Lancashire

Spinning Jenny ex Wiki
The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology advanced.^[1]

History
The spinning jenny was invented by James Hargreaves. He was born in Oswaldtwistle, near Blackburn, around 1720. Blackburn was a town with a population of about 5,000, known for the production of "Blackburn greys," cloths of linen warp and cotton weft initially imported from India. They were usually sent to London to be printed.

At the time, cotton production could not keep up with demand of the textile industry, and Hargreaves spent some time considering how to improve the process. The flying shuttle (John Kay 1733) had increased yarn demand by the weavers by doubling their productivity,^[2] and now the spinning jenny could supply that demand by increasing the spinners' productivity even more. The machine produced coarse thread.

The improved spinning jenny that was used in textile mills

Components
The idea was developed by Hargreaves as a metal frame with eight wooden spindles at one end. A set of eight rovings was attached to a beam on that frame. The rovings when extended passed through two horizontal bars of wood that could be clasped together. These bars could be drawn along the top of the frame by the spinner's left hand thus extending the thread. The spinner used his right hand to rapidly turn a wheel which caused all the spindles to revolve, and the thread to be spun. When the bars were returned, the thread wound onto the spindle. A pressing wire (faller) was used to guide the threads onto the right place on the spindle.^[3]

The politics of cotton
In the 17th century, England was famous for its woollen and worsted cloth. That industry was centred in the east and south in towns such as Norwich which jealously protected their product. Cotton processing was tiny: in 1701 only 1,985,868 pounds (900,775 kg) of cotton-wool was imported into England, and by 1730 this had fallen to 1,545,472 pounds (701,014 kg). This was due to commercial legislation to protect the woollen industry.^[4] Cheap calico prints, imported by the East India Company from "Hindustan", became popular. In 1700 an Act of Parliament was passed to prevent the importation of dyed or printed calicoes from India, China or Persia. This caused grey cloth (calico that hadn't been finished - dyed or printed) to be imported instead, and these were printed in southern England with popular patterns. Lancashire businessmen produced grey cloth with linen warp and cotton weft, which they sent to London to be finished.^[4] Cotton-wool imports recovered and by 1720 were almost back to 1701 levels. Again the woollen manufacturers, in true protectionist style, claimed this was taking jobs from workers in Coventry.^[5] Another law was passed, to fine anyone caught wearing printed or stained calico; muslins, neckcloths and fustians were exempted. It was this exemption that the Lancashire manufacturers exploited.

The use of coloured cotton weft, with linen warp was permitted in the 1736 Manchester Act. There now was an artificial demand for woven cloth. In 1764, 3,870,392 pounds (1,755,580 kg) of cotton-wool was imported.^[6]

The economics of Northern England in 1750
In England, before canals, and before the turnpikes, the only way to transport goods such as calicos, broadcloth or cotton-wool was by packhorse. Strings of packhorses travelled along a network of bridle paths. A merchant would be away from home most of the year, carrying his takings in cash in his saddlebag. Later a series of chapmen would work for the merchant, taking wares to wholesalers and clients in other towns, with them would go sample books.^[7]

Before 1720, the handloom weaver spent part of each day visiting neighbours buying any weft they had. Carding and spinning could be the only income for that household, or part of it. The family might farm a few acres and card, spin and weave wool and cotton.^[8] It took three carders to provide the roving for one spinner, and up to three spinners to provide the yarn for one weaver. The process was continuous, and done by both sexes, from the youngest to the oldest. The weaver would go once a week to the market with his wares and offer them for sale.

A change came about 1740 when fustian masters gave out raw cotton and warps to the weavers and returned to collect the finished cloth. The weaver organised the carding, spinning and weaving to the master's specification.^[9] The master then dyed or printed the grey cloth, and took it to shopkeepers. Ten years later this had changed and the fustian masters were middle men, who collected the grey cloth and took it to market in Manchester where it was sold to merchants who organised the finishing.

To handweave a 12 pounds (5.4 kg) piece of eighteenpenny weft took 14 days and paid 36 shillings in all. Of this nine shillings was paid for spinning, and nine for carding.^[8] So by 1750, a rudimentary manufacturing system feeding into a marketing system emerged.

In 1738 John Kay started to improve the loom. He improved the reed, and invented the raceboard, the shuttleboxes and the picker which together allowed one weaver to double his output. This invention is commonly called the fly-shuttle. It met with violent opposition and he fled from Lancashire to Leeds.^[10] Though the workers thought this was a threat to their jobs, it was adopted and the pressure was on to speed up carding and spinning.

