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1 Crompton, Samuel
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 3 December 1753 Firwood, near Bolton, Lancashire, Englandd. 26 June 1827 Bolton, Lancashire, England[br]English inventor of the spinning mule.[br]Samuel Crompton was the son of a tenant farmer, George, who became the caretaker of the old house Hall-i-th-Wood, near Bolton, where he died in 1759. As a boy, Samuel helped his widowed mother in various tasks at home, including weaving. He liked music and made his own violin, with which he later was to earn some money to pay for tools for building his spinning mule. He was set to work at spinning and so in 1769 became familiar with the spinning jenny designed by James Hargreaves; he soon noticed the poor quality of the yarn produced and its tendency to break. Crompton became so exasperated with the jenny that in 1772 he decided to improve it. After seven years' work, in 1779 he produced his famous spinning "mule". He built the first one entirely by himself, principally from wood. He adapted rollers similar to those already patented by Arkwright for drawing out the cotton rovings, but it seems that he did not know of Arkwright's invention. The rollers were placed at the back of the mule and paid out the fibres to the spindles, which were mounted on a moving carriage that was drawn away from the rollers as the yarn was paid out. The spindles were rotated to put in twist. At the end of the draw, or shortly before, the rollers were stopped but the spindles continued to rotate. This not only twisted the yarn further, but slightly stretched it and so helped to even out any irregularities; it was this feature that gave the mule yarn extra quality. Then, after the spindles had been turned backwards to unwind the yarn from their tips, they were rotated in the spinning direction again and the yarn was wound on as the carriage was pushed up to the rollers.The mule was a very versatile machine, making it possible to spin almost every type of yarn. In fact, Samuel Crompton was soon producing yarn of a much finer quality than had ever been spun in Bolton, and people attempted to break into Hall-i-th-Wood to see how he produced it. Crompton did not patent his invention, perhaps because it consisted basically of the essential features of the earlier machines of Hargreaves and Arkwright, or perhaps through lack of funds. Under promise of a generous subscription, he disclosed his invention to the spinning industry, but was shabbily treated because most of the promised money was never paid. Crompton's first mule had forty-eight spindles, but it did not long remain in its original form for many people started to make improvements to it. The mule soon became more popular than Arkwright's waterframe because it could spin such fine yarn, which enabled weavers to produce the best muslin cloth, rivalling that woven in India and leading to an enormous expansion in the British cotton-textile industry. Crompton eventually saved enough capital to set up as a manufacturer himself and around 1784 he experimented with an improved carding engine, although he was not successful. In 1800, local manufacturers raised a sum of £500 for him, and eventually in 1812 he received a government grant of £5,000, but this was trifling in relation to the immense financial benefits his invention had conferred on the industry, to say nothing of his expenses. When Crompton was seeking evidence in 1811 to support his claim for financial assistance, he found that there were 4,209,570 mule spindles compared with 155,880 jenny and 310,516 waterframe spindles. He later set up as a bleacher and again as a cotton manufacturer, but only the gift of a small annuity by his friends saved him from dying in total poverty.[br]Further ReadingH.C.Cameron, 1951, Samuel Crompton, Inventor of the Spinning Mule, London (a rather discursive biography).Dobson \& Barlow Ltd, 1927, Samuel Crompton, the Inventor of the Spinning Mule, Bolton.G.J.French, 1859, The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton, Inventor of the Spinning Machine Called the Mule, London.The invention of the mule is fully described in H. Gatling, 1970, The Spinning Mule, Newton Abbot; W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London; R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester.C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. IV, Oxford: Clarendon Press (provides a brief account).RLH -
2 Slater, Samuel
