The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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332 LAISSEZ FAIRE i apprenticeship; this gave a good ground in law® and custom "for taking up the matter at all. Before the 249. The great development of cotton spinning suggested power-loom - : ; v came into the possibility of constructing a machine for weaving; this oo was actually done by Dr Cartwright®; but he had not the business ability? of Arkwright, and the invention did not tome into general use, or greatly affect either the conditions of the trade, or the employment of weavers, during at any rate the first few years of the nineteenth century’. Yet owing to | In 1801 Mr Justice Grose sentenced a man named Jouvaux to twelve months hard labour for ill-treating his apprentices. Hutchins and Harrison, op. cit. 14. 3 A previous experiment had been made by John Kay, but seems never to have peen taken up; Woodcroft, op. cit. 4. Edmund Cartwright, who was a Kentish slergyman, knew nothing about the textile trades and had never interested him- self in machine construction, until he invented the power-loom. While at Matlock, in 1784, he had had some conversation with spinners there, who were sontending that such a vast quantity of yarn was now spun that it would soon be impossible to get hands to weave it. His suggestion that a weaving machine should be invented was apparently treated with scorn; but as he believed that only three movements were required in the process, he set himself to construct a maehine with the help of a carpenter and smith. His machine was cumbrous in the extreme, and it required two strong men to keep it going even slowly, but he was proud of his invention and patented it. It then occurred to him to go and see a weaver at work ; with the result that he was able to improve on his first rough attempt and to produce a machine which was eventually a commercial success; Dr Cartwright's own attempts to make it remunerative proved a failure, and it was nof till 1801 that mills were started at Glasgow, where it was worked to advantage. (Baines, 231.) 8 The mill which Cartwright erected at Doncaster was not a success, and @rimshaw’s mill fitted with power-looms at Manchester in 1790 did not give satisfactory results. Guest, op. cit. 46. 4 Power weaving hardly became a practical snccess till after the invention of the dressing-frame. “In the year 1803, Mr Thomas Johnson, of Bradbury in Cheshire, invented the Dressing Frame. Before this invention the warp was iressed in the Loom in small portions, as it unrolled from the beam, the Loom easing to work during the operation. Mr Johnson’s machine dresses the whole warp at once; when dressed the warp is placed in the Loom which now works without intermission. A factory for Steam Looms was built in Manchester, in 1806. Soon afterwards two others were erected at Stockport, and about 1809, a fourth was completed in Westhoughton. In these renewed attempts to weave by steam, considerable improvements were made in the structure of the Looms, in the mode of warping, and in preparing the weft for the shuttle. With these improvements, aided by others in the art of spinning, which enabled the Spinners to make yarn much superior to that made in 1790, and assisted by Johnson's machine, which is peculiarly adapted for the dressing of warps for Steam Looms, the experiment succeeded. Before the invention of the Dressing Frame, one Weaver was required to each steam Loom, at present a boy or girl, fourteen or fifteen years of age can manage two Steam Looms, and with their help can weave three and a half times as much cloth as the best hand Weaver.” Guest, op. cit. 46.

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