Cotton-spinning machinery
Encyclopedia
Cotton-spinning machinery refers to machines which process (or spin) prepared cotton
roving into workable yarn
or thread. Such machinery can be dated back centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as part of the Industrial Revolution
cotton-spinning machinery was developed to bring mass production
to the cotton industry. Cotton spinning machinery was installed in large factories, commonly known as cotton mill
s.
. The state of the art spinning wheel in England was known as the Jersey wheel however an alternative wheel, the Saxony wheel was a double band treadle spinning wheel where the spindle rotated faster than the traveller in a ratio of 8:6, drawing on both was done by the spinners fingers.
In 1738 Lewis Paul
and John Wyatt
of Birmingham
patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton
to a more even thickness, using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds. This principle was the basis of Richard Arkwright
's later water frame
design. By 1742 Paul and Wyatt had opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey
, this was not profitable and soon closed. A factory was opened in Northampton
in 1743, with fifty spindles turning on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines, proving more successful than their first mill; this operated until 1764.
Lewis Paul
invented the hand-driven carding
machine in 1748. A coat of wire slips were placed around a card, which was then wrapped around a cylinder. Lewis' invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton
, although the design came under suspicion after a fire at Daniel Bourn's factory in Leominster
which used Paul and Wyatt's spindles. Bourn produced a similar patent in the same year.
Rev John Dyer of Northampton recognised the importance of the Paul and Wyatt cotton spinning machine in a poem in 1757:
The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning wheel. It was invented circa 1764, its invention attributed to James Hargreaves
in Stanhill, near Blackburn, Lancashire.
The Water frame
was developed and patented by Arkwright in the 1770s. The roving was attenuated (stretched) by draughting rollers and twisted by winding it onto a spindle. It was heavy large scale machine that needed to be driven by power, which in the late 18th century meant by a water wheel. Cotton mills were designed for the purpose by Arkwright
, Jedediah Strutt
and others along the River Derwent
in Derbyshire
. Water frames could only spin weft.
The spinning mule or mule jenny was created in 1779 by Samuel Crompton
. It was a combination of the Arkwright
's water frame
and the Hargreaves
' spinning jenny
. The was so named because it was a hybrid of these two machines. The mule consisted of a fixed frame containing a creel of bobbins holding the roving, connected through the headstock to a parallel carriage containing the spindles. It used an intermittent process: On the outward traverse, the rovings were paid out, and twisted, and the return traverse, the roving was clamped and the spindles reversed taking up the newly spun thread. It used an intermittent process: The rival machine, the throstle frame
or ring frame
was a continuous process, where the roving was drawn twisted and wrapped in one action. The spinning mule became self-acting (automatic) in 1830s. The mule was the most common spinning machine from 1790 until about 1900, but was still used for fine yarns until the 1960s. A cotton mill in 1890 would contain over 60 mules, each with 1320 spindles.
Between the years 1824 and 1830 Richard Roberts
invented a mechanism that rendered all parts of the mule
self-acting, regulating the rotation of the spindles during the inward run of the carriage.
The Platt Brothers
, based in Oldham
, England
were amongst the most prominent machine makers in this field of work.
At first this machine was only used to spin coarse and low-to-medium counts, but it is now employed to spin all counts of yarn.
The Ring frame is credited to John Thorp in Rhode Island
in 1828/9 and developed by Mr. Jencks of Pawtucket, Rhode Island
, who names as the inventor.
The bobbins or tubes may be filled from "cops", "ring spools" or "hanks", but a stop motion is required for each thread, which will come into operation immediately a fracture occurs.
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
roving into workable yarn
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
or thread. Such machinery can be dated back centuries. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as part of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
cotton-spinning machinery was developed to bring mass production
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
to the cotton industry. Cotton spinning machinery was installed in large factories, commonly known as cotton mill
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
s.
History
Until the 1740s all spinning was done by hand using a spinning wheelSpinning wheel
A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibers. Spinning wheels appeared in Asia, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff...
