It was not just his own family that wanted to know what Samuel Crompton was doing by night in his quaint Bolton workshop.
In 1779 Samuel Crompton, who came from a family of Bolton weavers, developed the ‘spinning mule’ — so called because it was a hybrid of two existing machines for spinning cotton thread, the spinning jenny and the waterframe. He kept his invention secret, but the quantities of superfine yarn he released onto the local market excited the envy, curiosity and resourcefulness of his rivals.
At the Battle of Crécy in 1346, the English army was trying out a new military tactic under the command of a sixteen-year-old boy.
The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 led to a dispute over succession between Edward III of England (whose mother Isabella was French royalty) and Philip VI of France. Matters came to a head at Crécy in 1346, but despite all that was riding on it Edward left the battle in the hands of his son Prince Edward, aged sixteen.