Sir Richard Arkwright

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Sir Richard Arkwright was born in 1732 in Preston. He was one of the first people to use machinery on a large scale as a substitute for hand labouring textile manufactures. He served his apprenticeship as a barber and then became a wig maker. This gave him the opportunity to travel around the country collecting human hair. Arkwright then turned his attention to mechanical inventions. The new invention of the flying shuttle led to a greater need for yarn and the yarn made by the recently invented spinning jenny was only suitable for the weft. Arkwright being a great entrepreneur started to plan a new spinning machine. He asked a clock maker to ’bend him some wires and turn him some pieces of brass.’ In 1768 Arkwright was happy that he had invented a machine that could spin cotton. Arkwright’s first mill in Nottingham was driven by horses was too expensive and couldn’t apply power on a large scale. He solved this problem by erecting a water powered mill in Cromford.

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 In 1771 Arkwright built a mill in Cromford. There are many reasons why he chose Cromford. The area was remote so he could experiment away from competition. This statement is backed up by evidence from source 14 which is reliable as it is from a school book. This is backed up by source 1 which shows that there is nothing but a couple of houses in the area. This source is probably reliable as it has no reason to b bias.

Another reason for choosing Cromford is that it was away from machine breakers. These people went around factories breaking ...

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