Richard Arkwright

Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), British inventor and cotton manufacturer, who designed a spinning frame in which cotton fibre was spun into thread. Arkwright was born in Preston, Lancashire. His machine was put to practical use in Preston in 1768. The hand-spinning workers, who feared that their means of subsistence would be destroyed by competition from the machine, compelled the inventor to move to Nottingham, where he entered into partnership with the cotton spinner Jedediah Strutt, the inventor of the stocking frame. In 1769 Arkwright took out a patent for his spinning machine and set up his first mill, in which the power was supplied by horses. In 1771 he established at Cromford, Derbyshire a larger mill driven by water power. His success was due also to his system of management and division of labour, which became the model for the factory system, then in the process of development.

Arkwright was compelled to enter numerous patent suits, but after several years of litigation a jury in the Court of King's Bench decided against him in 1785, and his patent was annulled. Despite this, Arkwright continued to be a successful cotton manufacturer and was later knighted by George III.