The beginning for Arkwright

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The beginning for Arkwright

Richard Arkwright was born in Preston in 1732, the thirteenth child of a poor man. This did not seem a very fortunate beginning, and for many years he had a hard struggle. He had very little schooling; indeed he gained most of his education late in life, for when he had become rich he still used to practise grammar and spelling, until, we are told, he wrote a very good business letter. He was always interested in mechanics, but when he was quite young he was apprenticed to a barber, and when he had finished his time he set up his own little shop in a cellar in Bolton.

Here he soon showed the enterprise which was to be the foundation of his fortune by putting out a sign "Come to the subterraneous barber; He shaves for a penny".
This was only half the price charged by his business rivals, and he was so successful that they soon had to bring down their charges to the same level. Nothing daunted, Richard then went one better with a new notice
"A Clean Shave for a Halfpenny." 

When he was about 35 he obtained the secret of a process for dyeing human hair, which was very valuable as wigs were then in fashion. All this time he had been making mechanical experiments. His wife had died and in 1761 he remarried. The second Mrs Arkwright did not approve of him wasting time with machinery when he should have been building up the barber's business, so one day, while he was out, she burned all his models. This seems to have been the reason why he left home and started to travel about the countryside buying hair, which he dyed and sold to wigmakers.

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He had spent all his life among textile workers and knew a great deal about their trade and during his journeys he met still more of them. By this time he was working on the idea of a spinning machine which, by taking the cotton sliver over two sets of rollers, the second revolving faster than the first, would make a yarn much better than could be spun by hand. At last it was finished, but he was too poor to put his machine into production himself, so he had to find somebody who could give him the financial help ...

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