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 9 June 1768 Belper, Derbyshire, Englandd. 21 April 1835 USA[br]Anglo-American manufacturer who established the first American mill to use Arkwright's spinning system.[br]Samuel's father, William, was a respected independent farmer who died when his son was aged 14; the young Slater was apprenticed to his father's friend, Jedediah Strutt for six and a half years at the beginning of 1783. He showed mathematical ability and quickly acquainted himself thoroughly with cotton-spinning machinery made by Arkwright, Hargreaves and Crompton. After completing his apprenticeship, he remained for a time with the Strutts to act as Supervisor for a new mill.At that time it was forbidden to export any textile machinery or even drawings or data from England. The emigration of textile workers was forbidden too, but in September 1789 Slater left for the United States in disguise, having committed the details of the construction of the cotton-spinning machinery to memory. He reached New York and was employed by the New York Manufacturing Company.In January 1790 he met Moses Brown in Providence, Rhode Island, and on 5 April 1790 he signed a contract to construct Arkwright's spinning machinery for Almy \& Brown. It took Slater more than a year to get the machinery operational because of the lack of skilled mechanics and tools, but by 1793 the mill was running under the name of Almy, Brown \& Slater. In October 1791 Slater had married Hannah Wilkinson, and in 1798 he set up his own mill in partnership with his father-in-law, Orziel Wilkinson. This mill was built in Pawtucket, near the first mill, but other mills soon followed in Smithville, Rhode Island, and elsewhere. Slater was the Incorporator, and for the first fifteen years was also President of the Manufacturer's Bank in Pawtucket. It was in his business role and as New England's first industrial capitalist that Slater made his most important contributions to the emergence of the American textile industry.[br]Further ReadingG.S.White, 1836, Memoirs of Samuel Philadelphia (theearliestaccountofhislife). Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVII. Scientific American 63. P.E.Rivard, 1974, Samuel Slater, Father of American Manufactures, Slater Mill. D.J.Jeremy, 1981, Transatlantic Industrial Revolution. The Diffusion of TextileTechnologies Between Britain and America, 1790–1830s, Oxford (covers Slater's activities in the USA very fully).RLH -
3 Textiles
See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA[br]Dore, Samuel GriswoldHeilmann, JosuéLevers, JohnLister, Samuel CunliffeMa JunSong Yingxing -
4 Land transport
See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA[br]Austin, HerbertHamilton, Harold LeeIssigonis, Sir Alexander Arnold ConstantineMa JunMorris, William RichardSauerbrun, Charles de -
5 Paul, Lewis
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]d. April 1759 Brook Green, London, England[br]English inventor of hand carding machines and partner with Wyatt in early spinning machines.[br]Lewis Paul, apparently of French Huguenot extraction, was quite young when his father died. His father was Physician to Lord Shaftsbury, who acted as Lewis Paul's guardian. In 1728 Paul made a runaway match with a widow and apparently came into her property when she died a year later. He must have subsequently remarried. In 1732 he invented a pinking machine for making the edges of shrouds out of which he derived some profit.Why Paul went to Birmingham is unknown, but he helped finance some of Wyatt's earlier inventions. Judging by the later patents taken out by Paul, it is probable that he was the one interested in spinning, turning to Wyatt for help in the construction of his spinning machine because he had no mechanical skills. The two men may have been involved in this as early as 1733, although it is more likely that they began this work in 1735. Wyatt went to London to construct a model and in 1736 helped to apply for a patent, which was granted in 1738 in the name of Paul. The patent shows that Paul and Wyatt had a number of different ways of spinning in mind, but contains no drawings of the machines. In one part there is a description of sets of rollers to draw the cotton out more finely that could have been similar to those later used by Richard Arkwright. However, it would seem that Paul and Wyatt followed the other main method described, which might be called spindle drafting, where the fibres are drawn out between the nip of a pair of rollers and the tip of the spindle; this method is unsatisfactory for continuous spinning and results in an uneven yarn.The spinning venture was supported by Thomas Warren, a well-known Birmingham printer, Edward Cave of Gentleman's Magazine, Dr Robert James of fever-powder celebrity, Mrs Desmoulins, and others. Dr Samuel Johnson also took much interest. In 1741 a mill powered by two asses was equipped at the Upper Priory, Birmingham, with, machinery for spinning cotton being constructed by Wyatt. Licences for using the invention were sold to other people including Edward Cave, who established a mill at Northampton, so the enterprise seemed to have great promise. A spinning machine must be supplied with fibres suitably prepared, so carding machines had to be developed. Work was in hand on one in 1740 and in 1748 Paul took out another patent for two types of carding device, possibly prompted by the patent taken out by Daniel Bourn. Both of Paul's devices were worked by hand and the carded fibres were laid onto a strip of paper. The paper and fibres were then rolled up and placed in the spinning machine. In 1757 John Dyer wrote a poem entitled The Fleece, which describes a circular spinning machine of the type depicted in a patent taken out by Paul in 1758. Drawings in this patent show that this method of spinning was different from Arkwright's. Paul endeavoured to have the machine introduced into the Foundling Hospital, but his death in early 1759 stopped all further development. He was buried at Paddington on 30 April that year.