Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11: Historical, Entertaining & Commercial; Alphabetically Arranged. 11 Volume set.Dugdale, Thomas
History
Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11: Historical, Entertaining & Commercial; Alphabetically Arranged. 11 Volume set.
Dugdale, Thomas
Great Britain -- Gazetteers
[A] BAKEWELL. This ancient market town, in which the petty sessions for
the High Peak are holden, is situated on the western bank of the river
Wye. Of late years, the market has dwindled into insignificance, but the
parish is the most extensive in Derbyshire; its length is more than 20
miles, and its breadth upwards of eight. The pasturage in this
neighbourhood is remarkably good. The town was anciently called
Bath-quelle; it appears to have derived its name from its Bath-well, the
immediate site of which has been for many years occupied by a collector
of minerals and fossils for private cabinets. From the circumstance of a
Roman altar, and other antiquities having been discovered here, there
can be but little doubt that Bakewell was a place of some note in the
time of the Romans. At the Conquest, Bakewell had two priests and a
church. The manor then belonged to William Peverell, ancestor of the
Peveril celebrated in the admirable romance by Sir Walter Scott, styled
"Peveril of the Peak." Bakewell church is an ancient structure, with a
lofty spire. Near the entrance of the town, from Ashford, is a mill, for
the carding, roving, doubling, spinning, and twisting of cotton, in
which some hundreds of persons of both sexes are employed; the mill was
erected by the late Sir Richard Arkwright, the founder of the cotton
trade in this neighbourhood. This distinguished character, whose
perseverance and admirable inventions raised him from one of the most
humble occupations in society--that of a barber--to affluence and
honour, was the youngest of thirteen children, and was born in the year
1732, at Preston, in Lancashire. A considerable manufacture of linen
goods, and of linen and cotton mixed, was then carried on in that
neighbourhood, and Mr. Arkwright had an opportunity of becoming
intimately acquainted with the various operations; and being a man of
superior powers, he directed his thoughts to the improvement of the mode
of spinning, which had probably been conducted for ages without thought
of change. The first hint respecting the means of effecting this
improvement, he said, he accidentally received from seeing a red hot
iron bar elongated, by being passed between iron cylinders. The
difficulties which he experienced before he could bring his machine into
use, even after its construction was sufficiently complete to
demonstrate its value, would, perhaps, have for ever retarded its
completion, had his genius and application been less ardent. His
pecuniary means were not such as to enable him to commence business on
his own account, and few were willing to incur the necessary risk. At
length, however, he secured the co-operation of some persons who saw the
merits of the invention, and were willing to assist his endeavours, and
he obtained his first patent for spinning by means of rollers in the
year 1769. To avoid the inconvenience of establishing a manufacture of
this kind at the great seat of the cotton manufacture, as it then
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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