Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the loom which bears his name,
and to whom the extent and prosperity of the silk manufacture of our
time is mainly due, was born at Lyons in 1752, of humble parents, both
of whom were weavers. His father taught him to ply the shuttle; but for
education of any other sort, he was left to his own devices. He managed
to pick up some knowledge of reading and writing for himself; but his
favourite occupation was the construction of little models of houses,
towers, articles of furniture, and so on, which he executed with much
taste and accuracy. On being apprenticed to a type-founder, he exhibited
his aptitude for mechanical contrivances by inventing a number of
improved tools for the use of the workmen. On his father's death he set
up as a manufacturer of figured fabrics; but although a skilful workman,
he was a bad manager, and the end of the undertaking was, that he had to
sell his looms to pay his debts. He married, but did not receive the
dowry with his wife which he expected, and to support his family had to
sell the house his father had left him,--the last remnant of his little
heritage. The invention of numerous ingenious machines for weaving,
type-founding, &c., proved the activity of his genius, but produced not
a farthing for the maintenance of his wife and child. He took service
with a lime-maker at Brest, while his wife made and sold straw hats in a
little shop at Lyons. He solaced himself for the drudgery of his labours
by spending his leisure in the study of machines for figure-weaving. The
idea of the beautiful apparatus which he afterwards perfected began to
dawn on him, but for the time it was driven out of his mind by the
stirring transactions of the time. The whirlwind of the Revolution was
sweeping through the land. Jacquard ardently embraced the cause of the
people, took part in the gallant defence of Lyons in 1793, fled for his
life on the reduction of the city, and with his son--a lad of
sixteen--joined the army of the Rhine. His boy fell by his side on the
field of battle, and Jacquard, destitute and broken-hearted, returned to
Lyons. His house had been burned down; his wife was nowhere to be heard
of. At length he discovered her in a miserable garret, earning a bare
subsistence by plaiting straw. For want of other employment he shared
her labours, till Lyons began to rise from its ruins, to recover its
scattered population, and revive its industry. Jacquard applied himself
with renewed energy to the completion of the machine of which he had,
before the Revolution, conceived the idea; exhibited it at the National
Exposition of the Products of Industry in 1801; and obtained a bronze
medal and a ten years' patent.
During the peace of Amiens, Jacquard happened to take up a newspaper in
a _cabaret_ which he frequented, and his eye fell on a translated
extract from an English journal, stating that a prize was offered by a
society in London for the construction of a machine for weaving nets. As
a mere amusement he turned his thoughts to the subject, contrived a
number of models, and at last solved the problem. He made a machine and
wove a little net with it. One day he met a friend who had read the
paragraph from the English paper. Jacquard drew the net from his pocket
saying, "Oh! I've got over the difficulty! see, there is a net I've
made." After that he took no more thought about the matter, and had
quite forgotten it, when he was startled by a summons to appear at the
Prefectal Palace. The prefect received him very kindly, and expressed
his astonishment that his mechanical genius should so long have remained
in obscurity. Jacquard could not imagine how the prefect had discovered
his mechanical experiments, and began vaguely to dread that he had got
into some shocking scrape. He stammered out a sort of apology. The
prefect was surprised he should deny his own talent, and said he had
been informed that he had invented a machine for weaving nets. Jacquard
owned that he had.
"Well, then, you're the right man, after all," said the prefect. "I have
orders from the emperor to send the machine to Paris."
"Yes, but you must give me time to make it," replied Jacquard.
In a week or two Jacquard again presented himself at the palace with his
machine and a half manufactured net. The prefect was eager to see how it
worked.
"Count the number of loops in that net," said Jacquard, "and then strike
the bar with your foot."
The prefect did so, and was surprised and delighted to see another loop
added to the number.
"Capital!" cried he. "I have his majesty's orders, M. Jacquard, to send
you and your machine to Paris."
"To Paris! How can that be? How can I leave my business here?"
"There is no help for it; and not only must you go to Paris, but you
must start at once, without an hour's delay."
"If it must be, it must. I will go home and pack up a little bundle, and
tell my wife about my journey, I shall be ready to start to-morrow."
"To-morrow won't do; you must go to-day. A carriage is waiting to take
you to Paris; and you must not go home. I will send to your house for
any things you want, and convey any message to your wife. I will provide
you with money for the journey."
There was no help for it, so Jacquard got into the carriage, along with
a gendarme who was to take charge of him, and wondered, all the way to
Paris, what it all meant. On reaching the capital he was taken before
Napoleon, who received him in a very condescending manner. Carnot, who
was also present, could not at first comprehend the machine, and turning
to the inventor, exclaimed roughly, "What, do you pretend to do what is
beyond the power of man? Can you tie a knot in a stretched string?"
Jacquard, not at all disconcerted, explained the construction of his
machine so simply and clearly, as to convince the incredulous minister
that it accomplished what he had hitherto deemed an impossibility.
Jacquard was now employed in the Conservatory of Arts and Manufactures
to repair and keep in order the models and machines. At this time a
magnificent shawl was being woven in one of the government works for the
Empress Josephine. Very costly and complicated machinery was employed,
and nearly L1000 had already been spent on it. It appeared to Jacquard
that the shawl might be manufactured in a much simpler and less
expensive manner. He thought that the principle of a machine of
Vaucousin's might be applied to the operation, but found it too complex
and slow. He brooded over the subject, made a great many experiments,
and at last succeeded in contriving an improved apparatus.
He returned to Lyons to superintend the introduction of his machine for
figure-weaving and the manufacture of nets. The former invention was
purchased for the use of the people, and was brought into use very
slowly. The weavers of Lyons denounced Jacquard as the enemy of the
people, who was striving to destroy their trade, and starve themselves
and families, and used every effort to prevent the introduction of his
machine. They wilfully spoiled their work in order to bring the new
process into discredit. The machine was ordered to be destroyed in one
of the public squares. It was broken to pieces,--the iron-work was sold
for old metal, and the wood-work for faggots. Jacquard himself had on
one occasion to be rescued from the hands of a mob who were going to
throw him into the Rhone.
Before Jacquard's death in 1835, his apparatus had not only made its way
into every manufactory in France, but was used in England, Switzerland,
Germany, Italy, and America. Even the Chinese condescended to avail
themselves of this invention of a "barbarian."
Jacquard's apparatus is, strictly speaking, not a loom, but an appendage
to one. It is intended to elevate or depress, by bars, the warp threads
for the reception of the shuttle, the patterns being regulated by means
of bands of punched cards acting on needles with loops and eyes. At
first applied to silk weaving only, the use of this machine has since
been extended to the bobbin net, carpets, and other fancy manufactures.
By its agency the richest and most complex designs, which could formerly
be achieved only by the most skilful labourers, with a painful degree of
labour, and at an exorbitant cost, are now produced with facility by the
most ordinary workmen, and at the most moderate price.
Of late years the silk manufacture has greatly improved, both in
character and extent. The products of British looms exhibited at the
Great Exhibition of 1862 vied with those of the Continent. Every year
upwards of L2,300,000 worth of silk is brought to England; and the silk
manufacture engages some L55,000,000 of capital, and employs eleven to
twelve hundred thousand of our population.
The Potter's Art.
I.--LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.
II.--BERNARD PALISSY.
III.--JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.
The Potter's Art.