2f>2 



AKKWKIGHT. 



UIP upper one is covered willi leather, to make them 

 Uike a hold of the cotton. If llu-re were only one 

 juiirof rollers, it is clear that a carding of onion, 

 l>assed between them, would be drawn fonviird by 

 the revolution of the rollers ; but it would merely 

 undergo a certain decree of compression from their 

 action. No sooner, howc\ er, has the carding, or 

 wing as it is technically termed, begun to pass 

 through the first pair of rollers, than it is receded 

 by the second pair, which are made to revolve with 

 (as the case may be) three, four, or five times the 

 velocity of the first pair. By this admirable con- 

 trivance, the roving is drawn out into a thread of the 

 desired degree of tenuity, a twist being given to it 

 by the adaptation of the spindle and fly of the com- 

 mon flax wheel to the machinery. Such is the 

 principle on which Mr Arkwright constructed his 

 famous spinning-frame. It is obvious that it is 

 radically different from the previous methods of 

 spinning either by the common hand-wheel or distaff, 

 or by the jenny, which is only a modification of the 

 common wheel. Spinning by rollers was an entirely 

 original idea ; and it is difficult to determine which 

 is most worthy of admiration the genius which led 

 to so great a discovery, or the consummate skill and 

 address by which it was so speedily perfected and 

 reduced to practice. Mr Arkwright stated that he 

 accidentally derived the first hint of his great inven- 

 tion from seeing a red-hot iron bar elongated by 

 being made to pass between rollers ; and though 

 there is no mechanical analogy between that opera- 

 tion and his process of spinning, it is not difficult to 

 imagine, that by reflecting upon it, and placing the 

 subject in different points of view, it might lead him 

 to his invention. The precise era of the discovery 

 N not known ; but it is most probable that the 

 felicitous idea of spinning by rollers had occurred 

 to his mind as early as the period when Har- 

 gnives was engaged in the invention of the jenny, 

 or almost immediately after. Not being himself a 

 practical mechanic, Arkwright employed a person of 

 the name of John Kay, a watchmaker at Warrington, 

 to assist him in the preparation of the parts of his 

 machine. Having made some progress towards the 

 completion of his inventions, he applied, in 1767, to 

 Mr Atherton of Liverpool, for pecuniary assistance 

 to enable him to carry them into effect ; but this 

 gentleman declined embarking his property in what 

 appeared so hazardous a speculation, though he is 

 said to have sent him some workmen to assist in the 

 construction of his machine ; the first model of 

 which was set up in the parlour of the house be- 

 longing to the free grammar school at Preston. 

 His inventions being at length brought into a 

 pretty advanced state, Arkwright, accompanied by 

 Kay, and a Mr Smalley of Preston, removed to 

 Nottingham in 1 7CS, in order to avoid the attacks of 

 the ssi me lawless rabble that had driven Hargraves 

 out of Lancashire. Here his operations were at first 

 greatly fettered by a want of capital. But Mr Strutt 

 of Derby, a gentleman of great mechanical skill, and 

 largely engaged in the stocking manufacture, having 

 seen Arkwright' s inventions, and satisfied himself of 

 their extraordinary value, immediately entered, con- 

 jointly with his partner Mr Need, into partnership 

 with him. The command of the necessary funds 

 being thus obtained, Mr Arkwright erected his first 

 mill, which was driven by horses, at Nottingham, and 

 took out a patent for spinning by rollers, in 1769. 

 But as the mode of working the machinery by horse- 

 power was found too expensive, he built a second 

 factory, on a much larger scale, at Cromford, in 

 Derbyshire, in 1771, the machinery of which was 

 turned by a water-wheel, after the manner of the 

 famous silk mill erected by Sir Thomas Lombe. 



Having made several additional discoveries and im- 

 provements in the processes of carding, roving, and 

 spinning, he took out a fresh patent for the whole in 

 1775 ; and thus completed a series of machinery so 

 various and coiii|ilicated, yet so admirably combined, 

 and well adapted to produce the intended effect, in its 

 most perfect form, as to excite the astonishment and 

 admiration of every one capable of appreciating the 

 ingenuity displayed and the difficulties overcome. 

 When the vast importance of these discoveries became 

 known, it is not surprising that every effort should 

 have been made to have the patent set aside, and 

 Mr A. deprived of the profit and honour to be den \e.l 

 from them. In 1781, he commenced actions ugainst 

 a number of persons for invading them. Only one. 

 cause was tried, that against colonel Monlaunt, in 

 the court of king's bench in July, 1781. Colonel 

 Morda unt's defence was, that Mr Arkwright had not 

 fully communicated his inventions in the specification 

 as required by law, and that, therefore, the patent 

 was invalid. Mr Arkwright admitted that such \\a- 

 partly the case ; but addeo, that the obscurity charged 

 against the specification had been intended only to 

 prevent foreigners from pirating his inventions. A 

 verdict, however, was given against him. In Feb. 1 785, 

 nearly four years after the first trial, which overturn- 

 ed the patent, a second action was tried in the court 

 of Common Pleas, in which Mr Arkwright brought 

 a number of artists to prove that they could make 

 machines from his specification ; in consequence of 

 which he obtained a verdict. This verdict producing 

 great alarm among many who had, at a great ex- 

 pense, erected machines for cotton spinning, from 

 whom an acknowledgment of so much a spindle was 

 demanded, in order to settle the dispute, a process 

 on scire facias was brought against Mr A. in the 

 court of king's bench, in which the whole question, 

 not only on the point of the unintelligibilily of iiis 

 specification, but on the less technical and more im- 

 portant ground of his not being himself the inventor 

 of t he machines for which he had obtained a patent. 

 After a long and ably conducted trial, a verdict was 

 given against Mr A., and in Nov. 1785, the patent 

 was cancelled. Notwithstanding this, none of .Mi 

 A.'s most intimate friends, or those who were best 

 acquainted with his character, ever had the slightest 

 doubt with respect to the originality of his invention. 

 Some of them, indeed, could speak to the circumstan- 

 ces from their own personal knowledge ; and their 

 testimony was uniform and consistent. Such also 

 seems to be the opinion now generally entertained 

 among the principal manufacturers of Manchester. 

 In proof of this, we may refer to Mr Kennedy's 

 valuable paper, in the Manchester Memoirs. Mr 

 Kennedy is one of the most eminent and intelligent 

 cotton manufacturers in the empire, and it is of im- 

 portance to remark, that, although he was resident 

 in Manchester in 1785, when the last trial for setting 

 aside Mr A.'s patent took place, and must, therefore, 

 have been well acquainted with all the circumstances 

 connected with it, he does not insinuate the smallest 

 doubt as to his being the real inventor of the spin- 

 ning frame. Though a man of great personal strength, 

 which he is said to have displayed when young, in 

 election riots at Preston, Mr A. never enjoyed good 

 health. During the whole of his splendid and ever- 

 memorable career of invention and discovery, he was 

 labouring under a very severe asthmatic affection. 

 A complication of disorders at length terminated his 

 truly useful life in 1792, at his works at Cromford, in 

 the 6Oth year of his age. He was high sheriff ot 

 Derbyshire in 1786 ; and, having presented a con- 

 gratulatory address from the wapentake of Wirks- 

 worth, to his majesty George III., on his escape from 

 the attempt on his life by Margaret Nicholson, re- 



