Spinning Machines
For hundreds of years before the Industrial Revolution, spinning had been done in the home on a simple device called a ‘spinning wheel’. One person operated the wheel, powering it with a foot pedal. The spinning wheel produced only one thread at a time.
In 1738 Lewis Paul, a Middlesex inventor, and John Wyatt, a Lichfield mechanic, patented an improved roller spinning machine. This machine pulled the strands of material through sets of wooden rollers that moved at different speeds, making some strands tighter than others. When combined, these strands were stronger than strands of uniform tightness. The combined strands passed on to the flier, the part of the machine that twisted the strands into yarn. The finished yarn was wound on to a bobbin that revolved on a spindle.
In the 1760’s, two new machines revolutionised the textile industry. One was the ‘Spinning Jenny’, invented by James Hargreaves, a weaver and carpenter from Blackburn. The other machine was the ‘Water Frame’, or ‘Throstle’, invented by Sir Richard Arkwright, a former Preston barber. Both machines solved many problems of roller spinning, especially in the production of yarn used to make coarse cloth.
Between 1774 and 1779, a Lancashire weaver named Samuel Compton developed the ‘Spinning Mule’. This machine combined features of the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame. In time, it replaced both machines. The Mule was particularly efficient in spinning fine yarn for high quality cloth, which, before the invention of the Mule, had been imported from India.
Iron making
The Industrial Revolution could not have developed without coal and iron. Coal was needed to power the steam engines and also to make iron.
To make iron the metal must be separated from the other elements in the ore, a process called ‘smelting’. This had been done by placing iron ore in a furnce with a burning fuel that lacked enough oxygen to burn completely. The most practical fuel for smelting was charcoal, made by burning hardwoods. As a result, Britain had almost used up its hardwood forests by the early 1700’s. Charcoal became so expensive that many iron-makers in Britain left the industry because of the high costs of production. Between 1709 and 1713, Abraham Darby, a Shropshire iron-maker succeeded in using coke to smelt iron. This was much more economical than smelting with charcoal, and after 1760 coke smelting spread throughout Britain.
The Steam Engine
Railways were made possible when George Stephenson built a type of steam engine that could move on rails and could be used to pull trucks. This first triumph came with the opening of the Stockton to Darlington Railway in 1825 when Stephenson drove the first train. In 1829, his famous ‘Rocket’ travelled at the amazing speed - for those days – of 21 mph. (34km/hour). In 1830, the Liverpool to Manchester Railway was opened and within 20 years, railways linked all the main towns of Britain. By 1850, railway engines had much improved and the fastest train could now travel at speeds of 60 mph. It cost more to send goods by railway than by canal, but people would normally pay the extra because their goods arrived much more quickly.
Engineering
As industry and transport adopted the new technology, it created the need for a new skill – engineering. Firms such as the Whessoe iron foundry in Darlington which supplied the Stockton – Darlington railway, had to overcome the difficulties of making enough rails, wagons, wheels, boilers, tubes, steam gauges and turntables. The parts had to bear the stresses of accelerating, braking and crossing bridges at speeds up to 60 mph. (97km/hr).
Steam Boats
At sea, the age of steam ships was just beginning. By the middle of the 19th century, steam ships were beginning to replace sailing ships as the great carriers of goods and people went from one place to another. At first, steam engines were put into ships still built of wood, but iron ships soon followed. Then came the age of steel, as between 1860 and 1870 it became possible to make large amounts of steel fairly cheaply.
Sources :
The Industrial Revolution – John D. Clare
The Children’s Britannica
SHP : Discovering the Past
School notes