FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS--ARKWRIGHT AND CROMPTON.
Whatever may be said in favour of other spinning machinery inventors, it
is quite certain that when we put the whole of them together, two stand
out in greater prominence than any of the rest, viz., Arkwright and
Crompton.
Probably the former did more than any other Englishman to establish what
is known as the Modern Factory System. He was not what one might call a
brilliant man or great inventor, but he had the happy knack of
appreciating and seizing upon what he knew was a good thing, and set
about instantly to get all out of it that he could, and there are those
who strongly affirm that he often got much more than he was entitled to.
However that may be, it can not be denied that he possessed eminent
business qualifications, and these, coupled with other of his qualities,
helped to make him exceedingly successful.
He first saw the light of day on December 23rd, 1732, in Preston,
Lancashire, twenty-one years before his great rival and contemporary,
Samuel Crompton. His parents could not possibly afford to give him any
schooling, he being the youngest of thirteen. Apprenticed to the trade
of barber, he became in time a first-rate man in that business. In 1760,
when twenty-eight years of age, he left Preston and settled down in
Bolton in Lancashire, setting up the business of barber and
peruke-maker. The youthful Samuel Crompton would no doubt pay him many
visits when in Churchgate, and little did he dream that the head he so
often would undoubtedly use his skill upon was the one which would
evolve by and by a machine which would amaze the then commercial world;
but it was so. Another part of Arkwright's business, that of travelling
up and down the country buying and selling human hair for wig-making,
would put him _au fait_ with almost every new invention and idea.
Richard's business card proves that he believed in advertising himself
even as a barber.
Just about this time there was much excitement, especially in
Lancashire, about the marvellous invention of Hargreaves, the
particulars of which had now become known to the public. One of the
first to appreciate the significance of this invention was Arkwright
himself, so that it may reasonably be supposed that he would in good
time know all there was to be known of the mechanism used by Hargreaves
in his new method of spinning.
Later on, Arkwright became acquainted with a man named Highs of Leigh,
another experimenter in spinning. The circle of his acquaintanceship
also included Kay, a clockmaker of Warrington, who had assisted Highs on
several occasions in his investigations.
At this time Arkwright's all-absorbing hobby was mechanics, and first
one experiment and then another was made in rapid succession. Needless
to say, his business of barbering suffered in the meanwhile.
From the first he turned his attention to an improvement of spinning
cotton by drawing rollers. His efforts were crowned with success, and he
ultimately blossomed into a knight, and was elected High Sheriff of
Derbyshire. It is rather singular that he should be about the only one
of the cotton-machinery inventors of this age who amassed a fortune;
most of the others being but slightly removed from want in their last
days.
There were many who claimed that they were the real and original
inventors of this method of spinning by rollers, but there can be no
doubt that to Arkwright alone belongs the credit for bringing these
improvements to a higher state of perfection than they ever attained
before.
At the present time, roller drawing is the great basis of the operations
of modern spinning, wherever performed.
Not only is this the case in the final stages of production, but it is
especially true of most of the preparatory processes, whether used for
the production of coarse, medium or fine yarns.
As is well known, the great principle of drawing rollers is, that the
cotton is passed through three or four pairs of rollers in quick
succession, and attenuated by each pair in turn, each pair being made to
revolve more quickly than the preceding pair. This identical process is
repeated in machine after machine, until finally the bulk of cotton is
reduced to a fine thread, of which, in some cases, it takes two or three
hundred miles to weigh _one pound_. Even in what are termed medium
numbers or counts of cotton yarn, there are from fifteen to twenty-five
miles of thread in a pound avoirdupois, and more than _a thousand
million pounds_ of such yarns are spun annually.
The year 1767 found Arkwright entirely absorbed in his ideas of roller
drawing, and he got the clockmaker Kay to journey with him to
Nottingham, possibly thinking that what had been meted out to other
inventors in Lancashire should not be repeated in his case. He here
collected about him a number of friends, moneyed and otherwise, who
helped in his evolution of spinning machinery.
