A set of eight The use of coloured cotton weft, with linen warp was permitted in the 1736 Manchester Act. The spinning of cotton into threads for weaving into cloth had traditionally taken place in the homes of textile workers - known as 'cottage industries'. But the 18th century saw the emergence of the ‘Industrial Revolution’, the great age of steam, canals and factories that changed the face of the British economy forever. Explanation of spinning process.
James Hargreaves’ ‘Spinning Jenny’, the patent for which is shown here, would revolutionise the process of cotton spinning. The original spinning jenny had eight spindles side by side, making thread from eight rovings across from them. However, other fonts state that he did not have a daughter called Jenny.Unlike wool, cotton was much more difficult to spin since it has a short staple length. As a consequence, the inventor moved to Nottingham in 1768 in order to provide for his family in a more stable environment (The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019).In Nottingham, Hargreaves also built a mill in which Jennies would ‘spin yard for hoosiers’; such business was successful and in 1770, he also obtained ‘a patent for the Jenny’s’ (The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019). Available from: School History is the largest library of history teaching and study resources on the internet. When he started weaving he used a simple hand loom weaver.Hargreaves lived in a city that before the Industrial Revolution was one of the ‘major textile centres’: in fact, most of its inhabitants were employed within the textile sector, and ‘entire families were involved, […] men were often the weavers while children assisted in cleaning raw materials and women spun the materials into threads or yarns’ (Faribault Woolen Mill Co. 2019).

This allowed the workers to work with eight or more spools of thread at once. [online] Britannica. There he set up shop producing jennies in secret for one Mr Shipley, with the assistance of a joinernamed Thomas James.

In fact, it happened when his daughter ‘accidentally overturned’ the spinning machine: he observed how the spindle kept revolving ‘in an upright rather than horizontal position’, and that therefore, he came up with the idea of spinning ‘several threads at one time’ (The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019).Some sources claim that Hargreaves named the machine after his daughter. The ‘Spinning Jenny’ is a spinning machine with multiple spinning frames. It was created to speed up the production of yarn. In 1764 Hargreaves built what became known as the Spinning-Jenny.

However, it was vertical, and one one side it presented a row of spindles, whereas the opposite side had a row of pins (Allen 2007).Allen (2007) describes in great detail and accuracy how Jenny worked:In essence, Jenny ‘mimicked the actions of a spinster and wheel but on an expanded scale’ (Allen 2007). As the technology improved more and more spools were added greatly increasing the amount of cloth produced for the same amount of effort. It was a laborious process, and spinners could not keep up with the demand.

All eight were controlled by one wheel and a belt, allowing for much more thread to be created at one time by one person. The spinning jenny helped to usher in the Industrial Revolution in the textile industry. Cotton had been spun for thousands of years with a drop spindle which is characterised by a string with a weight at the bottom of it: the fibres are placed on top of the string, and once the string is gently twisted, the fibres are locked together.The Spinning jenny worked on the same principles as the drop spindle.

And so, in the 1760s, the Lancashire weaver John Hargreaves designed a device capable of spinning … The price of yarn fell, angering the large spinning community in Blackburn. Moreover, sources claim that whereas in the 1750s Britain imported only 3 million pounds of raw cotton, in 1786, more than 18 million pounds of this material were introduced in the country (Allen 2007; citing Crouzet 1985).Before the invention of Jenny, the spinning of wool would take up an incredibly long amount of time. Moreover, their living conditions were not any better. and at low costs. [online] Available from: [2.] Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox.Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Up until that time, a craftsperson would operate a spinning wheel that could only spin one thread of yarn at a time. History at your fingertips This is the reason why Hargreaves’ invention was considered particularly dangerous for the hand-spinning workers.