The shortage of spinning capacity to feed the more efficient looms provided the motivation to develop more productive spinning techniques such as the spinning jenny, and triggered the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Success
Hargreaves kept the machine secret for some time, but produced a number for his own growing industry. The price of yarn fell, angering the large spinning community in Blackburn. Eventually they broke into his house and smashed his machines, forcing him to flee to Nottingham in 1768. This was a centre for the hosiery industry, and knitted silks, cottons and wool. There he set up shop producing jennies in secret for one Mr Shipley, with the assistance of a joiner named Thomas James. He and James set up a textile business in Mill Street. On 12 July 1770, he took out a patent (no. 962) on his invention, the Spinning Jenny—a machine for spinning, drawing and twisting cotton.^[11][12] By this time a number of spinners in Lancashire were using copies of the machine, and Hargreaves sent notice that he was taking legal action against them. The manufacturers met, and offered Hargreaves £3000. He at first demanded £7000, and stood out for £4000, but the case eventually fell apart when it was learned he had sold several in the past.^[13]

The spinning jenny succeeded because it held more than one ball of yarn, making more yarn in a shorter time and reducing the overall cost. The spinning jenny would not have been such a success if the flying shuttle had not been invented and installed in textile factories. Its success was limited in that it required the rovings to be prepared on a wheel, and this was limited by the need to card by hand.^[1] It continued in common use in the cotton and fustian industry until about 1810.^[14] The spinning jenny was superseded by the spinning mule. The jenny was adapted for the process of slubbing, being the basis of the Slubbing Billy.^[15]

Origin and myth
The most common story told about the invention of the device and the origin of the Jenny in the machine's name is that a daughter (or his wife) named Jenny knocked over one of their own spinning wheels. The device kept working as normal, with the spindle now pointed upright. Hargreaves realized there was no particular reason the spindles had to be horizontal, as they always had been, and he could place them vertically in a row.^[16]

The name is variously said to derive from this tale. The Registers of Church Kirk show that Hargreaves had several daughters, but none named Jenny (neither was his wife). A more likely explanation of the name is that 'Jenny' was an abbreviation of 'engine'.^[17]

Thomas Highs of Leigh has claimed to be the inventor^[18] and the story is repeated using his wife's name.

Another myth has Thomas Earnshaw inventing a spinning device of a similar description - but destroying it after fearing he might be taking bread out of the mouths of the poor.^[19]

 

Lancashire ex Wiki
Lancashire (/ˈlæŋkəʃər/, /ˈlæŋkəʃɪər/ or, locally, [ˈɫaŋkɪʃə(ɻ)];^[1] archaically the County Palatine of Lancaster; abbreviated Lancs.) is a county in north west England. Although Lancaster is still the county town, the county's administrative centre is Preston. The county has a population of 1,449,300 and an area of 1,189 square miles (3,080 km²). People from the county are known as Lancastrians.

The history of Lancashire begins with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book of 1086, some of its lands were treated as part of Yorkshire. The land that lay between the Ribble and Mersey, Inter Ripam et Mersam was included in the returns for Cheshire. When its boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire and Cheshire.

Lancashire emerged as a major commercial and industrial region during the Industrial Revolution. Manchester and Liverpool grew into its largest cities, dominating global trade and the birth of modern capitalism. The county contained several mill towns and the collieries of the Lancashire Coalfield. By the 1830s, approximately 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire.^[2] Accrington, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Bury, Chorley, Colne, Darwen, Nelson, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale and and Wigan were major cotton mill towns during this time. Blackpool was a centre for tourism for the inhabitants of Lancashire's mill towns, particularly during wakes week.

The county was subject to significant administrative boundary reform in 1974,^[3] that removed Liverpool and Manchester and most of their surrounding conurbations to form the metropolitan counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester.^[4] The detached northern part of Lancashire in the Lake District, including the Furness Peninsula and Cartmel, was merged with Cumberland and Westmorland to form Cumbria. Lancashire lost 709 square miles of land to other counties, about two fifths of its original area, although it did gain some land from the West Riding of Yorkshire. Today the ceremonial county borders Cumbria to the north, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south and North and West Yorkshire to the east; with a coastline on the Irish Sea to the west. The county palatine boundaries remain the same with the Duke of Lancaster exercising sovereignty rights,^[5] including the appointment of lords lieutenant in Greater Manchester and Merseyside.^[6]

