SPINNING-JENNIES FOR WOOL 657
by women who had many other duties to do. But the jenny AD. 170
with its twenty spindles was a more elaborate machine, and
spinning came to be a definite trade on its own account. It
ceased to be carried on in ordinary cottages, by one member
of the family or another, and became the regular employment
of a particular class of workers, Though the regular spinners
might earn more at the jenny than they did before, there
must have been an immense reduction in the number of
those who had earned a little with their wheels.
The domestic jenny was not however destined to last. re
Mr Benjamin Gott of Leeds appears to have been the first spinning
man in that district to introduce spinning by power’, and Rippsieck
factories soon encroached upon the operations of the spinning-
jennies. The Yorkshire rates for spinning had been high?
and as the machinery was gradually improved, it must have
effected an enormous saving. In 1828° power-spinning was
introduced into the West of England district, and, as it was
calculated, effected a saving of 750 per cent. on the cost of
spinning by wheel. The introduction, first of jennies and
then of power-spinning, was by far the most important change,
so far as its social effects are concerned, in the whole revolu-
tion; and when we consider its magnitude, it must be a
matter of surprise that the new departure attracted so little
attention at the time.
254. The introduction of the flying shuttle appears to Tre flying
have had a remarkable result in the improved position of fous.
those woollen weavers who continued to get employment at re as
the trade. They were paid by the piece, and the price of
cloth was rising, owing to the increasing cost of wool ; but the
rate of payment to weavers did not diminish. Those who
! Bischoff, Comprehensive History of the Woollen and Worsted Manufacture,
. 815, but Hirst seems to have held that he was entitled to this distinction, see
selow, p. 661, n. 4. Messrs Toplis had erected a spinning mill for wool at
Cuckney, seven miles from Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, as early as 1788.
Annals of Agriculture, x. 281.
2 The developing trade of the West Riding found employment for all available
hands in 1791; Halifax masters had to pay spinners at the rate of 1s. 8d. or
ls. 4d. (Annals, xvI. 428). These high rates were partly due to the concurrent
demand for labour for cotton-spinning. Account of Society for Promotion of
{ndustry tn Lindsey (1789), Brit. Mus. 103. 1. 56, p. 54.
8 Miles’ Report in Reports from Assistant Hand-Loom Weavers Com-
missioners, 1840. xx1v. p. 390. + See above, p. 502.
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