INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



made a similar attempt to produce a power-loom; but 

 his efforts were made in that most inauspicious time 

 at the middle of the eighteenth century, when Kay's 

 flying shuttle had made the hand -weaver able easily 

 to outstrip the spinners. In fact, many looms were 

 forced to stand idle part of the time because of the 

 inability of spinners to supply yarn. With the inven- 

 tions of Hargreaves and Arkwright, however, these 

 conditions were reversed, and by the closing years of 

 the century there was an overproduction of spun 

 products which could not be handled by the ordinary 

 looms. 



It was at this period, in 1784, that the attention of 

 a certain Dr. Edmund Cartwright, clergyman of the 

 Church of England, was directed to the problem con- 

 fronting the weavers. This remarkable man, without 

 ever having seen a weaver or a loom at work, and never 

 having attempted anything in the field of mechanics 

 before, soon produced the first ancestor of the power- 

 loom, whose modern descendants are among the most 

 remarkable of all ingenious machines. 



In the history of scientific discovery and invention 

 there are other instances where the temperament of a 

 poet has been combined with the practical mechanical 

 application of the mechanic, and wonderful discover- 

 ies and inventions have been the result; but perhaps 

 nowhere is this exemplified better than in the case of 

 Doctor Cartwright. Educated at Oxford in Univer- 

 sity College, and fellow of Magdalen College in 1764, 

 his life had been spent in fields far removed from that 

 of practical mechanics. Writing poetry and preaching 



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