[br]Bibliography1738, British patent no. 562 (spinning machine). 1748, British patent no. 636 (carding machine).1758, British patent no. 724 (circular spinning machine).Further ReadingG.J.French, 1859, The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton, London, App. This should be read in conjunction with R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester, which shows that the roller drafting system on Paul's later spinning machine worked on the wrong principles.A.P.Wadsworth and J.de L.Mann, 1931, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780, Manchester (provides good coverage of the partnership of Paul and Wyatt and the early mills).E.Baines, 1835, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain, London (this publication must be mentioned, but is now out of date).A.Seymour-Jones, 1921, "The invention of roller drawing in cotton spinning", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 1 (a more modern account).RLH -
6 Kennedy, John
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 4 July 1769 Knocknalling, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotlandd. 30 October 1855 Ardwick Hall, Manchester, England[br]Scottish cotton spinner and textile machine maker.[br]Kennedy was the third son of his father, Robert, and went to the village school in Dalry. On his father's death, he was sent at the age of 14 to Chowbent, Lancashire, where he was apprenticed to William Cannan, a maker of textile machines such as carding frames, Hargreaves's jennies and Arkwright's waterframes. On completion of his apprenticeship in 1791, he moved to Manchester and entered into partnership with Benjamin and William Sandford and James M'Connel, textile machine makers and mule spinners. In 1795 this partnership was terminated and one was made with James M'Connel to form the firm M'Connel \& Kennedy, cotton spinners.Kennedy introduced improvements for spinning fine yarns and the firm of M'Connel \& Kennedy became famous for the quality of these products, which were in great demand. He made the spindles turn faster during the second part of the mule carriage's outward draw, and from 1793 onwards he experimented with driving mules by steam engines. Like William Kelly at New Lanark, he succeeded in making the spinning sequences power-operated by 1800, although the spinner had to take over the winding on. This made the mule into a factory machine, but it still required skilled operators. He was also involved with Henry Houldsworth, Junior, in the improvement of the roving frame. In 1803 Kennedy joined the Manchester Literary \& Philosophical Society, to which he presented several papers, including one in 1830 on "A memoir of Samuel Crompton". He retired from the spinning business in 1826, but continued his technical and mechanical pursuits. He was consulted about whether the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway should have moving or stationary steam engines and was an umpire at the Rainhill Trials in 1829.[br]Further ReadingDictionary of National Biography.W.Fairbairn, obituary, Manchester Memoirs, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.C.H.Lee, 1972, A Cotton Enterprise 1795–1840. A History of M'Connel \& Kennedy, FineCotton Spinners, Manchester (an account of Kennedy's spinning business). R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (provides details of Kennedy's inventions on the mule).RLH -
7 Wyatt, John
[br]b. April 1700 Thickbroom, Weeford, near Lichfield, Englandd. 29 November 1766 Birmingham, England[br]English inventor of machines for making files and rolling lead, and co-constructor of a cotton-spinning machine.[br]John Wyatt was the eldest son of John and Jane Wyatt, who lived in the small village of Thickbroom in the parish of Weeford, near Lichfield. John the younger was educated at Lichfield school and then worked as a carpenter at Thickbroom till 1730. In 1732 he was in Birmingham, engaged by a man named Heely, a gunbarrel forger, who became bankrupt in 1734. Wyatt had invented a machine for making files and sought the help of Lewis Paul to manufacture this commercially.The surviving papers of Paul and Wyatt in Birmingham are mostly undated and show a variety of machines with which they were involved. There was a machine for "making lead hard" which had rollers, and "a Gymcrak of some consequence" probably refers to a machine for boring barrels or the file-making machine. Wyatt is said to have been one of the unsuccessful competitors for the erection of London Bridge in 1736. He invented and perfected the compound-lever weighing machine. He had more success with this: after 1744, machines for weighing up to five tons were set up at Birmingham, Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield