Three Significant Figures

The creation of the factory system played a very important role in the Industrial Revolution by getting everything started. But who was responsible for this introduction, this change of people from working in homes to working in factories and from making things by hand to making them with machines? Simply, the credit goes to three very important inventors by the names of Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton and Edmund Cartwright.


Richard Arkwright was a very significant figure to the Industrial Revolution and the creation of the factory system. He is often called the "father of the modern industrial factory system."

Born in Preston in 1732, Arkwright was the son of a poor tailor. His family could not afford to send him to school, having him taught to read and write by his older cousin. Arkwright's first job was that of a barber. He did not become an entrepreneur until later in life. As his business grew, he began making wigs and traveling the country to buy human hair. It was on these journeys that he became interested in the textile market. He then started to work on a mechanical machine that could spin thread effectively. He sought out the help of a very talented clockmaker by the name of John Kay. In the end, Arkwright came up with a tool that improved the production of yarn. The yarn his machine spun, which was called the water frame, was stronger and did not need as many people to make it as would previously have been needed before. He patented his machine in 1775.

Arkwright's machines were of massive dimensions, needing specialized mills to house and use them. These mills would become known as factories, crucial parts of the Industrial Revolution.

Likewise, Samuel Crompton played an important role in the factory system of the revolution. He combined the features of the Spinning Jenny, made by James Hargreaves, and Arkwright's water frame to create his Spinning Mule. This improved machinery spun very thin thread, which could be used to weave beautiful, more luxurious cloth.

Crompton was born on December 3, 1753, in Firwood Fold. For generations his family made a living as smallholders and weavers. The family moved to Hall i' th' Wood and after the death of his father, continued that same path. Crompton started spinning at the age of five, and by ten was working a loom alongside his mother, supporting his family. It was in Crompton's study at Hall i' th' Wood, which he named his "conjuring room," that he formed the idea of a machine that could mimic the motions of a hand held spinner. His first Spinning Mule was created in 1779.

This contraption used Arkwright's design by using rollers to stretch yarn and Hargreaves' design in using moving spindles to twist the yarn. Crompton's invention was a great success and improvement, although he never patented it and was paid very little for it.

Finally, Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power loom of 1785 played an equally important role in the textile industry and creation of factories.

Cartwright was born on April 24, 1743, in Nottinghamshire. His father was a well off landowner. At Oxford University, Cartwright learned the ways of a clergyman and began practicing in 1786. Although previously, in 1784, he became very interested in the trade of cotton spinning after visiting one of Arkwright's factories. He patented his first power loom in 1785 and opened his first factory in Doncaster not much later. Unfortunately, he was not much of a businessman and went bankrupt in 1793. Nevertheless, his power loom took hold in the 1800s, adding to the new found efficiency of Industrial Revolution.

In all, these three individuals and inventions led to the building of factories, which in turn marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. These inventions took work out of the home, and into the factory system.