. The state of the art spinning wheel in England was known as the Jersey wheel however an alternative wheel, the Saxony wheel was a double band treadle spinning wheel where the spindle rotated faster than the traveller in a ratio of 8:6, drawing on both was done by the spinners fingers.
In 1738 Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame for spinning cotton in a cotton mill.-Life and work:Lewis Paul was of Huguenot descent. His father was physician to Lord Shaftesbury...
and John Wyatt
John Wyatt (inventor)
John Wyatt , an English inventor, was born near Lichfield and was related to Sarah Ford, Doctor Johnson's mother. A carpenter by trade he began work in Birmingham on the development of a spinning machine...
of Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
to a more even thickness, using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds. This principle was the basis of Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright
Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...
's later water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...
design. By 1742 Paul and Wyatt had opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
, this was not profitable and soon closed. A factory was opened in Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
in 1743, with fifty spindles turning on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines, proving more successful than their first mill; this operated until 1764.
Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame for spinning cotton in a cotton mill.-Life and work:Lewis Paul was of Huguenot descent. His father was physician to Lord Shaftesbury...
invented the hand-driven carding
Carding
Carding is a mechanical process that breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibres so that they are more or less parallel with each other. The word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool...
machine in 1748. A coat of wire slips were placed around a card, which was then wrapped around a cylinder. Lewis' invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry.- Early life :Samuel Crompton was born at 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire to George and Betty Crompton . Samuel had two younger sisters...
, although the design came under suspicion after a fire at Daniel Bourn's factory in Leominster
Leominster
Leominster is a market town in Herefordshire, England, located approximately north of the city of Hereford and south of Ludlow, at...
which used Paul and Wyatt's spindles. Bourn produced a similar patent in the same year.
Rev John Dyer of Northampton recognised the importance of the Paul and Wyatt cotton spinning machine in a poem in 1757:
A circular machine, of new design
In conic shape: it draws and spins a thread
Without the tedious toil of needless hands.
A wheel invisible, beneath the floor,
To ev'ry member of th' harmonius frame,
Gives necessary motion. One intent
O'erlooks the work; the carded wool, he says,
So smoothly lapped around those cylinders,
Which gently turning, yield it to yon cirue
Of upright spindles, which with rapid whirl
Spin out in long extenet an even twine.
Spinning Jenny
James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves was a weaver, carpenter and an inventor in Lancashire, England. He is credited with inventing the spinning Jenny in 1764....
in Stanhill, near Blackburn, Lancashire.
Water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...
was developed and patented by Arkwright in the 1770s. The roving was attenuated (stretched) by draughting rollers and twisted by winding it onto a spindle. It was heavy large scale machine that needed to be driven by power, which in the late 18th century meant by a water wheel. Cotton mills were designed for the purpose by Arkwright
Arkwright
Arkwright is a surname, deriving from an archaic Old English term for a person who manufactures chests, and may also refer to:* Godfrey Edward Pellew Arkwright British musicologist...
, Jedediah Strutt
Jedediah Strutt
Jedediah Strutt or Jedidiah Strutt – as he spelt it – was a hosier and cotton spinner from Belper, England.Strutt and his brother-in-law William Woollat developed an attachment to the stocking frame that allowed the production of ribbed stockings...
and others along the River Derwent
River Derwent, Derbyshire
The Derwent is a river in the county of Derbyshire, England. It is 66 miles long and is a tributary of the River Trent which it joins south of Derby. For half its course, the river flows through the Peak District....
in Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
. Water frames could only spin weft.
Spinning mule
Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry.- Early life :Samuel Crompton was born at 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire to George and Betty Crompton . Samuel had two younger sisters...
. It was a combination of the Arkwright
Arkwright
Arkwright is a surname, deriving from an archaic Old English term for a person who manufactures chests, and may also refer to:* Godfrey Edward Pellew Arkwright British musicologist...
's water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...
and the Hargreaves
James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves was a weaver, carpenter and an inventor in Lancashire, England. He is credited with inventing the spinning Jenny in 1764....