A man named John Smalley of Preston found him the wherewithal to carry
on his experiments first at Preston and later on at Nottingham.
Certainly what he put up at Nottingham gave such promise of practical
utility, that two experienced business men were led to join him in
partnership, and the three of them, Need, Strutt, and Arkwright, very
soon had mills built in Nottingham, Cromford and Matlock. The
first-named mill was worked by horses, the two latter by water, hence
the common name of _water frame_, given to the machines of Arkwright.
The gentlemen taken into partnership were able and qualified to give
good sound advice and help to Arkwright, and about the middle of the
year 1769 he took out a patent for his "_water frame_."
To use his own words, in his specification he "had, by great study and
long application, invented a new piece of machinery, never before found
out, practised or used, for the making of weft or yarn from cotton,
flax, and wool; which would be of great utility to a great many
manufacturers, as well as to His Majesty's subjects in general, by
employing a great many poor people in working the said machinery, and by
making the said weft or yarn much superior in quality to any heretofore
manufactured or made."
No useful purpose could be served by reproducing Arkwright's description
of the machine in question, but a picture of the actual machine is
shown in Fig. 22.
Image: FIG. 22.--Arkwright's machine (after Baines).
The most important feature of the invention, of course, was the drawing
out or attenuating of the cotton by rollers revolving at different
speeds. But it was also essential that proper mechanism should be
provided by which twist would be put into the yarn to make it
sufficiently strong; and furthermore, it was necessary to arrange for
the attenuated and twisted cotton to be automatically guided and coiled
up or wound up into a convenient form. As we have seen, the drawing out
of the cotton finer he accomplished by the Drawing Rollers originally
invented by Lewis Paul, while for the latter purpose he successfully
adapted the principle already existing in the Saxony wheel, used in the
linen manufacture, with which he probably became acquainted during his
residence at Preston.
It should not be forgotten that Hargreaves had introduced into the
commercial world his Jenny, a few years anterior to Arkwright's water
frame becoming so successful. These two machines were more or less in
rivalry, but not perhaps to that extent which many would suppose. From
the very first it was found that the frame of Arkwright's was much more
suitable for warp or twist yarns, _i.e._, the longitudinal threads of a
cloth, whereas Hargreaves' machine was more adapted for the production
of weft yarns, _i.e._, the transverse threads of a cloth. Now it cannot
be too strongly remarked that, at the present time, after the lapse of a
century, the same state of things practically obtain in the improved
machines of to-day; Hargreaves' machine being represented by the system
of intermittent spinning upon the improved self-actor mule, while
Arkwright's water frame is represented by the system of continuous
spinning upon the modern Ring Spinning frame. While weft yarn is now
almost entirely produced on the mule, warp yarns are in many cases now
obtained from the Ring Frames, this latter system at the present time
being greatly on the increase and daily becoming more popular.
The Carding Engine was greatly improved by Arkwright's many useful
improvements, especially that of the Doffer comb, being entirely his
own. The effect of this comb is fully described in the chapter dealing
with manipulation of the cotton by the Carding Engine.
Paul was probably the first, in 1748, to invent the Carding Machine. His
inventions seemed to hang fire until introduced into Lancashire, when
they were adopted by a Mr. Peel, Arkwright and others. The chief
defects, perhaps, of this machine was the absence of proper means for
putting the cotton on the revolving cylinder and having it stripped when
sufficiently carded. Hence the great value of Arkwright's stripping
comb.
Some old Carding Engines which were used at this time are still in
existence, though only used for museum purposes. As will have been
gathered in a former chapter dealing with the manipulation of the cotton
in the mill, between the Carding Engine and the final process of
spinning there are other and important stages of preparation, and in
these it is seen how in one respect Arkwright's method of drawing out
cotton by revolving rollers was immeasurably superior to the travelling
carriage of Hargreaves.
