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Born:
3 December 1753 (Firwood Fold, near Bolton, England)
Died:
26 June 1827
Crompton was 15 when he started working on a spinning jenny in the Hall'i'th'Wood mill, Bolton. The yarn then in use was soft, and broke frequently. He knew that an improved machine was needed, and he worked on that project in his spare time for five years. Because of the machine wreckers active during the Industrial Revolution, he worked in secret and the developing machine hidden.
In 1779, his invention was finished - the spinning mule. It was able to spin a continuous, strong, fine yarn by combining ideas from the spinning jenny of Richard Arkwright and the water frame of James Hargreaves. The "mule" name came from being a hybrid.
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For lack of funds, he failed to patent the machine. Although it was a boon for them, once the device was made public, the cotton manufacturers took advantage of it, having given only trivial compensation for the rights to its inventor. Lancashire's textile manufacturers achieved a five fold increase in production. England's greater exports of fine cotton cloth brought prosperity.
The first, hand-operated mules used at home were followed in the 1790s with larger factory versions built with as many as 400 spindles. The Spinning Mule could also be driven by the new James Watt steam engines.
Large numbers of factory owners installed copies of Crompton's mule. Having sold the rights to his machine, long before, Crompton was unable to benefit. He spent the rest of his life seeking compensation for his invention.
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Robert Peel did respond to a petition to Parliament on 24 June 1812 with a reward of £5,000. But even this was not sufficient to clear the debts from Crompton's ventures.
He died in poverty, on 26 June 1827, aged 72. The Latin inscription on his gravestone reads: "Mors Ultimo Linea Rerum Est." ("Death is the last boundary of human affairs".)
Bolton eventually recognized his contribution to their industry 35 years later, when from public contributions, his statue was unveiled on 24 September 1862.
LINKS:
Visit Samuel Crompton's home town of Bolton and take a virtual walk around by looking at the many photos on this site.
Read from an 1854
book describing Lancashire and the textile business. For a description
of a mule
room, scroll to page 22. Be patient. The page is huge in length and
has a number of engravings as illustrations.
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| From a scanned transcription of "The Pictorial History of the County of Lancaster," published by George Routledge, London, in 1854. (source) |