Spinning Jenny (c. 1764): James Hargreaves and Cotton Spinning

The spinning jenny was a hand-powered machine that allowed one worker to spin several threads of yarn at once. It was invented around 1764 by James Hargreaves, a weaver from Stanhill near Blackburn in Lancashire, and became one of the first key machines of the Industrial Revolution in Britain’s textile industry. It multiplied the output of spinners, provoked violent protests and paved the way for factory spinning.

Background: the spinning bottleneck

Before the 18th century, yarn was spun by hand, usually by women and children working at home with a spinning wheel that produced one thread at a time. Weaving, done mostly by men on hand looms, used yarn faster than spinners could make it. Several spinners were needed to keep one weaver supplied.

The problem grew worse after John Kay’s flying shuttle, patented in 1733, spread in the 1750s and 1760s. It allowed a weaver to work faster and to make wider cloth, so demand for yarn increased further. In Lancashire, where the cotton trade was expanding, yarn shortages pushed up prices and spinners’ wages. Inventors and societies offered rewards for a better spinning machine.

At this time Lancashire mainly produced fustian, a cloth with a linen warp (the lengthwise threads) and a cotton weft (the crosswise threads). Cotton yarn spun by hand was not strong enough to use as warp.

The invention

James Hargreaves was born around 1720 or 1721, probably in Oswaldtwistle, and worked as a hand-loom weaver and carpenter at Stanhill. He was illiterate, and much of what is known about him comes from later accounts.

The idea behind the jenny is often said to have come from watching a spinning wheel that had fallen over and kept turning, with its spindle now upright. Whether or not the story is true, Hargreaves realised that several spindles could be set in a row and turned by a single wheel.

On the jenny, rovings (loosely twisted strands of cotton) ran from a row of spindles through a sliding wooden clasp. The spinner turned the wheel with one hand to twist the threads, while using the other hand to move the clasp away from the spindles, drawing out the fibres. The clasp was then pushed back so that the spun yarn wound onto the spindles. The earliest jennies had eight spindles.

Spread and protest

Hargreaves at first made jennies for his own family and then sold some to neighbours. The machine was cheap, small enough to fit in a cottage and easy to learn, so it spread quickly in the domestic industry.

Not everyone welcomed it. Hand spinners feared that jennies would lower the price of yarn and their earnings. In 1768 a crowd broke into Hargreaves’s house and destroyed his machines. He left Lancashire for Nottingham, a centre of the hosiery trade, where he set up a small spinning mill with a partner, Thomas James.

On 12 July 1770 Hargreaves obtained a patent for a 16-spindle jenny. When he tried to enforce it against Lancashire manufacturers who were using copies, his case failed, because he had sold machines before applying for the patent. He continued working in Nottingham, where he and James built a mill at Hockley, until his death in April 1778.

Unrest did not end with Hargreaves’s departure. In 1779, during a slump in trade, crowds in Lancashire attacked and destroyed jennies and other machines in many places, including Arkwright’s mill at Birkacre near Chorley.

Working the jenny

Operating a jenny took skill and coordination. The spinner had to turn the wheel at the right speed while drawing the clasp back smoothly, then reverse the spindles slightly to unwind the yarn from their tips before winding it on. A skilled spinner could keep all the threads running evenly, while a novice produced uneven yarn full of breaks. Even so, the jenny was far easier to master than the later mule, which partly explains how quickly it spread among ordinary households.

Small jennies were often worked by women and older children, sometimes with younger children helping to piece together broken threads. Because the machine could stand in a cottage, families could raise their income without leaving home. Larger jennies, too heavy for one person to work comfortably, were increasingly placed in workshops and early “jenny factories”, where adult men often operated them.

The machine also travelled abroad. It reached France in the early 1770s with the help of the Lancashire-born manufacturer John Holker, who had settled there, and it was used in the American colonies by the mid-1770s, although in both places adoption was slower than in Lancashire.

Impact on the cotton industry

The jenny was improved and enlarged quickly. Machines with 80 or more spindles came into use, and later models had more than 100. A survey published in 1788 estimated that about 20,000 jennies were in use in Britain, though such figures are rough.

Jenny yarn was soft and fairly weak, suitable only for weft. Strong warp yarn came from Richard Arkwright’s water frame, patented in 1769 and used in water-powered mills such as Cromford. In 1779 Samuel Crompton of Bolton combined features of both machines in his spinning mule, which could produce fine, strong yarn suitable for muslins. The mule eventually displaced the jenny and was later powered by steam.

Economic historians such as Robert Allen have argued that the jenny was adopted in Britain because wages there were high relative to the cost of capital, making labour-saving machines profitable; in France, where wages were lower, the jenny spread much more slowly. Other historians stress the size of the market and the growth of the cotton trade.

Because jennies were used in cottages and small workshops, they did not immediately create the factory system. But by greatly increasing the supply of cotton yarn, they helped Britain’s cotton industry grow rapidly in the late 18th century and prepared the way for factory production.

Myths and facts

Myth: The jenny was named after Hargreaves’s daughter Jenny. No reliable record shows a daughter or wife of that name, and the story first appears much later. The name probably derives from “engine”, often shortened to “gin”.

Myth: The jenny was the first spinning machine. Lewis Paul and John Wyatt had patented roller spinning in 1738, though their machines were not a commercial success. The jenny was the first multi-spindle machine widely adopted.

Myth: Hargreaves died in poverty. Some 19th-century writers portrayed him as a ruined, unrewarded inventor. Later research suggests that his Nottingham business gave him a modest but secure living.

Timeline

• 1733: John Kay patents the flying shuttle, increasing demand for yarn.
• c. 1764: James Hargreaves builds the first spinning jenny at Stanhill, Lancashire.
• 1768: A crowd destroys Hargreaves’s machines; he moves to Nottingham.
• 1769: Richard Arkwright patents the water frame.
• 1770, 12 July: Hargreaves receives a patent for a 16-spindle jenny.
• 1778, April: Hargreaves dies in Nottingham.
• 1779: Samuel Crompton develops the spinning mule; machine-breaking riots in Lancashire.
• 1788: An estimated 20,000 jennies are in use in Britain.

Why it matters

The spinning jenny was one of the first machines to break the bottleneck of hand spinning. By multiplying the output of each worker, it helped launch the mechanised cotton industry that became the leading sector of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, and it raised early questions about machines and jobs that still matter today.