Early Inventions in the British Textile Industry
Dec 27, 2015
The Industrial Revolution...
The shift from an agrarian, hand-made, labor-intensive economy to a machine-made, labor-specialization economy.
1750 in England
Industrial Revolution in perspective:
• Transformation of every facet of society;• Accelerated the pace of modernization• Increased the size and importance of the middle
class• Created a new-”working” class• Became a force for democracy• Hastened the secularization of European life• Changed the geography of global interaction• Made possible the highest standard of living in
human history
The Gallant Weaver, by Robert Burns Where Cart rins flow in tae the sea,
By many a flow'r and shading tree, There lives a lad, the lad for me, He is a gallant weaver. Oh I had wooers ought of nine, That gied me rings and ribbons fine, But I was fear'd my heart wad tine, And I gie'd it tae the weaver.
My daddie sign'd my tocher band, To gi'e the lad that has the land, But tae my heart I'll add my hand, And gie'd it to the weaver. While birds rejoice in leafy bow'rs, While bees delight in opening flow'rs, While corn grows green in summer show'rs, I'll love my gallant weaver.
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John Kay’s Flying Shuttle, 1733- doubled the speading of weaving thread, resulting in
“the Yarn Famine”
Richard Awkright’s Water Frame, 1769
A system of rollers driven by water which spun firmer and finer thread on 100 spools
Awkright is known as “the Father of the Factory System.”
Samuel Crompton’s Spinning Mule, 1779
Combined the spinning jenny and the water frame from to make the Spinning Mule
Edmund Cartwright’s Power Loom, 1785
Adapted the spinning mule to steam power allowing 200 spools of thread to be spun automatically, with little human interaction
Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, 1793
50 lbs of cleaned cotton daily
1780-9 million bushels of cotton imported to England
1835-21 million bushels
One small boy could watch over 2 power looms whose output was 15x greater than a skilled handloom weaver
Luddites – displaced weavers rebelled in 1811- angry over their loss of jobs, they attacked and destroyed textile machines throughout England