William Gilmore
of Dumbarton, then USA
He introduced the power loom to the USA, arriving in Boston from Britain in September 1815, bringing knowledge of the current state of the art in power looms (as patented by William Horrocks) and dressing machinery. He was soon introduced to John Slater, brother of Samuel Slater, at Slatersville, Smithfield. It seems that Samuel had difficulty convincing his partners (Almy and Brown) to enter into experimental work, and it took two years before cloth was produced from Gilmore looms in Slatersville. During this time, Gilmore worked as a machinist at Slater's works, and also introduced the hydostatic press for pressing cloth. Gilmore was enticed by Daniel Lyman to develop power looms for the Lyman Cotton Manufacturing Co at North Providence.[1][2]
'Gilmore, after being employed for a while in the machine shop of the factory at Slatersville, went to the Lyman Cotton Manufacturing Company, which had been started early in 1810 by Judge Daniel Lyman at North Providence, and made the same proposal to Judge Lyman that he had made to the Slaters. Gilmore’s offer was accepted, so that the Scotch loom, which was invented by William Horrocks, of Stockport, England, during the years from 1805 to 1813, was first introduced into Rhode Island by Judge Daniel Lyman and Gilmore. This loom differed from the Waltham loom of Francis C. Lowell, who introduced the latter into the mills of the Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Mass, in this respect: in Gilmore’s loom the lift and fall of the harness were accomplished by a crank, while in the Waltham loom the work was done by a cam. Then, too, it cost but seventy dollars to build a Gilmore loom, while the Waltham loom cost almost three hundred dollars. Judge Lyman did not restrict the use of the loom in any way by patenting it, but permitted Mr. Gilmore to sell to David Wilkinson for ten dollars the use of all his drawings, so that it was not long before the Scotch loom, as the Gilmore loom was known, was being used quite generally by the mills in the lower part of New England, looms being built by David Wilkinson and others.'[3]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ 'Ingenious Machinists: Two Inventive Lives from the American Industrial Revolution' by Anthony J. Connors, State University of New York Press, 2014
- ↑ 'Memoir of Samuel Slater: The Father of American Manufactures' by George S White, Philadelphia, 1836
- ↑ 'Some Particulars in Relation to Cotton and Cotton Manufactures, Chronologically Arranged' by Samuel Batchelder. Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol 95, Isssue 5, May 1873