Sir Rich Arkwright and the Water Frame Invention :: Biography Biographies Essays

Sir Rich Arkwright and the Water Frame Invention Sir Rich Arkwright was born on December 23, 1732 at Preston in the county of Lancaster. His first profession was a barber in Bolron-le-moors in 1760. Soon afterward he traveled throught the country buying human hair. At that time he had a valuable chemical secret for dying the hair to make wigs out of. Arkwright's hair was commented to be the finest hair in the country. In 1761, Richard Arkwright married Margaret Biggins, and this marriage brought him to an aquaitance with Thomas Highs. Highs was probably one of the most important people Arkwright was to ever meet. He was the inventor of the spinning jenny and the water frame. Highs was behind the mechanical production of both of these machines, however he could now market his product due to lack of funding and ill communication skills. This is where Richard Arkwright comes in. Arkwright was highly skilled in dealing with business and other social aspects. Arkwright sought to obtain the water frame by less than friendly means. He contacted John Kay, a former employee of Highs', to "turn brass" for him. This was all part of a clever plot to get Kay to reveal the design of Highs' water frame. Eventually, Arkwright succeded and Kay cunstructed a replica of the water frame, or otherwise known as throstle. Arkwright showed off the model to several people to seek financial aid. He eventually prevailed on Mr. Smalley to fund the project. In April of 1768 he hired Kay and took him along with him to Nottingham where he built a factory turned by horses. On July 3, 1769, he obtained a patent for "spinning by rollers." By doing this, he solidified his hold over the water frame preventing Highs from ever gaining the immense profits made by the water frame. In 1771, Arkwright built another factory in Cromford. The power for this factory was supplied by a water wheel instead of horses. During this time many improvements were made to shorten the process of spinning wool. Arkwright kept an eye on these improvements and eventually made a machine combining many of them into a series. These "engines," as he called them, were enough to take up another pattent on December 16, 1775. Improvements specified in the pattent were not invented by Arkwright but were actually