From Manual Operation to Power Operation

INVENTOR
Richard Arkwright, 1732 - 1792

LOCATION OF MACHINE
Science Museum, London, Great Britain

PATENT APPLICATION
Water Frame, 1769

The spinning machine of James Hargreaves succeeded. It took, however, several years before a really usable machine was invented for industrial application. This development was decisively marked by Mr Richard Arkwright. He was born in Preston, England, on the 23 December 1732, the thirteenth child in a poor family. He learnt his trade as a barber and a wig maker. With a few friends, the clock maker John Kay, a blacksmith and a clock movement maker he worked on the development of the water frame spinning machine.

It was patented in England in 1769, by Richard Arkwright, under number 931.

The Patent gave protection to the first continuously operating spinning machine, which drafts the roving by pairs of rollers, imparts the twist by means of a flyer at each spindle and simultaneously winds the yarn onto double flanged bobbins.

The machine was called the water frame because in Industrial use it was driven by water power. The name of later machine made of steel was "Spinning Throstle" and this expression was used by operatives because during operation it made a noise similar to that of a thrush singing.