Thomas Highs
Encyclopedia
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...
and spinning engines
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
in the 1780s, during 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...
. He is known for claiming patents on a 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...
, a carding machine, the throstle (a machine for the continuous twisting and winding of wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
), and the 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...
.
Life and work
Thomas Highs, sometimes spelled Thomas Hayes, was born in LeighLeigh, Greater Manchester
Leigh is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southeast of Wigan, and west of Manchester. Leigh is situated on low lying land to the north west of Chat Moss....
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
in 1718 and lived most of his life there. It is said he was a reed maker. The reed is a comb-like strip attached to the batten of a loom, which keeps the warp threads apart and helps the weaver pack the weft threads tightly on the newly-woven cloth.
He married Sarah Moss on 23 February 1747, at Leigh Parish Church
Church of St Mary the Virgin, Leigh
The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Leigh is a Church of England parish church in Leigh, Greater Manchester, England. It is a member of the Leigh deanery in the archdeaconry of Salford, diocese of Manchester.It is a Grade II* listed building....
. Five years after his marriage, he became interested in cotton-spinning machinery
Cotton-spinning machinery
Cotton-spinning machinery refers to machines which process 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...
and between 1763 and 1764, he worked to produce a spinning engine with John Kay
John Kay (spinning frame)
John Kay was a clockmaker from Warrington, Lancashire, England known for the scandal associated with the invention of the spinning frame in 1767: an important stage in the development of textile manufacturing in the Industrial Revolution...
, a clockmaker
Clockmaker
A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to repairing clocks and watches...
, who was a close neighbour of his at the time. Between 1766 and 1767 he discovered the method of spinning by rollers similar to that patented by 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...
and employed John Kay to help him with the construction of the mechanism.
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...
in 1773, and invented an improved double spinning jenny.
Claim and counter claim
Richard Guest, claimed that Thomas Highs was the actual inventor of both Hargreaves' spinning jenny, and Arkwright's rollers, the feature of the water frame. This had been tested in court. Richard Guest firstly wrote 'A History of Cotton Manufacture' in 1823, this was partially quoted by the Baines in History of Lancashire, Vol 1 p118 Vol2 p134 and then by McCullough in the Edinburgh ReviewEdinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
. Guest then self published a 233 page book, 'The British Cotton Manufactures: and a Reply to an Article on the Spinning Contained in a Recent Number of the Edinburgh Review' that accused Baines and McCullough of plagiarism and asserted that Highs was indeed the inventor of both these items. Baines wrote 'History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain'; it was published in 1835. He discusses Guests conjecture in an extensive footnote, where he dismisses Richard Guest's claim
These various histories have been used over the intervening 170 years as sources for new definitive interpretations.
The Arkwright patent
In 1775 Arkwright patented a variety of machinery that performed all the processes of manufacture, from cleaning to carding to final spinning. In 1781, Arkwright went to court to protect his patents but the move rebounded when his patents were overturned. Four years later, after seeing his patents restored temporarily a court battle of 1785 in London made a determination.Arkwright applied for at least 5 patents relating to spinning. They related to a feeder, a filleted cylinder, a roving can, the crank and comb and roller spinning. These patents were taken out in 1775 but were challenged in the courts on four counts : That the patent was prejudicial to His Majesties subject, they were not a new invention, they were not invented by arkwright, and they were not sufficiently described. The July 1781 and February 1785 cases were based on intelligibility, not being sufficiently described but in June 1785 the argument of not being original was judged. Highs was a witness at the February 1785 trial, and in his evidence claimed he had made fluted rollers. No mention was made by him of the spinning jenny, but it was mentioned as a statement of fact in Arkwrights submission, that Hargreaves had invented it.
The allegation
It is alleged that Highs knew the jenny's limitations. It could produce only thread that was suitable for weft. Its output was too soft to be used for warp, which still had to be manufactured from linen. While Hargreaves worked on the spinning jenny, Highs, it is alleged, constructed a machine using rollers, similar to a machine later called the water frame. Whereas the jenny had stretched the thread by trapping it in a clove, a sort of wooden vice and pulling it out, the water frame achieved better results by passing the rovingRoving
A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fibre. It is usually used to spin woollen yarn. A roving can be created by carding the fibre, and it is then drawn into long strips. Because it is carded, the fibres are not parallel, though drawing it into strips may line the fibres up a bit...
through two sets of gripping rollers. The second set were rotating at five times the speed of the first, so the thread was stretched to exactly five times its original length, before being given its vital twist by a bobbin and flyer. The machine produced stronger thread than the jenny. This thread that was suitable for warp. It is alleged that Highs gave clockmaker Kay
Kay
The name Kay \kay\ is found both as a surname and as a given name. In English-speaking countries it is usually a girl's name, often a short form of Katherine or one of its variants; but it is also used as a first name in its own right, and as a boy's name. As an English name it is pronounced kay...
a wooden model of his rollers and asked him to make a working metal version. Kay did so before returning to live a few miles away in his native Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
.
