History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun.

  • Baines, Edward, Sir, 1800-1890.
Date:
[1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    wrisrlit’s in its form and construction. That it was im- perfect appears manifest from its having failed to become profitable. It was tried by Wyatt and Paul at Bir- mingham between 1738 and 1743; an engine of a similar kind was erected in the latter year at North- ampton, with capital supplied by Mr. Cave; and so late as the year 1758 we find Lewis Paul taking out a new patent for the spinning machine, with some improve- ments; yet none of these succeeded. This lingering- existence of the invention leads me to suppose that it was not uniformly unprofitable, but that the profits were small, and generally more than swallowed up by the expenses. The proprietors saw that they were in pos- session of a great and valuable principle; but, probably from deficiency of capital, and from the want of continued application on the part of Wyatt to the perfecting of the details, it yielded no fruit to him whose happy genius first conceived so admirable a process. As the patent of 1738 contains no detailed descrip- tion of the machine, and as the model spoken of by Mr. Charles Wyatt has been lost or destroyed, we can- not ascertain what was the construction of this first machine for spinning by rollers. Paul’s patent of 1758, however, may materially help us in our conjectures, especially as all the notices of the machinery contained in the MS. book above quoted seem to indicate an engine of the same kind. The latter patent is remarkably com- plete in its drawings and specification; and from a care- ful inspection of them I think it highly probable that the machine was essentially the same as the original spinning machine of 1738, but included a supposed improvement in the mode of applying the sliver of cotton