Spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-
The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce
History
The spinning jenny was invented by James Hargreaves. He was born in Oswaldtwistle, near Blackburn, around 1720. Blackburn was a town with a population of about 5,000, known for the production of "Blackburn greys," cloths of linen warp and cotton weft initially imported from India. They were usually sent to London to be printed.[citation needed]
At the time, cotton yarn production could not keep up with demand of the textile industry, and Hargreaves spent some time considering how to improve the process. The flying shuttle (John Kay 1733) had increased yarn demand by the weavers by doubling their productivity,[2] and now the spinning jenny could supply that demand by increasing the spinners' productivity even more. The machine produced coarse thread.
Components
The idea was developed by Hargreaves as a metal frame with eight wooden spindles at one end. A set of eight rovings was attached to a beam on that frame. The rovings when extended passed through two horizontal bars of wood that could be clasped together. These bars could be drawn along the top of the frame by the spinner's left hand thus extending the thread. The spinner used his right hand to rapidly turn a wheel which caused all the spindles to revolve, and the thread to be spun. When the bars were returned, the thread wound onto the spindle. A pressing wire (faller) was used to guide the threads onto the right place on the spindle.[3]
The politics of cotton
In the 17th century, England was famous for its
The use of coloured cotton weft, with linen warp was permitted in the 1736 Manchester Act. There now was an artificial demand for woven cloth. In 1764, 3,870,392 pounds (1,755,580 kg) of cotton-wool was imported.[6]
The economics of Northern England in 1750
In England, before
Before 1720, the handloom weaver spent part of each day visiting neighbours buying any
A change came about 1740 when fustian masters gave out raw cotton and warps to the weavers and returned to collect the finished cloth (Putting-out system). The weaver organised the carding, spinning and weaving to the master's specification.[9] The master then dyed or printed the grey cloth, and took it to shopkeepers. Ten years later this had changed and the fustian masters were middle men, who collected the grey cloth and took it to market in Manchester where it was sold to merchants who organised the finishing.[citation needed]
To hand weave a 12-pound (5.4 kg) piece of eighteenpenny weft took 14 days and paid 36 shillings in all. Of this nine shillings was paid for spinning, and nine for carding.[8] So by 1750, a rudimentary manufacturing system feeding into a marketing system emerged.
In 1738, John Kay started to improve the loom. He improved the reed, and invented the raceboard, the shuttleboxes and the picker which together allowed one weaver to double his output. This invention is commonly called the flying shuttle. It met with violent opposition and he fled from Lancashire to Leeds.[10] Though the workers thought this was a threat to their jobs, it was adopted and the pressure was on to speed up carding and spinning.[citation needed]
The shortage of spinning capacity to feed the more efficient looms provided the motivation to develop more productive spinning techniques such as the spinning jenny, and triggered the start of the Industrial Revolution.[citation needed]
Success
Hargreaves kept the machine secret for some time, but produced a number for his own growing industry. The price of yarn fell, angering the large spinning community in Blackburn. Eventually they broke into his house and smashed his machines, forcing him to flee to
The spinning jenny succeeded because it held more than one ball of yarn, making more yarn in a shorter time and reducing the overall cost. The spinning jenny would not have been such a success if the flying shuttle had not been invented and installed in textile factories. Its success was limited in that it required the rovings to be prepared on a wheel, and this was limited by the need to card by hand.[1] It continued in common use in the cotton and fustian industry until about 1810.[14] The spinning jenny was superseded by the spinning mule. The jenny was adapted for the process of slubbing, being the basis of the Slubbing Billy.[15]
Origin and myth
The most common story told about the invention of the device and the origin of the jenny in the machine's name is that one of his daughters (or his wife) named Jenny knocked over one of their own spinning wheels. The device kept working normally, with the spindle now pointed upright. Hargreaves realised there was no particular reason the spindles had to be horizontal, as they always had been, and he could place them vertically in a row.[16]
The name is variously said to derive from this tale. The Registers of Church Kirk show that Hargreaves had several daughters, but none named Jenny (neither was his wife). A more likely explanation of the name is that jenny was an abbreviation of engine.[17]
Thomas Highs of Leigh has claimed to be the inventor[18] and the story is repeated using his wife's name.
Another myth has Thomas Earnshaw inventing a spinning device of a similar description – but destroying it after fearing he might be taking bread out of the mouths of the poor.[19]
See also
- Cotton mill
- Luddite
- Spinning mule
- Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution
- Textile manufacturing
- Timeline of clothing and textiles technology
References
- ^ a b Espinasse 1874, p. 322
- ^ Timmins 1993, p. 18.
- ^ Baines 1835, p. 157
- ^ a b Espinasse 1874, p. 296
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 298
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 299
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 300
- ^ a b Espinasse 1874, p. 306
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 304
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 313
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 325
- ^ Aiken, John. "John Aitken on the industrialization in and around Manchester, 1795". Retrieved 26 November 2016.
- ^ Baines 1835, p. 162
- ^ Guest 1828 and could produce both weft and warp for the woollen industry.
- ^ Marsden 1884, p. 219
- ^ Bellis, Mary: «Spinning Jenny – James Hargreaves», About.com
- ^ Harling, Nick. "James Hargreaves 1720–1778". Cotton Town: Blackburn with Darwen. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 17 May 2009.
- ^ Baines 1835, p. 155
- ^ Espinasse 1874, p. 316
Bibliography
- Baines, Edward (1835). History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain;. London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson.
- ISBN 1-4021-4558-6.
- Marsden, Richard (1884). Cotton Spinning: its development, principles and practice. George Bell and Sons 1903. Retrieved 26 April 2009.
- Marsden, ed. (1909). Cotton Yearbook 1910. Manchester: Marsden and Co. Retrieved 26 April 2009.
- Espinasse, Francis (1874). Lancashire Worthies. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
- Guest, Richard (1828). The British Cotton Manufactures: and a Reply to an Article on the Spinning Contained in a Recent Number of the Edinburgh Review. London: E. Thomson & Sons and W. & W. Clarke and Longman, Rees, & Co.
- Timmins, Geoffrey (1993), The Last Shift:The decline of handloom weaving in nineteenth-century Lancashire, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 253, ISBN 0 7190-3725-5
External links
- Essay from www.cottontown.org on Hargreaves and the spinning jenny.
- Essay from www.cottonttimes.co.uk on Thomas Highs and the spinning jenny.
- Source for alternate name of spinning ginny