Life sketch of james hargreaves

James Hargreaves, English inventor of the spinning jenny, the first practical application of multiple spinning by a machine. At the time he devised the machine, he was a poor, uneducated spinner and weaver living at Stanhill, near Blackburn, Lancashire, England.

James Hargreaves

English inventor of the Spinning Jenny

For other people named James Hargreaves, see James Hargreaves (disambiguation).

James Hargreaves (c.&#; – 22 April )[2] was an English weaver, carpenter[citation needed] and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England.

Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in

He was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning: Richard Arkwright patented the water frame in and Samuel Crompton combined the two, creating the spinning mule in

Life and work

James Hargreaves was born at Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire.

He was described as "stout, broadest man of about five-foot ten, or rather more". He was illiterate[dubious &#; discuss] and worked as a hand loom weaver during most of his life.[5] He married and baptismal records show he had 13 children,[1] of whom the storyteller Baines in was aware of '6 or 7'.

Spinning jenny

Main article: Spinning jenny

The idea for the spinning jenny is said to have come when a one-thread spinning wheel was overturned on the floor, and Hargreaves saw both the wheel and the spindle continuing to revolve.

James Hargreaves Biography (c. 1721-1770) - madehow.com: James Hargreaves (c. – 22 April ) [2] was an English weaver, carpenter [citation needed] and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in

He realized that if several spindles were placed upright and side by side, several threads might be spun at once. The spinning jenny was confined to producing cotton weft threads and was unable to manufacture yarn of sufficient quality for the warp.

A high-quality warp was later supplied by Arkwright'sspinning frame.

Hargreaves built a jenny for himself and sold several of them to his neighbours.

James Hargreaves c. Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in He was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning: Richard Arkwright patented the water frame in and Samuel Crompton merged the two, creating the spinning mule in James Hargreaves was born at Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire.

His invention was initially welcomed by other hand spinners until they saw a descent in the price of yarn.

Opposition to the machine caused Hargreaves to leave for Nottingham, where the cotton hosiery industry benefited from the increased provision of suitable yarn.

In Nottingham Hargreaves made jennies for a man named Shipley, and on 12 June , he was granted a patent, which provided the basis for legal activity (later withdrawn) against the Lancashire manufacturers who had begun using it.

With a partner, Thomas James, Hargreaves ran a tiny mill in Hockley and lived in an adjacent house. The business was carried on until he died in when his wife received a payment of £

Legacy

When Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in c, he stated he had learned to spin in on a jenny that Hargreaves had built.

Hargreaves was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning.

The spinning jenny also exemplified the kind of inventiveness that made the Industrial Revolution feasible. Importance of Spinning Jenny to Industrial Revolution. Photo of Spinning Jenny. Connections of Grimshaw family members to RichardArkwright and Edmund Cartwrightinventors of other textile-production devices in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, are described on a companion webpage.

Dispute over Hargreaves' contribution

False claims were being made about Hargreaves as early as , when Richard Guest, writing in the Edinburgh Review in , introduced several errors, and a distorted view of his life and contributions has persisted ever since.

Parish burial records show that Hargreaves (misspelt as "Hargraves") did not die in the workhouse, as had been claimed.

A ferocious legal battle had been mounted in the s to have Richard Arkwright's most important patents annulled.

Thomas Highs had claimed that he was the true inventor of both the spinning frame and the spinning jenny. Contradictory evidence as to the circumstances of several inventions was canvassed, and although Arkwright's patents were annulled, the question of authorship was not settled.[i]

Other records exhibit that neither Hargreaves's wife nor any of his daughters bore the name Jenny, contrary to a myth repeated in college textbooks as late as the s, children's books as overdue as [10] and on educational websites to the present day.[ii] The 'jenny' refers to an engine, a common slang designation in Lancashire in the 18th century, and encountered occasionally even now.

References

Bibliography

  • Hargraves Spinning Jenny – Confined to spinning weft
  • Deutsches Museum (Auf Deutsch) Secondary source.
  • Baines, Edward (). History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain;.

    London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson.

  • Nasmith, Joseph (). Recent Cotton Mill Construction and Engineering (Elibron Classics&#;ed.). London: John Heywood.

    For example, he invented the spinning jennywhich had a profound impact on production in England and around the world during the time of the Industrial Revolution. As such, James Hargreaves helped industrialization by inspiring other inventors. James Hargreaves was born on December 13th, in Lancashire, England. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a weaver, using a hand loom.

    ISBN&#;.

  • Marsden, Richard (). Cotton Spinning: its growth, principles an practice. George Bell and Sons Retrieved 26 April
  • Guest, Richard (). The British Cotton Manufactures: and a Answer to an Article on the Spinning Contained in a Recent Number of the Edinburgh Review.

    London: E. Thomson & Sons and W. & W. Clarke and Longman, Rees, & Co.

  • Timmins, Geoffrey ().

    James Hargreaves was an English inventor and one of the three founders of mechanized spinning. InHargreaves invented the spinning jenny, a spinning machine. Later, inRichard Arkwright invented the water frame, and Samuel Crompton combined the spinning jenny and the water frame to design the spinning mule. The request for high-quality thread in the growing textile industry far exceeded the supply, and the answer lay in developing new, more productive and efficient spinning machine models.

    Four Centuries of Lancashire Cotton. Preston: Lancashire County Books. ISBN&#;.

Further reading

External links