The strength of a rope is represented by its weakest parts, and the same
may be said of yarn. There can be no doubt that one of Arkwright's
greatest difficulties was to give an uniform yarn, and though he
successfully launched his new machines he felt there was still much to
be done in the direction of remedying yarn which was irregular in
thickness and strength. In order to do this, he finally adapted his
drawing rollers to what is now the modern drawing frame--a machine quite
as largely used, and quite as necessary in present-day spinning, as it
was a hundred years ago.
It was sought to make this machine do two things. (1) Several slivers
of cotton from the Card were put up together at the back, and by means
of four pairs of drawing rollers, were reduced to the thickness of one
sliver (see the description in chapter vi.). It will be sufficient to
say here that this method of doubling and drawing equalises the sliver
of cotton by the combination of the thick places with the thin.
Doubling is now the reason of the uniformity of the yarns that are
produced in such large quantities.
(2) The Carding Engine did not by any means lay the fibres of cotton
sufficiently parallel to each other, and this process of parallelisation
was fully accomplished by the front ends of the fibres being drawn
forward more rapidly than their back ends by the drawing rollers
revolving at different velocities. Mr. Baines says it was common to
perform this operation until the finished sliver contained portions from
_several thousand_ carding slivers, but we think he would have been
nearer the mark if he had said several hundred; although the higher
number may be occasionally reached.
Yet again, in order to obtain a thread or yarn of sufficient fineness,
it was found necessary to perform some of the attenuation of the
cotton sliver as it left the drawing frame and before it reached the
final spinning process. To this end, Arkwright adopted the Roving frame,
in which the leading feature was again the celebrated drawing rollers.
This machine made a soft and moderately twisted strand or roving, and if
much twist had been put in, it would have refused to draw out finer at
the spinning machine. Hence the means provided by Arkwright for the
twisting and winding-on of the attenuated cotton on his spinning frame
were utterly inadequate to cope with the soft loose roving, and as a
matter of fact Arkwright never did see this problem satisfactorily
solved.
He allowed, in his machine, the roving to fall into a rapidly revolving
can which stood upright; the revolution imparting twist to the cotton.
When this can was filled, it was carried to a winding frame, by which
the roving was wound upon bobbins suitable for the spinning frame.
That Arkwright was unscrupulous in some of his dealings will soon be
gathered if the various trials which he instituted to defend his
so-called patents be carefully read, though it must be admitted that he
possessed a most wonderful business capacity, and that he worked early
and late, in pushing his ideas with the most tireless energy and
determined perseverance. A glimpse of the nature of his early struggles
is obtained when it is recorded that on one occasion his wife broke some
of his first rude models, under the impression that he would starve his
family by neglect of his legitimate business of barber. So incensed at
her for this was he, that he ceased to live with her. Such were the
defects of his early education and such his determination to learn, that
at fifty he did not think he was too old to begin English grammar,
writing and arithmetic.
That he succeeded in getting together a large fortune is now history. He
died at the age of sixty on the 3rd August, 1792, at Cromford in
Derbyshire.
=Samuel Crompton.=--Perhaps the greatest of the cotton-spinning machinery
inventors was Samuel Crompton, who was born a few miles away from Bolton
in a delightfully secluded and sylvan spot, "Firwood Fold," on the 3rd
December, 1753. No story of the Cotton plant would be complete without
mention of this individual, for wherever fine spinning machinery is
practised there is a monument to the ingenuity, the skill and brilliant
genius of Samuel Crompton. At a very early age he, along with his
parents, removed into a much larger house still in existence and known
as "The Hall ith Wood." This ancient mansion stands on a piece of high
rocky ground and is distant from Bolton about 1-1/2 miles. It was in
this house that he invented his celebrated machine which he called "A
Mule." At the present time one looks in vain for the Wood, but in the
early days of Crompton's tenancy it was surrounded by a great number of
very fine trees, hence the name "The Hall in the Wood" or "Hall ith
Wood."
