership for this purpose with Richard Arkwright, junior, must have been mooted. On Sunday morning, 15 October, Oldknow rode over before breakfast to meet the younger Arkwright and Simpson, the manager of the elder