JAMES HARGREAVES

James Hargreaves was born on December 13th, 1720 in Lancashire, England.  Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a weaver, using a hand loom weaver.  He is famous for the invention of the spinning jenny in 1764.  Simply put, the spinning jenny was a machine that used a large wheel to spin many spindles of thread at once.  The invention increased the production ability of textile manufactures and was particularly important for cotton.  While Hargreaves sold his invention to several mills in the area, he made very little money from his work.  Regardless, his invention had a profound impact on the Industrial Revolution as it inspired other inventions who built off of his ideas.

For example, Richard Arkwright invented the water frame in 1759.  Arkwright’s invention was capable of producing strong yarn. The machine replaced the need for manual labour and enabled the production of inexpensive spun cotton by using the moving force of a creek or river that spun a shaft. This was important because the increased amount of energy meant that Arkwright’s water frame could produce at a higher level than Hargreaves spinning jenny.  Next, historians identify the invention of the spinning mule in 1779 by Samuel Compton, as an extension of the ideas of Hargreaves.  The spinning mule essentially allowed the fast production of yarn using a spinning machine.

Hargreaves died on April 22nd, 1778, in Nottingham, England.  Today he is remembered as a significant inventor of the Industrial Revolution and furthered the process of industrialization, especially in terms of the textile industry.

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