Arkwright was born in the humblest class of life at Preston in Lancashire.  At “Proud Preston” he first followed the business of a barber, then became a dealer in hair, travelling the country to collect it, and selling it prepared to the wigmakers.  Having accumulated a little money, he set about endeavouring to invent perpetual motion, and, in the search, invented, or sufficiently adapted and improved, a cotton spinning apparatus to induce two practical men like the Messrs. Need and Strutt to join him.  His claim to original invention has been disputed.  That he was not the first inventor is clear, and it is equally clear that he must have been a man of very considerable and original mechanical genius.

With Arkwright’s patent, the rise of the cotton trade began.

In 1786, Mr. Samuel Crompton’s invention came into use, called the mule jenny, because partaking of the movements of both Hargreaves’ and Arkwright’s inventions, by which, for the first time, yarn fine enough for muslins could be spun.  Crompton did not, probably could not, afford to take out a patent, but worked his mule jenny with his own hands in an attic at Bolton, where he carried on a small spinning and weaving business.  Already, in 1812, there were between four and five million spindles on this principle, but the inventor continued poor and almost unknown.  Mr. Kennedy (author of a brief memoir of Crompton), and Mr. Lee, raised 500 pounds for him by subscription, and he afterwards received a grant of 8000 pounds from Parliament, which his sons lost in business.  Mr. Kennedy again exerted himself and raised an annuity of 63 pounds, which the unfortunate inventor only lived two years to enjoy.

The spinning machines threatened to out-travel the weaving powers of the country, when, in 1785, Dr. Cartwright, a clergyman of Kent, with no previous knowledge of weaving, after an expenditure of 40,000 pounds, invented the power-loom, for which he afterwards received a grant of 10,000 pounds from Parliament.  To supply our cotton manufactures, there were imported in 1849 1,900,000 bales of 330lbs. each.  Of this quantity, 1,400,000 bales came from the United States.

The Manchester manufacturers have lately raised a small fund by subscription, and sent out Mr. Mackay, a barrister, author of The Western World, to examine and report on the prospects of obtaining cotton from India; and the son of the late Mr. John Fielden, a great manufacturer, has embarked a considerable sum at Natal in the cultivation of cotton.  The dependence on the United States for such a staple has begun to render our Manchester men uncomfortable.  They have not, however, displayed the spirit and energy that might have been expected either from their usual political vigour or from the tone of their advice to the farmers in distress.

The successive improvements in weaving by machinery we shall not attempt to trace.  To use the phrase of a Nottingham mechanic, “there are machines now that will weave anything, from a piece of sacking to a spider’s web.”  But fine muslins and fancy goods are chiefly woven by hand.