Supply and demand... an enlarged ‘spinning jenny’, with two banks of eight spindles, at work at Quarry Bank Mill textile museum in Styal, Cheshire - the mill was founded in 1784, just twenty years after Hargreaves built his first machine. The spinning jenny did not merely cut costs or save on wages, a very mean sort of benefit. It allowed manufacturers to keep up with the demand for cloth, by eliminating a bottleneck and increasing supply – much as PCs speed up productivity in design or data handling, or cash machines streamline the supply of cash. The result was a burst of growth in the textile industry, and even whole new service industries, as well as affordable high-quality clothing for the poor.
Introduction
James Hargreaves (?1720-1778) was one of a number of eighteenth-century Lancashire inventors who transformed textile production from a cottage handicraft into a mechanised industry. His ‘Spinning Jenny’ of 1764 cleared a bottleneck in cloth production that proved the social benefits of automation and accelerated the industrial revolution.
IN the 1760s, John Kay’s new ‘flying shuttle’ looms allowed Colchester’s weavers to double their output.* More cloth at lower prices promised full order-books and new jobs across the textile industry, but spinning was still a laborious handicraft, and could not supply enough yarn. The new looms fell silent, and unemployed weavers smashed them, sending Kay in fear to Paris.
James Hargreaves of Blackburn was more creative. One day in 1764, they say, his children knocked over his wife’s spinning wheel, and in his mind’s eye Hargreaves saw a machine with eight vertical spindles, rather than a single horizontal one. Soon his historic ‘spinning jenny’* was keeping looms busy with cheap yarn, and although cottage industry spinners vandalised his machines too, the bottleneck was cleared and the spinning jenny brought new jobs, better wages and a rising standard of living.*
Yet Hargreaves himself made no fortune from his historic invention. The courts found that he had left it too late to take out a patent.*
John Kay (1704-1779) of Walmersley near Bury, who set up his business in Colchester in 1733. He should not be confused with John Kay, a clockmaker from Warrington, who in 1767 constructed a different kind of machine, a spinning frame with rollers, for Richard Arkwright.
The origin of Hargreaves’s name for his device remains a mystery: neither James’s wife nor any of his daughters (he had thirteen children) appears to have been christened Jenny. Some have surmised that it is a corruption of ‘engine’.
The weavers smashed Kay’s looms because the shortage of yarn raised its price, as demand outstripped supply. Conversely, Hargreaves’s spinning jenny made the price of yarn drop, as supply kept up with demand. This pleased the weavers but angered the spinners, who did not realise that by producing more for less using machines they could still come out ahead.
Hargreaves sold some machines before taking out his patent, which a court held to have invalidated it. Thomas Highs of Leigh, who collaborated with John Kay of Warrington on carding machines, claimed that he had invented the spinning jenny himself, but the courts dismissed his complaint. In 1769 Richard Arkwright patented a vastly improved version, the water-powered spinning frame, amid some controversy, during which he testified that Hargreaves was the original inventor of the spinning jenny.
Précis
The spread of the flying shuttle loom in the 1760s meant that weavers could make cloth faster than hand wheels could supply yarn. The spinning jenny devised by James Hargreaves in 1764 accelerated production, and reduced the price of yarn, sparking a revolution in the textile industry, and proving that contrary to widespread fears automation benefited the economy. (58 / 60 words)
The spread of the flying shuttle loom in the 1760s meant that weavers could make cloth faster than hand wheels could supply yarn. The spinning jenny devised by James Hargreaves in 1764 accelerated production, and reduced the price of yarn, sparking a revolution in the textile industry, and proving that contrary to widespread fears automation benefited the economy.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, despite, if, just, not, ought, until.
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 John. Lower. Unemployed.
2 Clear. Found. Than.
3 Much. Send. Too.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
mps (6+2)
amps. impose. imps. maps. mopes. mops.
impious. umps.
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