1878

Source-Book,

PP. 321-324.

Kingsley, Alton Locke.

Disraeli, Sybil.

Besant, The Children of Gibeon; All Sorts and Conditions of Men.
Ward, Marcella.

Carlyle, Sartor Resartus.

Ruskin, Unto This Last.

Domestic Manufacture. The first half of the eighteenth century was a period of marked prosperity for the workingclass population of England. The arable land was still for the most part tilled by peasants in small holdings. Under the influence of the bounty on exports (1689), the price of grain was such as to insure a steady profit to the producer. The farmer's income was further enhanced by certain byindustries. The exclusive policy of the gilds had driven cloth manufacturers who were not of the favored companies into the rural districts, and the woollen industry was largely

Introduction of Textile Machinery

467

Defoe, Tour
through
Great

Britain.
Vol. I, Letter

I, pp. 92-94.
Vol. III,

Letter I,

PP. 99-102,

116-121.

Cunning

ham, pp. 219,

220.

transferred from the city to the farm. Carding, spinning, Burns, weaving, and dyeing were carried on with good success in Cotter's Satthousands of cottage homes. The homespun broadcloths urday Night, and serges found a ready market in the neighboring towns and brought in a welcome addition to the yeoman's income. Introduction of Textile Machinery. Until 1700, the implements employed in cloth manufacture were nearly as simple as those of India. The distaff and spindle had been displaced by the spinning-wheel in the fifteenth century, but the loom contained as yet no essential improvement on that used by the Anglo-Saxons. In 1738, one John Kay invented the fly-shuttle, which enabled one man to tend the Traill, V, loom that had heretofore required two. At the same time, 305-310. the productive power was doubled. The fly-shuttle came Bright, III, rapidly into general use, and, since the efficiency of the 1013. weaver was quadrupled, the looms soon outstripped the spinning-wheels. It was difficult to provide yarn for all the weavers. In 1767 Hargreaves stumbled upon an invention that restored proportion. Upsetting a spinning-wheel and observing it still moving, he caught the idea of an automatic arrangement of several spindles set in motion by one wheel. The spinning-jenny, as his machine was called, carried at first eight threads, then sixteen, twenty, one hundred and twenty, etc. At about the same time, Richard Arkwright secured a patent for a spinning-machine (the throstle) constructed on a different principle and spinning a harder, firmer thread than the jenny. The best features of the two machines were combined in the mule-jenny, patented by Samuel Crompton in 1779. The new spinner has been improved till it now carries two thousand spindles and requires so little attention that several machines can be managed by one man. These inventions gave a marvellous impulse to textile industry. The new machinery was used to great advantage in making up not only silk, wool, and flax, but the far more difficult fibre cotton. The manufacture of cotton had been regarded as impracticable in England, and the importation of cotton cloth from the East was prohibited

Traill, V, 468-474. Traill, VI, 69-74.

lest it should come into injurious competition with the native woollen goods. But Hargreaves's jenny spun a fine, strong thread that could be woven into the best cambric. Business enterprise caught at this new opportunity. Mills were built and machinery perfected, vast quantities of raw material1 were imported, and cotton cloth became one of the principal products of English industry. The zealous manu

Watt's steam engine.

ARKWRIGHT'S SPINNING MACHINE OF 1769

From the original specification drawing. - Ure, Cotton Manufacture

facturers soon cast aside hand power as quite too slow for
their purpose.
Horse power and water power were utilized
in turn. Finally Watt's steam engine furnished a motor, at
once the most convenient and the most efficient. Cart-
wright's power-loom was invented in 1787 and was imme-
diately adopted in the cotton factories. In the manufac-

1The invention of the cotton-gin (1793) greatly reduced the cost of preparing the raw material.

2 These inventors were, with few exceptions, men of humble birth. Hargreaves was an ignorant weaver; Crompton, a spinner and a farmer's son; Arkwright was a poor wig-maker; Cartwright alone of the great inventors was a gentleman born.