The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution in Britain first began in the textile industry. England had been a major producer of wool for centuries. Ever since the enclosures, wool and then woolen cloth had been the principal exports of England. And cloth-making, though a domestic industry in the early years had the characteristic of capitalist production which separated the employer from the employee and introduced the division of labour, such as carding, spinning, weaving, fulling and dyeing. With the expansion of market, the demand for cloth also increased. But a spinner with a distaff could only make one thread at a time. The short supply of yarn became the main obstacle to mass production of cloth. The general effort to improve thread-making techniques led to the invention of spinning Jenny in 1764, by the English spinner Hargreaves. The new instrument enabled a singly workman to spin eight or ten threads at once. A year later, Richard Arkwright, a barber, patented a device for drawing out thread by means of rollers. Then in 1779, Samual Crompton drew on these two new devices and invented a new kind of spinning machine known as the mule. It greatly accelerated the speed of production and improved the quality of thread. Then Arkwright established a great factory by applying power-driven mules and became known as Father of Factory System in England.

By the end of the 18th Century, power-driven machines spinning two hundred threads simultaneously had been introduced in production.