A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



by power was designed by a Monsieur de Gennes ; 

 a description of it extracted from the Journal de 

 Scavam appeared in the Philosophical Tramac- 

 ^/flw for July and August, 1678, and a shorter 

 account in the Gentleman i Magazine nearly 

 three-quarters of a century later, namely in 

 1 75 1 (vol. xxi, 391-2). The contrivance was 

 of no practical utility ; it was highly rudimentary, 

 consisting of mechanical arms with mechanical 

 hands, so to speak, that shot in and out of the 

 warp and exchanged the shuttle. Also in the 

 seventeenth century a John Barkstead was 

 granted a patent for a method of manufacturing 

 cotton goods, but the method is not described.'" 

 Another idea that had a future was that of 

 grinding the shuttle through the warps by the 

 agency of cog-wheels working at each end upon 

 teeth affixed to the upper side of the shuttle. 

 The shuttles, of course, could not be given 

 rapid motion in this way, but the machine 

 was economical for the production of ribbons and 

 tapes because many lengths could be woven at once 

 on the same machine. In 1724 Stukeley, in his 

 Itinerarium Curiosum, wrote that the people of 

 Manchester have ' looms that work twenty-four 

 laces at a time, which was stolen from the 

 Dutch.' These were the swivel-looms described 

 above, and Ogden agrees that they were set up 

 in imitation of Dutch machines by Dutch 

 mechanics invited over to this country for the 

 purpose. There is another interesting passage 

 relating to the swivel-looms in the rules of the 

 Manchester small-ware weavers dated 1756, 

 where refirrence is made to the masters having 

 acquired by the use of ' engine or Dutch looms 

 such large and opulent fortunes as hath enabled 

 tlicm to vie with some of the best gentlemen of 

 the country,' and the statement is made that 

 these machines, which wove twelve or fourteen 

 pieces at once, were in use in Manchester 'thirty 

 years ago.'" In 1760 a Mr. Gartside filled a 

 factory at Manchester with them, using water 

 power to drive them, but the enterprise, which 

 may not have been the first of its kind (i.e. in 

 power-weaving), failed.'^ 



Cartwright probably completed his invention 

 of the first ordinary practicable power-loom in 

 1787, and then lost a fortune in trying to 

 make it pay ; he received some compensation 



^i6gi. Specification 276. 



"In the Par/. Refi., 1840, xxiv, 611, the 

 invention of the swivel-loom is claimed for a 

 ' \'an Anson.' If by ' Van Anson ' is meant 

 Vaucanson, as seems probable, he could not have been 

 the original inventor, though he appears to have 

 improved the swivel-loom, as in 1724 (that is, when 

 Vaucanson ivas at most fifteen years of age) they were 

 being used in Manchester. 



''Aikin, op. cit, 175-6 and Guest, op. cit. 44. 

 An explanation of the mechanism of the swivel-loom 

 will be found in the Encyclofedie Mithodique, Manu- 

 factures, Arts et Metiers, pt. i, vol. ii, pp. ccii, ccviii ; 

 and Recueil de Planches (1786), vi, 72-8. 



384 



however, in 1809, in the form of a grant of 

 j^iO,00O from the Government. In 1790 

 Messrs. Grimshaw of Gorton erected a weaving 

 factory which they filled with Cartwright's 

 looms, and tried with little success, though at 

 great cost, to improve them until the factory 

 was burnt down. Bell and Miller brought 

 forward their patents in 1794 and 1798 respec- 

 tively, and in 1803 and the next year William 

 RadclifFe of Stockport (who agitated for restric- 

 tion on the exportation of yarn), with the 

 assistance of an ingenious mechanic, Johnson, 

 took out patents for the dressing of the warp 

 before it was placed in the loom and for the 

 mechanical taking up of the woven cloth and 

 drawing forward of the warp to be woven upon. 

 Prior to these inventions the loom had to be 

 stopped for the woven cloth to be moved on and 

 for the parts of the warps brought within the 

 play of the shuttle to be sized. Looms fitted 

 with the latter of these devices were known as 

 ' dandy ' looms. In 1 803 Horrocks, also of 

 Stockport, brought out a new loom which was 

 improved and further patented in 1805 and 

 18 1 3. These, seemingly, were 'dandy' looms, 

 and RadclifFe asserts that their device for taking 

 up the cloth was copied from his hand-loom. 

 Another loom was brought forward by Peter 

 Marsland in 1806. While upon the subject of 

 weaving mechanisms we must notice that an 

 arrangement for throwing the loom out of action 

 when the weft broke came into use soon after 

 the introduction of power-looms, and that one 

 of Cartwright's patents included a warp-stop 

 motion, though it was not employed. Looms 

 with warp-stop motions are now common in the 

 United States, as are also automatic looms, but 

 both are still the exception in Lancashire, for 

 reasons that need not be entered into. 



The power-loom only very slowly made its 

 way into use: in 18 13 a bare 2,400 could be 

 counted in the whole of the United Kingdom. 

 In 1820 the number was 14,000 (there were then 

 some 240,000 hand-looms); in 1829 the number 

 was 55,500; in 1833, 100,000; in 1870, 

 440,700; and to-day it stands at about 700,000.°' 

 Its imperfections at first retarded its adoption, but 

 despite improvements the factory system did not 

 prevail for many years. In Oldham the pressure 

 of power-manufacturing was felt very severely by 

 1824 — 'factory work is best for a poor family 

 at this time,' wrote Rowbottom in his Diary in 

 that year,'* but in the finer work the hand-loom 

 weavers easily held their own. In 1829 



"Figures for the years above up to 1833 will be 

 found in Pari. Rep. 1840, xxiv, 611. 



°*This is the manuscript diary of a weaver of 

 Oldham roughly covering the period 1787 to 1830. 

 It is now in the Oldham Public Library. 

 Mr. S. Andrew edited extracts from it in a series of 

 articles in the Standard (an Oldham paper) under the 

 title 'Annals of Oldham' (beginning i Jan. 1887). 



