Arkwright's Cromford Mill and the birth of the factory system

Date

1771 (water frame patented 1769)

Category

Science, technology & invention

Region

England (Derbyshire)

Era

Early Modern

Significance

In 1771 Richard Arkwright and his partners opened Cromford Mill in Derbyshire, England, the world's first purpose-built water-powered cotton-spinning factory, driven by Arkwright's water frame (patented 1769).

Unlike the domestic spinning jenny, the water frame used drafting rollers and waterwheel power to spin strong cotton yarn continuously, and it demanded a large building, concentrated machinery and a disciplined workforce. Cromford gathered some 200 workers, including women and children, under one roof on shift schedules governed by the rhythm of the machines rather than the household. This marriage of mechanised production, water power and wage labour created the template for the modern factory and the factory town, a decisive break from the dispersed proto-industrial 'putting-out' system that had organised rural manufacturing. Widely imitated in Britain and abroad, the Arkwright model helped launch the Industrial Revolution, transforming textile production, urban growth and patterns of work, and reshaping economy and society far beyond the early-modern period.

Empires active in 1771 (water frame patented 1769)

• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE – 1857 CE

Related science, technology & invention events

• Watt patents the rotative steam engine
  1781
• Edward Jenner Develops Smallpox Vaccination
  14 May 1796
• Newton's Principia and universal gravitation
  1687
• Publication of Kaitai Shinsho, launching Rangaku in Japan
  1774
• Sawai Jai Singh II builds the Jantar Mantar observatories
  c. 1724
• Variolation against smallpox reaches Europe
  1721

Further reading

A Little History of Science

The wider story

A Little History of Science

William Bynum

Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.

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