Cotton-spinning is a term employed to describe in the aggregate all the operations involved in transforming raw cotton into yarn. The word 'spinning' has also a more limited signification, being used to denote the concluding process of the series. The following affords a general notion of the nature and order of the successive operations carried on in the manufacture of cottonyarn:
(1) Mixing, the blending of different varieties of raw cotton, in order to secure economical production, uniform quality and colour, and an even thread in any desired degree.
(2) Cleaning, an operation partly effected in mixing, partly by scutching, the cotton being prepared in the form of a continuous lap or rolled sheet for the next process.
(3) Carding, an operation in which the material is treated in its individual fibres, which are taken from the lap, further cleansed, and laid in a position approximately parallel to each other, forming a thin film, which is afterwards condensed into a sliver - a round, untwisted strand of cotton.
(4) Drawing, the drawing out of several slivers to the dimensions of one, so as to render the new sliver more uniform in thickness, and to place the fibres more perfectly in parallel order.
(5) Stubbing, the further drawing or attenuation of the sliver, and slightly twisting it in order to preserve its cohesion and rounded form.
(6) Intermediate or second stubbing, a repetition of the former operation and further attenuation, not necessary in the production of coarse yarns.
(7) Having, a continuation of the preceding, its principal object being to still further attenuate the sliver, and give it a slight additional twist.
(8) Spinning, which completes the extension and twisting of the yarn. This is accomplished either with the throstle or the mule. By means of the former machine the yarn receives a hard twist, which renders it tough and strong. By means of the latter yarns of less strength are produced, such as warps of light fabrics and wefts of all kind.
Up to the middle of the 18th century the only method of spinning known was that by the hand-wheel, or the still more primitive distaff and spindle. In 1767 a poor weaver of the name of Hargreaves, residing at Stanhill, near Blackburn, in Lancashire, invented a machine for spinningcotton, which he named a spinning-jenny. It consisted at first of eight spindles, turned by a horizontal wheel, but was afterwards greatly extended and improved, so as to have the vertical substituted for the horizontal wheel, and give motion to from fifty to eighty spindles. In 1769 Arkwright, originally a barber's apprentice, took out a patent for spinning by rollers. From the circumstances of the mill erected by Arkwright at Cromford, in Derbyshire, being driven by water-power, his machine received the name of the water-frame, and the thread spun on it that of water-twist. The next important invention in cotton-spinning was that of the mule, introduced by Samuel Crompton, of Bolton, in 1775, and so called from its combining the principle of the spinning-jenny of Hargreaves with the roller-spinning of Arkwright.
Numerous improvements in cotton-spinning have been subsequently introduced up to the present day, but they are all, more or less, modifications of Arkwright's spinning-frame and Crompton's mule-jenny. Among the principal of these may be mentioned the throstle, an extension and simplification of the original spinning-frame, introduced about the year 1810. Research Cotton-Spinning
A throstle was a drawing-frame machine used in the manufacture of cotton, succeeding the spinning-jenny in around 1885. The throstle was used for attenuating slivers of fibre by passing them through consecutive pairs of rollers, each pair in the succession revolving at a higher speed than its predecessor. The specific difference between the action of the throstle and the mule was that the throstle had a continuous action, drawing, twisting and winding; while the mule had an alternative action, drawing and twisting and then winding. Research Throstle
Money-wort or creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummulavia) is a perennialherb of the family Primulaceae found in damp, shady places such as river banks and woods. It has a prostrate, far-creeping, angled and branched stem. The leaves are opposite, roundish to broadly ovate and short-stalked. The flowers are large, yellow and bell-shaped and grow singly on short stalks in the leaf axils. The fruit is a five-valved globose capsule, only rarely produced, the plant spreading more often by its creeping stems that root at the nodes. Money-wort has also been known as twopenny grass and herb twopence. Research Money-wort
Sir George Thomas Smart was an English musician. He was born in 1776 at London and died in 1867. He became a member of the Chapel Royal choir, and in 1791 a church organist at Hampstead Road. He played in a number of orchestras and in 1811 conducted a successful series of concerts in Dublin, where he was knighted by the lord-lieutenant. An original member of the Philharmonic Society, he conducted many of its concerts between 1813 and 1844, as well as musical festivals held all over the country, and taught music, among his pupils being Jenny Lind. Research George Smart