For some reason the Hall is being allowed to fall into decay, and at the
present time is in great danger of collapsing. Several attempts have
been made to buy the place and reclaim as much of it as possible and
convert it into a museum, but as yet nothing has been done. It was built
at two different periods: one portion of it, that of the "post and
plaster work," being built probably in the 15th century, while the newer
or later portion of stone was erected about 1648, for that date is
inscribed on the porch.
The inside does not appear to have received much care or improvement.
Originally the windows were much larger than at present. Pitt's window
tax, long since repealed, was the direct cause for the reducing of the
windows from their former proportions.
The illustration gives an excellent idea of its present-day appearance.
The building is always an object of extreme interest to visitors to the
locality, presenting even now a very picturesque appearance.
Image: FIG. 23.--The Hall ith Wood, where the spinning mule was invented.
Very soon after the removal of the family to the Hall ith Wood, Samuel's
father died. His mother, however, one of the best of women, filled the
duties of head of the house with much success, and followed the
laborious occupation of farming, and in her leisure moments, did what
many housewives of her class did--carded, spun, and wove, in order to
provide her family and herself with a decent livelihood.
She managed to give what might be termed under the circumstances a most
excellent and practical education to her son Samuel; and it may be here
remarked, that in many respects he was the exact opposite of his
predecessor Arkwright. The latter was certainly a bustling, pushing man
of business, while Crompton was a born inventor and recluse, and be it
said also, as big a failure, as a business man, as could be well
conceived. Of course Arkwright, as is well known, was the opposite of
this.
The early youth of Crompton was identified with the great progress in
the cotton industry of England, and, at fifteen or sixteen years of age,
he was to be found assisting his mother during the daytime, while in the
evenings he attended night-classes in Bolton, where he made great
progress in mathematics. He was so good at the latter subject that he
was called "a witch at figures."
It may be taken as perfectly natural that a man of the character,
training and early associations of Crompton should turn to invention in
connection with the cotton industry, especially since the beginning of
his association with the trade there had always been a scarcity of weft
for the loom which he and his mother operated.
The continual efforts of English weavers of that period to produce fine
cotton goods to compete with those at that time largely imported from
India, led to a great demand for fine yarns, and these the comparatively
clumsy fingers of English spinners could not produce in a manner at all
equal to the delicate filaments produced by the Hindoos.
Kay's invention of the fly shuttle, and the introduction by his son of
the drop-box in the loom, had vastly increased the output of the loom,
thus increasing the demand for weft and warp to feed it.
The inventions of Arkwright, Paul and others had certainly done much
toward supplying this demand, but in Crompton's youth and early manhood
the need of suitable weft was greater than ever. Mrs. Crompton was not
long in hearing about the Jenny of Hargreaves, and determined she would
get one for her son to work upon. This she did, and Crompton very soon
became familiar with it and produced upon it sufficient weft for their
own use. This he continued to do for seven or eight years, although he
constantly had the truth forced upon him, that the yarn he was producing
was neither as suitable for warps as that from Arkwright's water frame,
nor at all adapted for the fine muslins then very much in requisition
for ladies' dresses.
The manufacture of these muslins and of cotton quiltings was commenced
in Bolton, Lancashire, by Joseph Shaw, when Crompton was about ten years
of age; and from that time up to the present, no town in the world
enjoys the same reputation for this class of goods as does Bolton.
With so contemplative and reflective a mind as Crompton's, and the many
years of constant and, to a great extent, solitary occupation on
Hargreaves' Jenny, it is not to be wondered at that Crompton's ingenious
brain led him to devise some mechanism for improving the jenny on which
he worked.
In 1774, therefore, he began those experiments which, after five years
labour, resulted in the invention of the "New Wheel," or "Muslin Wheel,"
or "Hall ith Wood Wheel," as it was variously designated. The term
"Mule" was of later application, owing to its comprising the essential
features of both Arkwright's and Hargreaves' inventions. Because it was
a cross or combination of the two it received the name of Mule, by which
it is known to-day.
