The early English cotton industryDaniels, George W. (George William)
History
The early English cotton industry
Daniels, George W. (George William)
Cotton machinery; Cotton trade -- Great Britain
From the beginning, the effect of this invention was to multiply many
times the amount of yarn that could be spun by a spinner, and the size
of the jenny was soon increased. In 1767 it was said to contain eight
spindles; when Hargreaves took out his patent in 1770 the specification
mentioned sixteen or more; in 1784 the number had increased to eighty;
and ultimately as many as one hundred and twenty are said to have been
introduced.[263] Although the jenny did not make the rovings, and its
movements depended upon hand power, it represented a great advance in
spinning, and its mechanism was so simple that it could be worked by
children.[264] The thread it produced, however, was not completely
satisfactory for the warp in cotton goods, as it was not “capable of
giving that hardness of twist and fineness which was necessary to form
the threads of the warp.”[265]
[Footnote 263: Espinasse, _ibid._, pp. 322, 327.]
[Footnote 264: Ogden, _ibid._, p. 87.]
[Footnote 265: Guest, _British Cotton Manufacture_ (1828), p. 147.
Ogden states that the larger jennies were used for making warps until
they were superseded by the water-frame (_ibid._, p. 91).]
This defect was supplied by the invention of spinning by rollers
patented by Arkwright--the water-frame as it came to be called--as the
characteristic feature of the yarn thus spun was its suitability for
the warp. The jenny and the water-frame, therefore, were complementary
rather than substitutional machines. When the patent for spinning by
rollers was taken out in 1769, as with the jenny, it was still intended
that the rovings should be made on the spinning-wheel. But with
Arkwright’s method, instead of the rovings being attenuated by a long
stretch, the operation was performed by their passing between rollers
moving at different velocities, which had the same effect. For the
twisting and the winding of the thread the “Flier” spindle mentioned
in connection with the “Saxony” wheel was utilised. Consequently, the
spinning and winding operations proceeded simultaneously, whereas with
the jenny they were intermittent.[266]
[Footnote 266: _Souvenir of Royal Visit to Bolton_, pp. 16-17.]
Before Arkwright obtained his second patent in 1775, sometimes called
the “carding” patent, the roller method had been extended to the
rovings, and as he and others had effected the improvements, already
mentioned, in the carding machine, the whole of the operations required
in transforming the raw cotton into yarn could be performed by
machinery.[267]
[Footnote 267: Espinasse, _ibid._, p. 400.]
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