and Liverpool. Road construction, bridge building, hydrostatics, canals, water-powered engines and many other schemes received his attention and it is said that he was employed for a time after 1744 by Matthew Boulton.It is certain that in April 1735 Paul and Wyatt were working on their spinning machine and Wyatt was making a model of it in London in 1736, giving up his work in Birmingham. The first patent, in 1738, was taken out in the name of Lewis Paul. It is impossible to know which of these two invented what. This first patent covers a wide variety of descriptions of the vital roller drafting to draw out the fibres, and it is unknown which system was actually used. Paul's carding patent of 1748 and his second spinning patent of 1758 show that he moved away from the system and principles upon which Arkwright built his success. Wyatt and Paul's spinning machines were sufficiently promising for a mill to be set up in 1741 at the Upper Priory, Birmingham, that was powered by two asses. Wyatt was the person responsible for constructing the machinery. Edward Cave established another at Northampton powered by water while later Daniel Bourn built yet another at Leominster. Many others were interested too. The Birmingham mill did not work for long and seems to have been given up in 1743. Wyatt was imprisoned for debt in The Fleet in 1742, and when released in 1743 he tried for a time to run the Birmingham mill and possibly the Northampton one. The one at Leominster burned down in 1754, while the Northampton mill was advertised for sale in 1756. This last mill may have been used again in conjunction with the 1758 patent. It was Wyatt whom Daniel Bourn contacted about a grant for spindles for his Leominster mill in 1748, but this seems to have been Wyatt's last association with the spinning venture.[br]Further ReadingG.J.French, 1859, The Life and Times of Samuel Crompton, London (French collected many of the Paul and Wyatt papers; these should be read in conjunction with Hills 1970).R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (Hills shows that the rollerdrafting system on this spinning machine worked on the wrong principles). A.P.Wadsworth and J.de L.Mann, 1931, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780, Manchester (provides good coverage of the partnership of Paul and Wyatt and of the early mills).E.Baines, 1835, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain, London (this publication must be mentioned, although it is now out of date).W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (a more recent account).W.A.Benton, "John Wyatt and the weighing of heavy loads", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 9 (for a description of Wyatt's weighing machine).RLH
См. также в других словарях:
Crompton, Samuel — born Dec. 3, 1753, Firwood, Lancashire, Eng. died June 26, 1827, Bolton, Lancashire British inventor. His spinning mule (probably called a mule because it was a cross between inventions of Richard Arkwright and James Hargreaves) permitted large… … Universalium
Crompton,Samuel — Cromp·ton (krŏmpʹtən), Samuel. 1753 1827. British inventor of the spinning mule (1779). * * * … Universalium
Crompton, Samuel — ► (1753 1827) Mecánico británico. Inventor de la máquina de hilar algodón. * * * (3 dic. 1753, Firwood, Lancashire, Inglaterra–26 jun. 1827, Bolton, Lancashire). Inventor británico. Su hiladora spinning mule (probablemente llamada mula porque era … Enciclopedia Universal
CROMPTON, SAMUEL — inventor of the spinning mule, born near Bolton; for five years he worked at his project, and after he got it into shape was tormented by people prying about him and trying to find out his secret; at last a sum was raised by subscription to… … The Nuttall Encyclopaedia
Crompton — Crompton, Samuel … Enciclopedia Universal
Samuel Crompton — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Samuel Crompton. Nacimiento … Wikipedia Español
Samuel Crompton — Samuel Crompton. Samuel Crompton (* 3. Dezember 1753 in Firwood Fold, nahe Bolton in England; † 26. Juni 1827 in Bolton) war britischer Erfinder und erfand 1779 die Spinnmaschine Spinning Mule. Crompton begann im Alter von 15 Jahren mit der… … Deutsch Wikipedia
Samuel — samuel. m. C. Rica. Acción de samuelear. || echar un samuel. fr. C. Rica. samuelear. * * * Samuel, Herbert Louis (Šemū´ēl) … Enciclopedia Universal
Samuel Crompton — For the politician, see Sir Samuel Crompton, 1st Baronet. Samuel Crompton Born 3 December 1753(1753 12 03) 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire, England … Wikipedia
Samuel Crompton — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Crompton. Samuel Crompton Samuel Crompton (1753 1827) inventa une machine à filer le coton qui permit d’obtenir un fil à la fois fin et résistant, la mule jenn … Wikipédia en Français
Samuel — /sam yooh euhl/, n. 1. a judge and prophet of Israel. I Sam. 1 3; 8 15. 2. either of two books of the Bible bearing his name. Abbr.: I Sam., II Sam. 3. a male given name: from a Hebrew word meaning name of God. * * * I (с 11th century BC) Old… … Universalium