At the very time Crompton perfected his machine sufficiently to give it
a practical test, the Blackburn spinners and weavers were going
riotously about, smashing to pieces every jenny with more than twenty
spindles, that could be found for miles around the locality, so that
Crompton took elaborate pains to conceal the various parts of his new
machine in the ceiling of his work-room at the Hall ith Wood in order to
prevent their destruction.
Crompton's hopes and prospects were very bright at this time, as he had
a watch costing five guineas expressly made for him, and just after the
completion of his invention, he married one Mary Pimlott, at Bolton
Parish Church, 16th February 1780. He was then but twenty-seven years of
age, and his great invention, destined to revolutionise the cotton
trade, was already an accomplished fact although practically a secret to
the world at large.
When married, he and his wife set themselves assiduously to produce the
finest strong yarn which his machine was so eminently adapted to spin.
It did not take long for the good news to travel that fine yarn suitable
for the production of muslins was being made at the Hall ith Wood.
Hundreds of manufacturers visited Samuel to purchase, but many more came
out of curiosity, if by any means they could see this wonderful machine.
One individual is said to have hidden himself five days in the cockloft
and, having bored a hole through the ceiling, feasted one eye at least
by a sight of the marvellous mechanism which Crompton had invented.
Ballantyne records that as much as 14s. per pound was obtained for 40's
yarn; 25s. for 60's, and for a small quantity of 80's, 42s. per lb.
At the time of writing the market prices for these are respectively,
7-3/4d., 9-3/4d., and 1s. 3d. per lb.
Crompton, however, was not permitted to enjoy his prosperity and
monopoly very long, and here again may be noted the difference between
him and Arkwright. While the latter extorted the full business profit
from his inventions, the former suffered his ingenious machine to get
out of his hands by promises not worth the paper on which they were
written. His invention was not at all adequately protected by patent
rights, and a number of manufacturers were allowed to use the Mule on
their simple written promise to give him some remuneration. Long
afterwards he wrote:
"At last I consented, in hope of a generous and liberal subscription.
The consequence was, that from many subscribers, who would not pay the
sums they had set opposite their names, when I applied to them for it, I
got nothing but abusive language given to me to drive me from them,
which was easily done, for I never till then could think it possible
that any man (in such situation and circumstances) could pretend one
thing and act the direct opposite. I then found it was possible, having
had proof positive."
Another side of Crompton's character may be seen when it is stated he
was an enthusiastic musician, and earned 1s. 6d. a night by playing the
violin at the Bolton Theatre. Four or five years after the invention was
known, he removed to the township of Sharples, where he occupied a
farm-house called "The Oldhams," being probably induced to take this
step in order to secure greater privacy.
A few words may very profitably be expended at this point in describing
the main features of the machine shown in Fig. 24.
Image: FIG. 24.--Crompton's spinning mule.
It has been remarked that Arkwright had already attained great success
in the production of yarn by the extensive application of the principle
of pulling out the cotton by drawing rollers. Hargreaves had also shown
how to produce a thread by attenuating the cotton by means of a
travelling carriage.
Crompton, however, laid the foundation of the present system of mule
spinning by combining the essential features of the two machines and
blending them into one.
He applied the principle of roller drawing in order to first attenuate
the cotton, and he utilised the travelling carriage as a reserve power
with which to improve the quality of the thread and draw it out finer.
It must not be supposed that his travelling carriage was identical with
that of Hargreaves. On the contrary, it was a vast improvement upon it.
Crompton put the twisting spindles into the travelling carriage and the
roving bobbins he transferred to a fixed creel, and these conditions are
invariably to be found in the self-actor spinning mule of to-day.
In Hargreaves' machine the rovings were placed on the travelling
carriage, and the twisting spindles in the fixed frame behind, a
position which has never been acceptable since that time for
cotton-spinning mules. Here, however, a word may be said in favour of
Hargreaves' disposition of the parts mentioned. The Jenny did not
contain any heavy drawing rollers and roller beams, and it was probably
best in his machine to have his crude roving creel to traverse and the
twisting spindles to be in a fixed frame.
