In 1781 Arkwright finished his partnership with Strutt but kept his mill at Cromford.

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Introduction

Sir Richard Arkwright was an extremely significant figure in the Industrial Revolution.  Born in Preston on December 23rd, 1732, Arkwright was the youngest of thirteen children in a poor family.  He was apprenticed to a barber and became a wigmaker in Bolton.  He travelled the country buying women's hair for wigs, and during his journeys he came across people involved in weaving and spinning.

In 1769 Arkwright patented the water frame, a machine that produced tightly woven cotton.  The yarn produced was of a much finer and firmer texture than that spun by the spinning jenny.  Horses powered the first water frame, but that process was too expensive so he decided water was a more effective source of power.  Arkwright became a partner with Jedediah Strutt, a wealthy hosiery manufacturer.  In 1771 the partners built a water-powered mill at Cromford and were employing 600 people by 1774.  Arkwright had built rows of terrace houses in Cromford for the workers of his mill.

 In 1781 Arkwright finished his partnership with Strutt but kept his mill at Cromford.

 Arkwright went on to build cotton factories at Manchester, Matlock, Bath and New Lanark.  Arkwright served as High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1786 and was knighted in the same year.  He died at Willersley Castle, the mansion he had built overlooking his Cromford mills, on August 3, 1792, leaving a fortune of £500,000.

Part A

Source five is the 250th birthday anniversary brochure, produced by The Arkwright Society in 1982. It tells us Richard Arkwright’s main achievements.

 He started out as a wigmaker and barber while in his spare time he was working on a device that would improve the ‘Spinning Jenny’. In 1769 Arkwright patented the device, which came to be known as the ‘Water Frame’ and immediately set up a horse-powered mill in Nottingham.

 In 1771 Arkwright built the world’s first successful water-powered Cotton spinning mill in Cromford. Arkwright built the second mill in 1776-77.

 Arkwright’s mills became very famous as he developed his machines and production methods. His mills were copied throughout the world.

 Arkwright was Knighted in 1786 and made High Sheriff of Derbyshire in the same year. The Victorians named him ‘Father Of The Factory System’.

This source may be unreliable because The Arkwright Society wrote this as a 250th anniversary brochure, it may therefore be bias as it was written by and for people who admired Richard Arkwright and are celebrating the work he did over the years, which means there wouldn’t be anything bad to say about Arkwright. E.g. ‘Pioneer of the factory system’.  It was written in 1982 almost 200 years after Richard Arkwright’s death, this means they could only use other sources to produce the brochure.

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 This source could be reliable as the facts that are presented can be backed up with other sources. E.g. ‘in 1768… he perfected the roller spinning device which came to be known as the ‘Waterframe’.

‘Richard Ark Wright was a kind employer’.

What evidence do we have to support this view?

 

Source 1 shows us that he had houses built for his workers; they were fairly big and didn’t look crowded.  They were built out of stone and brick and looked well constructed.  There are also chimneys, which shows they had warmth. ...

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