of weaving had to catch up. In 1785, Edmund Cartwright invented the Power Loom. This machine used the power of the steam engine to weave yarn into cloth. Their enormous size and cost meant that these power looms could only be housed in factories.
Inventor John Kay
Invention Flying Shuttle Year Purpose
1733 Weaving cloth on loom
James Hargreaves Spinning Jenny 1764 Spinning yarn Richard Arkwright The Water-Frame 1769 Spinning yarn Samuel Crompton Spinning Mule 1779 Spinning large amount of yarn
Edmund Cartwright Power Loom
1785 Weaving large amounts of cloth
By the late eighteenth century, almost all of the spinning and weaving in Britain was done in large factories. The wool produced in Yorkshire supplied the factories in Leeds, Halifax and Huddersfield. Raw cotton was shipped into the port of Liverpool from the British colonies. It was then spun and woven in the local towns of Lancashire, e.g. Manchester, Bolton and Blackburn. Cotton became much more popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was more comfortable, lighter and easier to clean than wool. By 1841, over 100 times more cotton was being imported into Britain than in 1771.
RECALL
1. Expain the following words: (a) Yarn
(b) Textile (d) Linen (e) Mill
2. What are the two main tasks required to make cloth?
3. Name two inventors of the textile revolution and explain how their inventions helped the textile revolution.
(c) Loom
Fig 11.13 Women working at power looms in a carpet factory.
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Fig 11.14 The Spinning Mule, invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779.
CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE
4. What were the causes of Liverpool and Manchester’s development as important towns in the manufacturing of textiles?
5. Why did cotton become so popular in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?
6. In what ways were the inventions and developments in textile production a response to a need within society at the time?