It was in the year 1767 that Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, and two years later Arkwright took out his patent claiming that he had “by great study and long application invented a new piece of machinery, never before found out, practiced or used, for the making of weft or yarn from cotton, flax, and wool; which would be of great utility to a great many manufacturers, as well as to His Majesty’s subjects in general, by employing a great number of poor people in working the said machinery and in making the said weft or yarn much superior in quality to any heretofore manufactured or made.” However lacking in originality this famous invention may have been, however great may have been the debt which Arkwright owed to Wyatt and Paul, to John Kay and to High, nevertheless, to him belongs all the credit of the first successful introduction of spinning by machinery. Having obtained this patent, Arkwright found himself without the capital necessary for carrying out his plans; and he returned to his native city of Preston and there applied to a friend, Mr. John Smalley, a liquor merchant, for assistance. So reduced were his circumstances at this time that going to vote at a contested election, which occurred during his visit to Preston, his wardrobe was in so tattered a condition that a number of his friends advanced the money to purchase decent clothes in which he might appear in the poll-room; and once during this period he having applied for pecuniary aid to a Mr. Atherton, that gentleman refused to entertain Arkwright’s plan because of the rags in which the inventor was dressed. It was in Preston, then, that Arkwright first fitted up his perfected spinning machine, in the parlor of a house belonging to the free grammar school. Here Arkwright successfully demonstrated the utility of his invention and first received financial support. In consequence of the riots which had taken place in the neighborhood of Blackburn on the invention of Hargreaves’s spinning-jenny, by which many of the machines were destroyed and the inventor driven from his native county to Nottingham, Arkwright and Smalley, fearing similar outrages, also went to Nottingham accompanied by John Kay, the loquacious clock-maker; so that Nottingham became the cradle of the two great inventions in cotton spinning. Here, Arkwright also applied for aid to the Messrs. Wright, Bankers, who made advances on the condition that they should share in the profits of the invention; but as the machine was not perfected as soon as they had hoped they withdrew their support and he turned to Mr. Samuel Need, a partner of Jedidiah Strutt, the inventor of the stocking frame. Strutt examined Arkwright’s mechanism, declared it to be an admirable invention, and the two men of wealth agreed to a partnership with the Preston barber; and a mill was erected at Nottingham.