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...
met Kay on his business travels, gained his confidence, and over a drink in a public house persuaded him to hand over the secrets of Highs's machines. Arkwright, later Sir Richard Arkwright, developed a substantial fortune and reputation in the 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....
industry from this invention, while Highs lived the rest of his life in obscurity before his death in 1803.
Highs, Kay, Kay's wife and the widow of James Hargreaves all testified that Arkwright had stolen their inventions. Arkwright's patents were laid aside, and this judgement was later interpreted to mean as he was not the inventor, then Highs must have been.
Timeline
Highs movements in between 1767 and his death in 1803 were detailed by Guest. He used them to show that Highs had been in close proximity to the acknowledged inventors, and from this made assumptions about High's role.- About 1767 or 8, Highs moved to a house in Bradshawgate, Leigh, where he kept a special room to house his roller-frame in secret. Whilst living here, he constructed a jenny in which the spindles were placed in a circle, with the drum or wheel which he set up in an unoccupied house, next door to the Anchor public house, Market-street, Leigh. About 1769, he took some hanks of twist spun upon this new machine, to the Board of Trade, in Manchester, with a view to securing an investor to develop this new engine, but without success. Undaunted he removed from Leigh to Camp Street, Manchester, in 1770/71 where he constructed a double-jenny, which had twenty-eight spindles on each side, turned by a drum or roller, placed in the center. This machine was shown publicly in Manchester Exchange, in 1772, by his son, Thomas Highs, then about ten years of age, and the manufacturers, on that occasion, subscribed two hundred guineas, presenting them to Highs as a reward for his ingenuity.
- In 1772 he removed to Wilderspool farm, in Barton-upon-IrwellBarton-upon-IrwellBarton-upon-Irwell is a suburban area of Eccles, Greater Manchester, England.-History:...
, and it was here he developed the carding-engine he had been working on for some time in order to make roving on a continuous scale in order to feed the raw material demands of the spinning machines.
- In 1773 he removed to Bolton-le-Moors, where he resided until 1776. It was here that he struck up a friendship with Samuel CromptonSamuel CromptonSamuel 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...
, who combined the roller-spinning frame with the spinning jenny, and by that means produced the spinning Mule. The accepted story is that Samuel CromptonSamuel CromptonSamuel 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...
of Bolton invented the spinning mule, which was a cross between the spinning jenny and the water frame, using the moving-carriage principle and the spindle-winding system of the earlier machine with the drafting rollers of the later one. Crompton claimed he had no knowledge of Arkwright's rollers and came upon the idea independently between 1772, when he began work, and 1779. It is known, however, that Highs - one of the very few men with intimate knowledge of both Jenny and Water Frame - lived in Bolton during that times, and was, in fact, a member of the same, tightly-knit Swedenborgian religious sect as Crompton.
- In 1776 he returned to Manchester, and lived at No. 6, Deansgate, opposite the Wool Pack. At this time Mr. Smith, a Manchester merchant, whose warehouse was in Hunter's lane, agreed to form a partnership with him and build a spinning factory in Yorkshire, which had a ready supply of water power. But just as arrangements were reaching a conclusion Mr. Smith was unfortunately drowned at Blackpool. After this disappointment, in 1777 Highs went to Nottingham to construct spinning-machines for Messrs. Stanfield & Hallam, or Bancroft & Hallam, and in 1778/79, he made machines at Kidderminster, for various manufacturers, among them, Messrs. Pardoe, Lea & Co.
- In 1780, he was in Ireland to manage the production machinery for spinning cotton yarn for Baron Hamilton, who was then building a factory on his estate at Balbriggan, Dublin. However in 1785 he was urgently summoned as a witness against Sir Richard Arkwright at the famous 1785 patent trial, which Arkwright lost, and Highs never returned to Ireland.
- In 1781, he was back in Manchester, still making machines, until about the year 1790, when he suffered a stroke which debilitated him. He was rescued from destitution through the charity of William Drinkwater, a cotton spinner of Manchester, who clearly held him in high regard. He gave him a guinea per month, and five guineas every 24 June, and every 24 December, during his life, and when died, Drinkwater paid for a decent burial. Thomas Highs died on 13 December 1803, aged eighty-four years, and was buried in a vault belonging to the minister, in the New Jerusalem Chapel, Manchester.