Richard Arkwright is often referred to as the ‘‘father of the modern factory system.’’ Was he a genius at organization or merely a ‘‘tough and unpleasing’’ taskmaster who duped others? The truth lies likely somewhere between these extreme viewpoints. The youngest of more than a dozen siblings in a poor Lancashire laborer’s family, he did not have a formal education but was taught to read and write by his cousin. He worked as an apprentice to a barber and became an entrepreneur upon the death of his first wife. He subsequently remarried, and his second wife provided a small sum for Richard to expand his barbering business. Arkwright purchased a tavern and began a wig-making enterprise. He learned about dyeing hair and traveled extensively across north western England collecting human hair for making perukes or wigs.
His journeys brought Arkwright into contact with weavers and spinners who worked in the expanding British textile industry. As the fashion and demand for wigs declined, Arkwright turned to the idea of spinning cloth. Living nearby was Thomas Highs, who had developed the prototype spinning jenny perfected later by James Hargreaves, and John Kay, a noted clockmaker. These two enterprising men had collaborated on building a mechanical spinning machine. Kay is a significant figure because as a clockmaker he understood the intricate working of gears, an important talent that would pay dividends for the scheming Arkwright. At this point the ambitious and perhaps diabolical side of Arkwright emerged. He apparently got Kay drunk and convinced him to construct two models of High’s machine. He then used the models to secure investment in his own venture. Arkwright whisked Kay away with him to Manchester, Liverpool, and subsequently Preston to prevent Highs from discovering the deception.
In 1768, after several years of hard work and a number of fits and starts, Arkwright, in his supervisory capacity, along with Kay and two other craftsmen working in virtual seclusion, constructed a full-scale version of High’s machine, a contraption that initially became known as the spinning frame. Arkwright had chosen a quiet spot to pursue his
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Enterprise because already bands of hand-spinner workers, fearful of losing their livelihoods, were attacking machines in Lancashire. The device the team developed had three sets of wooden draw roller devices (in existence since 1738) which spun 128 threads at a time at different and increasing rates of speed to make a stronger yarn with less physical exertion. For the first time a weaver could use domestically produced yarns to thread looms. The carding, drawing, and roving now could be combined into a systematic process. Furthermore, this device did not require skilled labor to operate it. Arkwright secured a patent for his machine in 1775.
However, there were some initial drawbacks. The size of the spinning frame made hand operation virtually impossible. At first Arkwright used a team of horses to provide the power for his device. Because this approach became too expensive, with the help of investors he built a larger facility in Derbyshire and used a waterwheel to power the machines (now referred to as water frames) by connecting a paddlewheel to a crank attached to the machines inside his facility. Because Derbyshire had a dearth of male laborers, Arkwright recruited women and children from other localities to work in his mill while their men worked at home turning the yarn into cloth. It is at this point that Arkwright’s claim as the ‘‘father of the factory system’’ comes into play. Although Great Britain’s earliest factory facility dates to 1742, Arkwright was the first person to envision expanding the scope and size of such enterprises with the establishment of two factory mills by 1774. In 1790 his growing factories boasted an employment of
5,000 workers, perhaps two-thirds of them poor children and orphans who worked thirteen hours a day from sunrise until after dark. It should be emphasized that the use of children as workers was a standard and legal practice in Arkwright’s time. However, he would not employ children younger than six or seven years of age. Thus, some contemporary observers labeled his child labor policy as more benevolent and humane than other employers. His detractors claim that he developed harsh psychological techniques and ruled through fear because he hired children and orphans at the lowest possible wages. Indeed, Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations justifies the use of children in the factory environment as part of the capitalistic principle of employing what the ‘‘market will bear.’’ The criticism of Arkwright is not only based on the use of children but also on the fact that Arkwright’s mill was constructed like a fortress to keep the workers from straying. In addition he had a window, known as the Cromford Window, built on a wall of his house that overlooked his Cromford Mill. This opening provided an unimpeded view of the activities of the mill. Thus, the workers had a sense of being watched even when Arkwright was not on the premises.
Whatever the truth, Arkwright gained enough influence to become a local magistrate despite maintaining his work schedule of sixteen-hour days, often driving a carriage between his various mill sites. His factory village, therefore, was not the product of any governmental action but rather the maturation of Arkwright’s own vision, investment, persuasion, and hard work. Arkwright’s innovation ensured that Great Britain sat poised to produce enough cloth to handily outsell by under-pricing other nations.
Trouble soon reared its head. One of Arkwright’s investors died, and the second dissolved the partnership, leery of Arkwright’s plan to expand his business into Manchester and even Scotland. In addition, fire-bombers were still busy at work destroying automated activities as they sprang up in Great Britain. Arkwright’s workers, however, were fiercely loyal, likely because of their assurance of steady employment, and literally hundreds of armed men were ready at a moment’s notice to defend the mills against attack. Indeed, Arkwright kept a cannon loaded with grapeshot just inside his Cromford Mill to deter ‘‘the rabble.’’ Unfortunately, his facility at Chorley, an early steam-powered mill, let down its guard and was destroyed by an irate band of hand-spinners. According to legend, Arkwright began its reconstruction even before the embers had cooled.
Even more worrisome were the patent battles that began to occupy Arkwright’s time and energies. He fought off a growing number of ‘‘competitors’’ who had pirated his inventions and established their own factory communities in an effort to duplicate his financial success. In 1785 the swirling confusion of patent infringement claims led the Court of the King’s Bench to rescind his patents. The court heard testimony from Thomas Highs, Kay, Kay’s wife, and James Hargreaves’s widow. These witnesses claimed that Arkwright had indeed based his fortune on the inventions he had pilfered from their family members, an accusation that bought them some compensation. Despite his battles with the hand-spinners and the claims challenging his originality, it is nonetheless true that Arkwright was the chief architect behind the birth of the factory system with its regimented and specialized labor in one location. The dramatic shift in production process gave the employer virtually total control over the product and its means and cost of production.
After a series of appeals, Arkwright’s contributions and services were eventually recognized by the crown and led to George III granting him knighthood for ‘‘services to His Majesty’s subjects in general.’’ He also became High Sheriff of Derbyshire and his son and namesake attended Oxford and socialized with the British aristocracy, a far cry from Awkwright’s humble origins. He bought land and was assimilated
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Into the old social system of England. Arkwright amassed a sizeable estate and left his heirs 500,000 pounds, a substantial fortune in his day Arkwright’s ultimate contribution was providing an organizational framework and new production techniques for the booming cotton industry of the 18th and 19th centuries. The market for cheap cotton was almost infinite. His efforts to stimulate mass production through the factory system, despite often nagging legal challenges and the resistance of those persons wedded to old production techniques, triggered a geometric leap in national productivity, first in Derbyshire, then in Lancashire and Scotland, and eventually across the nation and the growing industrialized Western world. His methods and factory organization and operations were copied around the globe. Once steam power became standard, the growth of the factory system roared at an exponential pace and the former flourishing local cottage industry model faded into memory as new factory towns with continually active mills belching black smoke dominated the once tranquil rural landscape.
World History
