Sir Rich Arkwright and the Water Frame Invention :: Biography Biographies Essays

Sir Rich Arkwright and the Water Frame Invention Sir Rich Arkwright was born on December 23, 1732 at Preston in thecounty of Lancaster. His first profession was a barber in Bolron-le-moorsin 1760. Soon afterward he traveled throught the country get human whisker. At that time he had a valuable chemical secret for dying the hair to makewigs out of. Arkwrights hair was commented to be the finest hair in thecountry. In 1761, Richard Arkwright married Margaret Biggins, and this marriagebrought him to an aquaitance with Thomas Highs. Highs was probably one ofthe most important people Arkwright was to ever meet. He was the inventorof the spinning jennet and the pee frame. Highs was behind the mechanicalproduction of both of these machines, however he could now market hisproduct due to lack of funding and ill colloquy skills. This is whereRichard Arkwright comes in. Arkwright was highly skilled in dealing withbusiness and other social aspects. Arkwright sought to obta in the water frame by less than friendly means.He contacted John Kay, a former employee of Highs, to turn brass for him. This was all part of a clever plot to get Kay to reveal the design ofHighs water frame. Eventually, Arkwright succeded and Kay cunstructed areplica of the water frame, or otherwise known as throstle. Arkwright showed off the model to several people to seek financial aid.He eventually prevailed on Mr. Smalley to fund the project. In April of 1768 he hired Kay and took him along with him to Nottinghamwhere he built a factory turned by horses. On July 3, 1769, he obtained a conspicuous for spinning by rollers. By doing this, he solidified his holdover the water frame preventing Highs from ever gaining the immense profitsmake by the water frame. In 1771, Arkwright built another factory in Cromford. The power forthis factory was supplied by a water wheel instead of horses. During thistime many improvements were made to shorten the process of spinning wool .Arkwright kept an eye on these improvements and eventually made a machinecombining many of them into a series. These engines, as he called them,were enough to take up another pattent on December 16, 1775. Improvementsspecified in the pattent were not invented by Arkwright but were actually