Power Loom - History

History

Rev Edmund Cartwright's invention of the power loom, this used water as power than steam power. It speeded up weaving process. Weavers were able to use all the thread that spinners could produce. His modifications to the loom he patented in 1785 was described in his own words. It was to be forty years before his ideas were modified into a reliable automatic loom. Cartwright was not the first man to design an automatic loom, this had been done in 1678 by M. de Gennes in Paris, and again by Vaucanson In 1745, but these never developed and were forgotten. Those designs preceded John Kay's invention of the flying shuttle and they passed the shuttle through the shed using levers.

It was not a commercially successful machine. His ideas were licensed first by Grimshaw, of Manchester who built a small steam-powered weaving factory in Manchester in 1790. The looms had to be stopped to dress the warp, but the factory burnt down before anything could be learnt.

Series of initial inventors

A series of inventors incrementally improved all aspects of the three principle processes and the ancillary processes.

• Grimshaw 1790 Manchester- dressing the warp
• Austin 1789, 1790 -dressing the warp, 200 looms produced for Monteith of Pollockshaws 1800
• Thomas Johnson, 1803, Bredbury- dressing frame: Factory for 200 Steam Looms on Manchester 1806, and two factories at Stockport 1809. One at Westhoughton, Lancashire 1809.
• William Radcliffe of Stockport 1802- improved take up mechanism
• John Todd of Burnley 1803- a heald roller and new shedding arrangements, the healds were corded to treadles actuated by cams on the second shaft.
• William Horrocks of Stockport 1803- The frame was still wooden but the lathe was pendant from the frame and operated by cams on the first shaft, the shedding was operated by cams on the second shaft, the take up motion was copied from Radcliffe.
• Peter Marsland 1806- improvements to the lathe motion to counteract poor picking
• William Cotton 1810- improvements to the letting off motion
• William Horrocks 1813 -Horrocks Loom Modifications to the lathe motion- improving on Marsland
• Peter Ewart 1813 -a use of pneumatics
• Joseph and Peter Taylor 1815 -double beat foot lathe for heavy cloths
• Paul Moody 1815- produces the first power loom in North America. Exporting a UK loom would have been illegal.
• John Capron and Sons 1820- installed the first power looms for woolens in North America at Uxbridge, Massachusetts.
• William Horrocks 1821 -a system to wet the warp and weft during use, improving the effectiveness of the sizing
• Richard Roberts 1830, Roberts Loom, These improvements were a geared take up wheel and tappets to operate multiple heddles
• Stanford, Pritchard and Wilkinson- patented a method to stop on the break of weft or warp. It was not used.
• William Dickinson of Blackburn Blackburn Loom the modern overpick loom

Further useful improvements

There now appear a series of useful improvements that are contained in patents for useless devices

• Hornby, Kenworthy and Bullough of Blackburn 1834- the vibrating or fly reed
• John Ramsden and Richard Holt of Todmorden 1834- a new automatic weft stopping motion
• James Bullough of Blackburn 1835- improved automatic weft stopping motion and taking up and letting off arrangements
• Andrew Parkinson 1836- improved stretcher (temple).
• William Kenworthy and James Bullough 1841- trough and roller temple (became the standard), A simple stop-motion.

At this point the loom has become fully automatic. The Cartwight loom weaver could work one loom at 120-130 picks per minute- with a Kenworthy and Bullough's Lancashire Loom, a weaver can run up to six looms working at 220-260 picks per minute- thus giving 12 times more through put.