Crompton - Biography
Samuel Crompton was born in 1753 in Firwood, Bolton. The son of a small farmer, he lived in Darwen, a small village about nine miles north of Bolton.
Samuel married Mary Pimlott from New Heys Hall, near Warrington at Bolton Parish Church on 16th February 1780.
Crompton had eight children with his wife, who died on May 29th 1796. Two children later died with sickness.
During his life, Crompton invented the Spinning Mule. He worked for five years to perfect his machine and financed his work by playing the fiddle at Bolton Theatre for a few pence a show. The wood and iron contraption that was to change the world cost him "every shilling I had in the world."
Crompton was too poor to even apply for a patent. He eventually sold his rights to a manufacturer in Bolton and began attending evening classes in order to help him with the building of his machines.
Factory owner, David Dale, was quick to see the progress of the mule and soon purchased some for his factories in New Lanark, Scotland.
Robert Peel, MP, took pity on Crompton and in 1812, Crompton was awarded £5000 by The House of Commons. With this money he invested in a cotton factory which soon ended in a failure. Later, he died in poverty, in Bolton, in 1827.
Main Achievements
Having laboured for five long years to perfecting his Spinning Mule was a long time without much income. The only money he made was from playing music in Bolton Theatre.
When he eventually finished the machine in 1779, machine-breaking riots broke out in the neighbourhood and Crompton was forced to dismantle his machinery.
Five years on, after improving himself at evening classes (which he had been attending for over a year), Crompton was growing increasingly irritated with the spinning jenny's limitations, and he decided that he could do better. As a result of this he shut himself in a room and set to work. After the 1779 disturbances, Crompton rebuilt his machine – and later gave it the name of ‘The Mule’ because it was a cross combining the jenny's twist action and the water frame's draw rollers - and later on he began to operate it.
These facts show how enthusiastic he was in continuing his career in inventing- not giving up when he was first forced to break up the machinery. However, although he finally completed the machine, it did not make him enough money and he still ended up in poverty when he died.
The Importance of Crompton
Samuel Crompton played a major part in British history as one of the main inventors around the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Samuel Crompton was famous for inventing the spinning mule in the textiles industry. This machinery combined the features of the spinning jenny (invented by James Hargreaves in 1764) and the water frame (invented by Richard Arkwright in 1762). The first textile mills had appeared in Britain in the 1740’s. Soon after this new machine was invented, it took over both of them. It was particularly efficient in spinning fine yarn cotton. This was then used to make high-quality cloth. Before this invention the high-quality cloth was imported from India. In the 1780s through to the 1790s larger mules were built. By this time there were already about 120 mills around the country.
The importance of Crompton’s invention was that his machine was needed in Britain to maintain the high standards of the textiles industry and to speed up the process of manufacturing strong cotton. The ‘Spinning Mule’ was quickly adopted into the circumstances of the textile industry. This saved costs as Britain could now produce its own high – standard quality of cloth rather than having to import it from India.
Bibliography
Encyclopaedias:
Fetzer Scott company, ‘The World Book Encyclopaedia,’ 2000
Books:
Adams, Carol , ‘Under Control,’ Cambridge University 1983
Bahn, Dr Paul, ‘British History,’ Kingfisher 1996
Fry, Plantagenet, ‘History of the World,’ Hamlyn 1974
Hammerton, Sir John, ‘The New Book of Knowledge,’ Waverly Book Company
Internet Sites:
www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/classroom/gcse/industrial_diagram.htm
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SCcrompton.htm
www.schoolshistory.org.uk/IndustrialRevolution/
Name: Anton Nyman
Form: 4GO
Date: 18thOctober 2003
THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
SAMUEL CROMPTON
LIBRARY HISTORY PROJECT
CASE STUDY
