Oldham Historical Research Group

Scan and page transcript from:
Historical Sketches of Oldham by Edwin Butterworth
Pub. 1856
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Historical Sketches of Oldham by Edwin Butterworth

the carding cylinder, was introduced into Lancashire by Mr. Morris, who established the first cotton mill in this county, namely Brock mill, near Wigan, about 1764, or shortly afterwards. Highs, one of the claimants to the invention of spinning by rollers, resided at Leigh, only seven miles from Wigan, at the time when he alleged he had effected the invention, 1767; and Arkwright, a still more successful claimant to the same honour, was an inhabitant of Bolton, only eleven miles from Wigan, at the period when he had made a similar discovery, 1768, besides which, he travelled in that part of the country at the time as a dealer in hair. It is highly probable, though there is no evidence of the fact, that Arkwright had a knowledge of the cotton spinning concern at Brock mill, near Wigan; and yet there can be little doubt, from a comparison of Wyatt's and Arkwright's original methods of spinning by rollers that the conception of the greater part of the process for giving effect to that principle was indisputably Arkwright's own, " Sir Richard Arkwright applied his mind to every process used in the spinning of cotton, and introduced improvements into them all. He may, indeed, be regarded as the founder of the factory system, for he established such a continuous union between all the processes, and so multiplied the processes themselves, that it was requisite to have the whole conducted in a single building." Arkwright, apprehensive of becoming odious if he stayed in Lancashire, in consequence of his invention, removed to Nottingham, and there, by the assistance of Messrs, Need and Strutt, he ultimately completed the admirable contrivance, and erected a mill in Nottingham, 1768, which was worked by horse power. His first patent was dated 1769. "The great demand for yarn, while the one thread wheel was the only instrument for spinning, set other wits to work to con- trive a substitute for it, besides those of Wyatt, Highs, and Arkwright. Accordingly the spinning jenny was invented by James Hargreaves, cotton weaver, of Stanhill, in Oswaldtwisle, near Blackburn, about 1764.

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