What did richard arkwright do
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Scientist of the Day - Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright, an English manufacturer, was born Jan. 3, 1732. Arkwright is best known for his invention of the spinning frame, or water frame, which he patented in 1769, and which produced thread from carded cotton automatically, by machine. It was an improvement over the spinning jenny of James Hargreaves, because the thread was stronger. Before Arkwright, thread was spun in home shops by individuals working at a spinning wheel – one wheel, one thread. Now thread could be produced by machines, hundreds of spools at once, and skilled home laborers could be replaced by unskilled workers who just had to load carded cotton and exchange spools. We see here an original Arkwright water frame, built in 1775 and now in the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester (first image); Arkwright’s patent drawing of 1769 (third image); and a detail of a replica of an Arkwright water frame, showing the spinners that wind the spools, also in the Manchester museum (fourth image).
Portrait of Richard Arkwright, engraving, based on an oil por
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Sir Richard Arkwright (1732 - 1792)
Sir Richard Arkwright ©Arkwright is considered the father of the modern industrial factory system and his inventions were a catalyst for the Industrial Revolution.
Richard Arkwright was born in Preston in 1732, the son of a tailor. Money was not available to send him to school, but his cousin Ellen taught him to read and write.
He began working as an apprentice barber and it was only after the death of his first wife that he became an entrepreneur. His second marriage to Margaret Biggins in 1761 brought a small income that enabled him to expand his barber's business. He acquired a secret method for dyeing hair and travelled around the country purchasing human hair for use in the manufacture of wigs. During this time he was often in contact with weavers and spinners and when the fashion for wearing wigs declined, he looked to mechanical inventions in the field of textiles to make his fortune.
By 1767, a machine for carding cotton had been introduced into England and James Hargreaves had invented the spinning jenny. With the help of a
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Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright, born in 1732 in Preston, Lancashire, is known as “the father of the modern industrial factory system”. He is certainly one of the giants of the age of industrialisation, a man whose inventive mind and innovative approach to business would dramatically change the way people in Britain worked and lived.
Arkwright, the son of a tailor, was born into a large family of thirteen, becoming the youngest of seven surviving children. His parents couldn’t afford to send him to school, so he was taught the basics of reading and writing by his cousin Ellen. After apprenticeship to a wigmaker and barber, an important and potentially very lucrative trade in an age of fashionable wigs, hair-dos, powdering and coiffing, Arkwright set up his own shop in Bolton, near Manchester.
Arkwright’s first marriage was in 1755, to Patience Holt. Their son Richard Arkwright was born soon afterwards, followed by the death of Patience in 1756 when her husband was still just 24. Five years later, Arkwright married Margaret Biggins. The couple had three children. Their dau
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