James Hargreaves was an English inventor. He was born in 1720 at Blackburn, Lancashire and died in 1778. A weaver and carpenter, in 1760 he invented a machine for carding, and around 1764 he invented the spinning-jenny by which he was able to spin with several spindles at once. only to be attacked by weavers fearing (rightly) that his invention would threaten their employment. As a result of the attacks, James Hargreaves removed to Nottingham in 1768, and in 1770 he obtained a patent for his invention, but it was after all declared invalid on the ground that he had sold several of the machines before taking out the patent. For the rest of his life he carried on business as a manufacturer. Research James Hargreaves
Jenny Geddes is the name tradition gives to a street fruit-seller, who, during the tumult in St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, in July 1637, when the dean attempted to introduce the Episcopalian service-book, threw her stool at his head exclaiming, 'Villain! dost thou say mass at my lug?' (translates as 'Uneducated peasant! Do you preach mass at me?') This tumult led to events which annulled Episcopacy and restored Presbyterianism. The honour of the exploit has been claimed for a Barbara Hamilton, wife of John Mein, merchant in Edinburgh, but Jenny Geddes, the street fruit-seller's claim, has always been the popular one, and a memorial brass was placed in St Giles to her memory. Research Jenny Geddes
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman who launched the enterprise known as 'the greatest show on earth' . He was born in 1810 at Bethel, Connecticut and died in 1891. His career as a showman started in 1835 but met with little success until in 1844 he exploited Charles Stratton - General Tom Thumb. Barnum supplemented this success with in 1847 by engaging Jenny Lind to sing for 150 nights. In 1871 he began the formation of the 'Greatest Show on Earth', a monster combination of circus, menagerie and exhibition of human freaks. With this show, in conjunction with his partners, Bailey and Hutchinson, Barnum amassed a large fortune. The entire concern was later purchased by the Ringling brothers in 1907. Research Phineas Barnum
Sir Richard Arkwright was an English inventor. He was born in 1732 at Preston, Lancashire and died in 1792. The youngest of thirteen children, he was a barber by trade, while travelling the country dealing in hair for wigs he became interested in the slow and clumsy processes used for spinning and weavingcotton, and when about thirty-five years of age he gave himself up exclusively to the subject of inventions for spinningcotton. The thread spun by Hargreaves' jenny could not be used except as weft, being destitute of the firmness or hardness required in the longitudinal threads or warp. But Richard Arkwright supplied this deficiency by the invention of the spinning-frame, which spins a vast number of threads of any degree of fineness and hardness, leaving the operator merely to feed the machine with cotton and to join the threads when they happen to break.
His invention introduced the system of spinning by rollers, the carding, or roving as it is technically termed (that is, the soft, loose strip of cotton), passing through one pair of rollers, and being received by a second pair, which are made to revolve with (as the case may be) three, four, or five times the velocity of the first pair. By this contrivance the roving is drawn out into a thread of the desired degree of tenuity and hardness. His inventions being brought into a pretty advanced state, Richard Arkwright removed to Nottingham in 1768 in order to avoid the attacks of the same lawless rabble that had driven Hargreaves out of Lancashire. Here his operations were at first greatly fettered by a want of capital; but two gentlemen of means having entered into partnership with him, the necessary funds were obtained, and Richard Arkwright erected his first mill, which was driven by horses, at Nottingham, and took out a patent for spinning by rollers in 1769. As the mode of working the machinery by horse-power was found too expensive he built a second factory on a much larger scale at Cromford, in Derbyshire, in 1771, the machinery of which was turned by a water-wheel. Having made several additional discoveries and improvements in the processes of carding, roving, and spinning, he took out a fresh patent for the whole in 1775, and thus completed a series of the most ingenious and complicated machinery. Notwithstanding a series of lawsuits in defence of his patent rights, and the destruction of his property by mobs, he amassed a large fortune. He was knighted by George III in 1786. Research Richard Arkwright
Samuel Crompton was an English inventor born in 1753 near Bolton he died in 1827. He early displayed a turn for mechanics, and when only twenty-one years of age invented his machine for spinningcotton, which was called a mule, from its combining the principles of Hargreave's spinning-jenny and Arkwright's roller-frame, both invented a few years previously. The mule shared in the odium excited among the Lancashire hand-weavers against these machines, and for a time Samuel Crompton was obliged to conceal his invention. He afterwards brought it again into work; but was unable to prevent others from profiting by it at his expense. Various improvements were introduced from time to time on the mule, but the original principle, as devised by Samuel Crompton, remained the same. The sum of 5000 pounds, voted to him by parliament in 1812, was almost all the remuneration which he received for an invention which contributed so essentially to the development of British manufactures. Research Samuel Crompton
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Abbreviations
Research Cotton-Spinning
