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Loom powers revolution

I wrote last week about Newark's 18th Century cotton mill (later Parnham's flour mill) which stood on the Trent beside Millgate.

The mill was originally powered by water (although later adapted for steam) and for about 25 years from 1790 spun cotton thread for export to the established weaving houses of Manchester and the north west.

In its heyday the Newark cotton mill is said to have employed up to 300 people and made a significant contribution to the local economy.

Another important connection between the Newark area and the early cotton manufacture occurs in the person of Dr Edmund Cartwright of Marnham, inventor of the Power Loom - the first machine to successfully weave cotton thread into cloth.

Sir Richard Arkwright had already mechanised the production of cotton thread but it was Cartwright who invented the machine by which the thread could be turned into cloth.

Of all the great inventors and entrepreneurs who forged the basis of Britain's Industrial Revolution, Edmund Cartwright was undoubtedly one of the least likely.

By profession he was a practising cleric, while inclination drew him towards the realms of literature and romantic poetry. He was born at Marnham some way to the north of Newark on April 24, 1743.

He was the fourth son of William Cartwright who had married his cousin, Anne, a sister of George Cartwright of Ossington Hall.

William and Anne had five sons, three of whom had remarkable careers. George (1739 - 1819), the second son, made a career in the army before becoming a noted fur trapper in Canada.

He became widely known as 'Labrador' Cartwright. John (1740 - 1824), the third son, pursued a successful naval career before retiring to become a major in the Notts Militia. Edmund, the fourth son, came, through his invention of the power loom, to be the most famous of all.

Edmund Cartwright received his early education at Wakefield Grammar School before proceeding to University College, Oxford, when only 14 years of age. He studied for the church and rose to become a Fellow of Magdalen College.

No indication of his flair for invention had yet revealed itself, and as a young man his tastes appear to have been mainly literary.

In 1772 he published (anonymously) Armine and Elvira, a legendary poem which earned the praise of Sir Walter Scott and went through seven editions in its first year.

Also in 1772, at the age of 29, he married Alice, youngest daughter of Richard Whitaker of Doncaster, by whom he was later to inherit property in that town.

The couple began their married life at Marnham although soon moved to Brampton near Chesterfield where Cartwright served as curate.

At Brampton he concerned himself not only with the spiritual well-being of his parishioners, but also their bodily health, dosing them liberally with yeast which he considered a wonderful cure for 'putrid fever'.

In 1779 Cartwright was presented with the rectory of Goadby Marwood in Leicestershire where, it is said, he would probably have passed his time quietly pursuing his parish duties had it not been for a chance meeting during a holiday visit to Matlock in Derbyshire.

In a letter written some years later to a researcher for the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cartwright described the events of his holiday thus: "Happening to be at Matlock in the summer of 1784, I fell in company with some gentlemen of Manchester, when our conversation turned on Arkwright's spinning machine."

(Sir) Richard Arkwright had patented his Waterframe for spinning cotton thread in 1769 and later set up a cotton spinning factory at Cromford, a little way to the south of Matlock. Cartwright continues: "One of the Manchester men observed that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired so many mills would be erected, and so much cotton spun, that hands could never be found to weave it.

"To this observation I replied that Arkwright must set his wits to work then to invent a weaving mill.

"This brought on a conversation on the subject, in which the Manchester gentlemen unanimously agreed that the thing was impracticable; and, in defence of their opinion, they adduced arguments which I certainly was incompetent to answer or even to comprehend, being totally ignorant of the subject having never at any time, seen a person weave."

Once back in Leicestershire, however, Cartwright found that the idea of devising a weaving machine had lodged itself firmly in his mind.

"It struck me," he wrote, "that as in plain weaving, according to the conception I then had of the business, that as there could only be three movements which were to follow each other in succession, there would be little difficulty in reproducing and repeating them.

"Full of these ideas I immediately employed a carpenter and smith to carry them into effect.... To my great delight, a piece of cloth, such as it was, was the produce ..."

Sadly, this first machine of Cartwright's was not at all successful, and was actually slower in its operation than a manual hand loom. Nevertheless, it worked and proved that producing cotton cloth by mechanical means was a possibility.

All Cartwright had to do now was to improve and refine the process.

Next week I will continue the story of Edmund Cartwright as he developed the power loom to a point where it rose to become one of the single most important machines behind Britain's early Industrial Revolution.

ABOVE: Edmund Cartwright (1743 - 1823) inventor of the power loom and a native of Marnham near Newark. From a commemorative engraving printed in 1889.

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