Arkwright, Richard (1732–1792)

The ‘water frame’ for spinning cotton, designed by British inventor Richard Arkwright in 1768. Although so-called because it was water-powered, it was originally driven by mule. From 1790 onwards it was powered by steam engine. Its increased efficiency allowed Arkwright's factories to successfully compete with Indian calico manufacturers.

English inventor and manufacturing pioneer who in 1768 developed a machine for spinning cotton (he called it a ‘water frame’). In 1771 he set up a water-powered spinning factory and in 1790 he installed steam power in a Nottingham factory. He was knighted in 1786.

Arkwright was born in Preston, Lancashire, and experimented in machine designing with a watchmaker, John Kay, until, with Kay and John Smalley (died 1782), he set up the water frame, the first machine capable of producing sufficiently strong cotton thread to be used as warp. In 1771 he went into partnership with Jebediah Strutt (1726–1797), a Derby man who had improved the stocking frame, and Samuel Need (died 1781), and built a water-powered cotton mill at Cromford in Derbyshire, where he also built the first mill village for his workers.

In 1773 Arkwright produced the yarn (‘water twist’) for the first cloth made entirely from cotton; previously, the warp had been of linen and only the weft was cotton. A special act of Parliament was passed in 1774 to exempt Arkwright's fabric from the double duty imposed on cottons by an act of 1736. By 1782 Arkwright employed 5,000 workers, mainly women and children.