The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned. John Kay, a clock maker and mechanic who helped Highs build the spinning frame, sold the design to Arkwright (for what might be considered a derisory sum). It was Arkwright, however, who made the system work, realising that account had to be taken of the fibre lengths in the batch being spun.
Read more about Water Frame: Water Power, Cromford
Famous quotes containing the words water and/or frame:
“The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry,”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It would be nice to travel if you knew where you were going and where you would live at the end or do we ever know, do we ever live where we live, we’re always in other places, lost, like sheep.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)