' spinning jenny
Spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning frame. It was invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology...
. The was so named because it was a hybrid of these two machines. The mule consisted of a fixed frame containing a creel of bobbins holding the roving, connected through the headstock to a parallel carriage containing the spindles. It used an intermittent process: On the outward traverse, the rovings were paid out, and twisted, and the return traverse, the roving was clamped and the spindles reversed taking up the newly spun thread. It used an intermittent process: The rival machine, the throstle frame
Throstle frame
The throstle frame was a spinning machine for cotton, wool, and other fibers, differing from a mule in having a continuous action, the processes of drawing, twisting, and winding being carried on simultaneously. It "derived its name from the singing or humming which it occasioned," throstle being a...
or ring frame
Ring spinning
Ring spinning is a method of spinning fibres, such as cotton, flax or wool, to make a yarn. The ring frame developed from the throstle frame, which in its turn was a descendant of Arkwright's water frame. Ring spinning is a continuous process, unlike mule spinning which uses an intermittent action...
was a continuous process, where the roving was drawn twisted and wrapped in one action. The spinning mule became self-acting (automatic) in 1830s. The mule was the most common spinning machine from 1790 until about 1900, but was still used for fine yarns until the 1960s. A cotton mill in 1890 would contain over 60 mules, each with 1320 spindles.
Between the years 1824 and 1830 Richard Roberts
Richard Roberts (engineer)
Richard Roberts was a British engineer whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production.-Early life:...
invented a mechanism that rendered all parts of the mule
Spinning mule
The spinning mule was a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of two boys: the little piecer and the big or side piecer...
self-acting, regulating the rotation of the spindles during the inward run of the carriage.
The Platt Brothers
Platt Brothers
Platt Brothers & Co Ltd, was a British company based at Oldham, in North West England. They were textile machinery manufacturers, iron founders and colliery proprietors, and by the end of the 19th century, had become the largest textile machinery company in the world, employing over 12,000 workers...
, based in Oldham
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
were amongst the most prominent machine makers in this field of work.
At first this machine was only used to spin coarse and low-to-medium counts, but it is now employed to spin all counts of yarn.
Throstle
The Throstle frame was a descendant of the water frame. It used the same principles, was better engineered and driven by steam. In 1828 the Danforth throstle frame was invented in the United States. The heavy flyer caused the spindle to vibrate, and the yarn snarled every time the frame was stopped. Not a success. It was named throstle, as the noise it made when running was compared to the song of the throstle (thrush).Ring frame
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
in 1828/9 and developed by Mr. Jencks of Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 71,148 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:...
, who names as the inventor.
The bobbins or tubes may be filled from "cops", "ring spools" or "hanks", but a stop motion is required for each thread, which will come into operation immediately a fracture occurs.
Further processes
For many purposes, the threads as spun by the ring frame or the mule are ready for the manufacturer; but where extra strength or smoothness is required, as in threads for sewing, crocheting, hosiery, lace and carpets; also where multicoloured effects are needed, as in Grandrelle, or some special form of irregularity, as in corkscrewed, and knopped yarns, two or more single threads are compounded and twisted together. This operation is known as "doubling".See also
- Cotton millCotton millA cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
- Timeline of clothing and textiles technologyTimeline of clothing and textiles technologyTimeline of clothing and textiles technology.*Prehistory – spindle used to create yarn from fibres.* – loom.*c. 28000 BC – Sewing needles in use at Kostenki in Russia....
- Textile manufacture during the Industrial RevolutionTextile manufacture during the Industrial RevolutionThe industrial revolution changed the nature of work and society. Opinion varies as to the exact date, but it is estimated that the First Industrial Revolution took place between 1750 and 1850, and the second phase or Second Industrial Revolution between 1860 and 1900. The three key drivers in...
- Textile manufacturingTextile manufacturingTextile manufacturing is a major industry. It is based in the conversion of three types of fibre into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. These are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. Cotton remains the most important natural fibre, so is treated in depth...