578 



CROMPTON 



CROMWELL 



shire, December 3, 1753. Like his father, Cromp- 

 ton was brought up to the loom and the farm. 

 His mother, a woman of great energy, persever- 

 ance, and stern independence, when left a widow 

 struggled hard to give him and her two daughters 

 the best education the district afforded. When 

 he was old enough, he assisted her in the farm, 

 and wove, and earned a little money by playing 

 the violin at Bolton theatre. At the age of 

 twenty-one, he was so much annoyed at the 

 breaking ends of yarn and the difficulties in get- 

 ting it to weave that he set to work to invent a 

 spinning-machine which should produce better 

 yarn than Hargreaves', one of which his mother 



Eossessed. For five years he laboured to realise 

 is idea, sitting up late at night to overcome the 

 successive difficulties, and resuming his labour 

 for daily bread early in the morning. In 1779 

 he succeeded in framing a machine which pro- 

 duced yarn of such astonishing fineness that the 

 house was beset by persons eager to know the 

 secret. He was rendered miserable. All kinds 

 of devices were tried to gain admission ; even 

 ladders were placed against the windows. His 

 machine was such that if a mechanic saw it, he 

 could carry away the leading features of it. He 

 could not leave the house for fear of his discovery 

 being stolen from him. He had spent every 

 farthing he had in the world upon its comple- 

 tion ; he had no funds wherewith to obtain a 

 patent, and his shy and un business-like tempera- 

 ment prevented him profiting as he should nave 

 done by his invention. A Bolton manufacturer 

 persuaded him to disclose the invention to the 

 trade, under the promise of a liberal subscription, 

 but all that he got was 67, 6s. 6d. Soured by 

 this treatment, in the course of time he saved 

 money enough to begin manufacturing on a small 

 scale at Oldhams, near Bolton, and Isxtterly 

 at Bolton, but not till his rivals had a hopeless 

 start of him in the business. After the use of the 

 mule had told distinctly on British manufacturing 

 prosperity, a sum of between 400 and 500 was 

 raised for him by subscription, through Mr John 

 Kennedy, his earliest biographer. Efforts were 

 made to procure for him a national reward. Five 

 thousand pounds was all he obtained in 1812, 

 and he returned to Bolton almost broken-hearted. 

 He began the bleaching trade at Over Darwen, 

 then became a partner in a cotton firm, but was 

 unsuccessful in both. Some friends latterly pur- 

 chased an annuity of 63 for him. He died June 26, 

 1827. Crompton's was soon by far the most used of 

 all spinning-machines, and in 1811 the number of 

 spindles on his principle was 4,600,000, while there 

 were only 310,516 of Arkwright's, and 155,880 of 

 Hargreaves'. A monument was placed over his 

 grave, and in 1862 a bronze statue of him erected 

 at Bolton. See Kennedy's Memoir in vol. v. of 

 Memoirs of Literary and Philosophical Society of 

 Manchester, and French's Life ofOrompton (1860). 

 Cromwell, OLIVER, Protector of the Common- 

 wealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was 

 born at Huntingdon, April 25, 1599. He was the 

 son of Robert Cromwell, younger son of Sir Henry 

 Cromwell, descendant of a nephew of Cromwell, 

 Earl of Essex, and was a younger brother of Sir 

 Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook. His mother 

 was Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Steward of 

 Ely, afterwards knighted by James I., who, when 

 she married Robert Cromwell, was the widow of 

 William Lynne. He was first-cousin to John 

 Hampden. He was educated at Huntingdon 

 grammar-school, the master of which was the 

 Puritan Dr Beard, and at Sidney-Sussex College, 

 Cambridge, and seems to have carried away a 

 modest share of classical and general culture. 

 He went to London to study law, but never 



entered an Inn of Court. In June 1617 his father 

 died, leaving him a moderate estate at Hunting- 

 don. In August 1620 he married Elizabeth, 

 daughter of Sir James Bourchier, a London 

 merchant. Of the wildness of his youth there is 

 no proof beyond his own remorseful confession 

 after his conversion that before he knew God he 

 had been the chief of sinners. He was, however, 

 under medical treatment for hypochondria. He 

 embraced Puritanism in its most enthusiastic 

 form, attended and supported the ministry of its 

 proscribed preachers, and became a zealous ad- 

 herent of the cause, and opponent of its arch- 

 enemy and persecutor Laud. 



In 1628 he sat as member for Huntingdon in the 

 stormy third parliament of Charles, and raised 

 his voice against Romanising ecclesiastics. The 

 parliament dissolved, he returned to farming at 

 Huntingdon, whence he removed to St Ives and 

 afterwards to Ely, where property had been left 

 him by his uncle. He appears to have come into 

 collision as a local patriot with the king's com- 

 missioners for the drainage of the Fens. He sat 

 for Cambridge in the Short Parliament and in the 

 Long Parliament ( 1640). In the Long Parliament, 

 though no speaker, he was active and vehement on 

 the Puritan side. Sir Philip Warwick describes 

 him at this period in ' a plain cloth suit, which 

 seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor ; 

 his linen was plain, and not very clean ; and I 

 remember a speck or two of blood upon his little 

 band, which was not much larger than his collar. 

 His hat was without a hat-band ; his stature was 

 of a good size ; his sword stuck close to his side ; 

 his countenance swollen and reddish ; his voice 

 sharp and untunable ; and his eloquence full of 

 fervour.' Sir Philip adds: 'It lessened much my 

 reverence unto that great council, for this gentle- 

 man was very much hearkened unto.' 



When war broke out ( 1642) he was sent down to 

 organise his district for the parliament, which he did 

 with the greatest vigour and success. He also sub- 

 scribed 500 to the cause. Becoming captain of a 

 troop of parliamentary horse, he fought at Edge- 

 hill. After Edgehill, he warned his friends that 

 the parliament must have soldiers of a better stamp, 

 and that to the spirit of a chivalrous gentry must 

 be opposed that of a God-fearing yeomanry. On 

 this principle he formed his unconquerable Iron- 

 sides. With strict morality and organised enthu- 

 siasm he combined in the famous corps a rigid 

 discipline, which enabled him always to keep his 

 troopers well in hand, and thus to turn the waver- 

 ing tide of more than one battle. While the cause 

 of the parliament was depressed elsewhere, his 

 constancy, capacity, and courage upheld it in the 

 eastern counties, which had formed themselves 

 into an association, of which he was the soul. A 

 brilliant action near Gainsborough marked him 

 for high command. In the summer of 1644 he. 

 under Manchester, led the forces of the associated 

 counties to join the Scots and the troops of the 

 Fairfaxes before York, and in the Ibattle of 

 Marston Moor the charges of his cavalry decided 

 the day. He now stood forth as the leader of the 

 Independent and thoroughgoing party against the 

 Presbyterians and moderates. After the second 

 battle of Newbury he impeached the conduct of 

 Manchester in parliament. While the Presbyterian 

 and aristocratic generals were set aside by the 

 Self-denying Ordinance, Cromwell was retained in 

 command. Under Fairfax he led the new model 

 army, of which he no doubt was the chief 

 organiser, to decisive victory at Naseby, June 14, 

 1645. Fairfax being no politician, Cromwell be- 

 came the representative of the army in its contest 

 with the Presbyterian parliament, which desired to 

 disband it. The Presbyterians proving intractable, 



