Hargreaves, James (c. 1720–1778)

English inventor James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in about 1764. It proved to be one of the key inventions in the textile industry at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

English inventor who co-invented a carding machine for cotton in 1760. In c. 1764 he invented his ‘spinning jenny’ (patented in 1770), which enabled a number of threads to be spun simultaneously by one person.

Hargreaves was born near Blackburn, and was initially a weaver, making the first spinning jenny for his family's use. When he began to sell the machines, spinners with the old-fashioned wheel became alarmed by the possibility of cheaper competition and in 1768 a mob from Blackburn gutted Hargreaves's house and destroyed his equipment. Hargreaves moved to Nottingham, where he formed a partnership and built a small cotton mill in which the jenny was used.

The spinning jenny multiplied eightfold the output of the spinner and could be worked easily by children. It did not entirely supersede the spinning wheel in cotton manufacturing (and was itself overtaken by Samuel Crompton's mule). But for woollen textiles the jenny could be used to make both the warp and the weft.