Cotton Mills
Cottons manufacture (like that of other textiles) started as a home business. This changed with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
There were many inventions leading up to the Industrial Revolution. The flying shuttle was invented in 1733 which made weaving faster and left the weaver wanting more yarn than the spinners were making. The solution to this was new technology to speed up spinning. There were two important inventions: the spinning jenny was patented by James Hargreaves in 1770; and the water frame of Richard Arkwright, patented in 1769 applied water power to the process.
Both inventions were initially put into operation at Nottingham, where hosiery was being produced from imported Indian yarn. Arkwright moved to Cromford and set up a mill there in 1771. His partner Jedediah Strutt set up mills at Belper and elsewhere in the following years. Many other mills followed, particularly after Arkwright's patent expired in 1783.
By 1788, there were about 210 mills in Great Britain, the counties with the greatest number being Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. The number of Manchester cotton mills peaked at 108 in 1853, though new ones continued to open in the surrounding mill towns of Oldham which at its zenith, was the most productive cotton spinning town in the world, Rochdale and Bolton and farther afield around Blackburn, Rawtenstall, Todmorden and Burnley but by then Manchester was already established as the financial centre of the North West of England.
Following the downturn of 1883, city industrialists embarked upon the monumental and hugely expensive task of constructing the Manchester Ship Canal. This led to new mills being built in the suburbs, exemplified by the vast Victoria Mill at Miles Platting, which was also the home of the last Manchester cotton mill which went up in 1924.
Locally, it is claimed that the first cotton mill to be built in a town was in Royton, Lancashire, in 1764. However, the process used by this mill is not apparent for it preceded the water frame, and artificial power was not used for the spinning jenny at this period. Nor was it the first, for it was proceded by mills at Northampton and Leominster, which spun cotton under the patent of Lewis Paul. These were set up in 1742 and 1744, but were far less successful that the spinning jenny or water frame.
These inventions facilitated a great expansion in cotton spinning and the related production of cotton cloth. Cotton was one of the leading sectors in the Industrial Revolution, and in the rise of socio-economic prosperity in England. From the 19th century cotton manufacture was concentrated in Lancashire, whereas the West Riding of Yorkshire concentrated on wool, although there was some overlap. Initially the main source of raw cotton was India during the British Raj, but later the southern United States became the main source, the cotton being imported into England through Liverpool.
See Also
Sources of Information
[1] Wikipedia