This disposition of the parts is even now to be found in most Twiner
Mules, that is, mules used to double two or more single threads together
without any process of drawing being applied to the cotton.
When Crompton applied the principle of drawing rollers, his ingenious
mind saw that it would be best to let the rollers, roller beam, and
roving creel be in a fixed framework on account of their combined weight
and size, making it very difficult to move them about.
Crompton's great idea seems to have been to produce a better thread by
his machine than could be given by other machines, and in this he
admirably succeeded.
The mule being set in motion, the rollers first attenuated and then
delivered the cotton to the spindle carriage. The latter, by the action
of the hand and knee, was made to recede from the rollers just about as
fast as the cotton was delivered to the spindles, or possibly at a
rather quicker rate. Then, while the thread was still in a soft state,
the rollers could be stopped and the threads pulled still finer by the
continued recession of the spindle carriage from the rollers.
Afterwards, when that length of thread was fully made, it wound on the
spindles, and the carriage at the same time returned to the roller beam.
Thus each portion of thread was first subjected to the action of drawing
rollers, as in Arkwright's machine, and then drawn still finer by the
withdrawal of the travelling carriage, as in Hargreaves' Jenny.
Shortly after Crompton's invention was given to the public, it began to
be improved in various ways. Henry Stones, a mechanic of Horwich, near
Bolton, substituted metal drawing rollers for Crompton's crude wooden
rollers, doubtless copying the idea from Arkwright's water frame.
All the mules employed at first were necessarily short; by that is meant
they contained but few spindles, often 40 or 50 spindles. The biggest
mule in Bolton in 1786 was said to contain 100 spindles. The preparation
of the rovings for the mule about this time occupied the attention of
Crompton, and he invented a Carding Engine which, however, did not
attain very much success. Indeed it is said that one day so incensed was
Crompton at the way he had been treated on account of his mule, that he
took an axe and smashed his engine to pieces.
In 1791 Crompton established a small manufactory in King Street, off
Deansgate, in Bolton.
In 1800 a subscription, promoted mainly by Manchester gentlemen,
resulted in L500 being handed over to Crompton, one of the contributors
for thirty guineas being the son of Sir R. Arkwright. With this money he
was enabled to enlarge his business somewhat--one of his new mules
containing upwards of 360 spindles and another 220 spindles. The mules
were worked for many years, in fact, up to the sixties, when they passed
into the hands of Messrs. Dobson & Barlow, the eminent cotton machinists
of Bolton. One of the mules made by Crompton is shown in Fig. 24.
In the early part of 1812 an agitation for a government grant in
recognition of Crompton's work made great progress. Mr. Perceval, the
then Prime Minister, was proceeding to the House of Commons to move that
a grant of L20,000 be made to Crompton, when he was shot by an assassin
named Bellingham. There is no doubt, had this disastrous affair never
happened and Perceval made his proposal, a grant much larger than was
actually voted (L5000) would have been made.
There is no doubt that this grant was altogether inadequate, seeing that
larger sums had been voted to other investigators and inventors about
this time.
Owing to his lack of business ability, and to ill fortune combined, poor
Crompton did not get out of this money what he might have done. Several
ventures turned out altogether very differently than he expected. He
became poorer and poorer, and was only protected from absolute want by
subscriptions and assistance provided by his true friends in the trade,
notably Mr. Kennedy, a Manchester manufacturer.
Image: FIG. 25.--Portrait of Samuel Crompton. (_By the kind
permission of W. Agnew & Son, Manchester._)
At the age of 74 he died, 26th June, 1827. He was interred in Bolton
Parish Churchyard, where a plain granite tomb sets forth the
following:--"Samuel Crompton of Hall ith Wood, Inventor of the Mule,
born 3rd December, 1753, died 26th June, 1827."
A noble monument of him is to be found standing on Nelson Square,
Bolton, in front of the General Post Office.