Edmund Cartwright

Born at Marnham in Notts, was a merry musical soul, and perhaps the happiest parson in England when Scott praised one of his poems. While still in the thirties he was attracted to Arkwright's inventions, and, having said that Arkwright must set his wits to the invention of a power loom, he went home and, never having seen a loom of any sort, invented the first power loom.

His first machine, big and clumsy, was patented in 1785. He rapidly improved on it, exhibited his machines, and invited criticism from workmen and cooperation from manufacturers.

He set up a factory at Doncaster for weaving and spinning, the first in which wide calico was made by power. Preaching a little more and writing poetry as a refreshment, he then invented the first mechanical woolcomber ever thought of, patenting this in 1792. His machine did the work of twenty men, and greatly reduced the cost of production.

Woolcombers in thousands petitioned Parliament against the invention, and a Manchester factory, incorporating Cartwright's machines, was mysteriously burnt to the ground, so frightening manufacturers from proceeding further.

So sustained was the hostility that the man who was endowing industry with powers that were to enrich it beyond dreams found himself £30,000 in debt, and had to surrender his factory to his creditors and his loom rights to other men. His comment was a sturdy sonnet!

Cartwright managed to gain an extension of the woolcombing patent, and late in life, when the nation was profiting greatly from his genius and he was still poor, Parliament voted him a beggarly ten thousand pounds. But he was happy; he knew more about land than any farmer, and he introduced many improvements, including a reaping machine.

His closing years were spent on a little model farm of his own in Kent, but it was at Hastings, in 1823, that he died. He was a brilliant and lovable character, full of charity and goodness, and an inventive genius.

 

 

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