 

Spinning Mule ex Wiki
The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of two boys: the little piecer and the big or side piecer. The carriage carried up to 1,320 spindles and could be 150 feet (46 m) long, and would move forward and back a distance of 5 feet (1.5 m) four times a minute.^[1] It was invented between 1775 and 1779 by Samuel Crompton. The self-acting (automatic) mule was patented by Richard Roberts in 1825. At its peak there were 50,000,000 mule spindles in Lancashire alone. Modern versions are still in niche production and are used to spin woollen yarns from noble fibres such as cashmere, ultra-fine merino and alpaca for the knitware market. ^[2][3]

The spinning mule spins textile fibres into yarn by an intermittent process.^[4] In the draw stroke, the roving is pulled through rollers and twisted; on the return it is wrapped onto the spindle. Its rival, the throstle frame or ring frame uses a continuous process, where the roving is drawn, twisted and wrapped in one action. The mule was the most common spinning machine from 1790 until about 1900 and was still used for fine yarns until the early 1980s. In 1890, a typical cotton mill would have over 60 mules, each with 1,320 spindles,^[5] which would operate four times a minute for 56 hours a week.

 

Carding ex Wiki
Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibers to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing.^[1] This is achieved by passing the fibers between differentially moving surfaces covered with card clothing. It breaks up locks and unorganized clumps of fiber and then aligns the individual fibers to be parallel with each other. In preparing wool fiber for spinning, carding is the step that comes after teasing.^[2]

The word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning thistle or teasel,^[3] as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool. These ordered fibers can then be passed on to other processes that are specific to the desired end use of the fiber: Cotton, batting, felt, woollen or worsted yarn, etc. Carding can also be used to create blends of different fibers or different colors. When blending, the carding process combines the different fibers into a homogeneous mix. Commercial cards also have rollers and systems designed to remove some vegetable matter contaminants from the wool.^{[citation needed]}

Common to all carders is card clothing. Card clothing is made from a sturdy flexible backing in which closely spaced wire pins are embedded. The shape, length, diameter, and spacing of these wire pins is dictated by the card designer and the particular requirements of the application where the card cloth will be used. A later version of the card clothing product developed during the latter half of the 19th century and found only on commercial carding machines, whereby a single piece of serrated wire was wrapped around a roller, became known as metallic card clothing.^{[citation needed]}

Carding machines are known as cards. Fiber may be carded by hand for hand spinning.

 

Jarrow March ex Wiki
The Jarrow March of 5–31 October 1936, also known as the Jarrow Crusade,^{[n 1]} was an organised protest against the unemployment and poverty suffered in the British Tyneside town of Jarrow during the 1930s. Around 200 men marched from Jarrow to London, carrying a petition to the British government requesting the re-establishment of industry in the town following the closure in 1934 of its main employer, Palmer's shipyard. The petition was received by the House of Commons but not debated, and the march produced few immediate results. The Jarrovians went home believing that they had failed.

Jarrow had been a settlement since at least the 8th century. In the early 19th century, a coal industry developed before the establishment of the shipyard in 1851. Over the following 80 years more than 1,000 ships were launched in Jarrow. In the 1920s, a combination of mismanagement and changed world trade conditions following World War I brought a decline which led eventually to the yard's closure. Plans for its replacement by a modern steelworks plant were frustrated by opposition from the British Iron and Steel Federation, an employers' organisation with its own plans for the industry. The failure of the steelworks plan, and the lack of any prospect of large-scale employment in the town, were the final factors that led to the decision to march.

Marches of the unemployed to London, termed "hunger marches", had taken place since the early 1920s, mainly organised by the National Unemployed Workers' Movement (NUWM), a communist-led body. For fear of being associated with communist agitation, the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress (TUC) leaderships stood aloof from these marches. They exercised the same policy of detachment towards the Jarrow March, which was organised by the borough council with the support of all sections of the town but without any connection with the NUWM. During their journey the Jarrow marchers received sustenance and hospitality from local branches of all the main political parties, and were given a broad public welcome on their arrival in London.

Despite the initial sense of failure among the marchers, in subsequent years, the Jarrow March became recognised by historians as a defining event of the 1930s. It helped to foster the change in attitudes which prepared the way to social reform measures after the Second World War, which their proponents thought would improve working conditions. The town holds numerous memorials to the march. Re-enactments celebrated the 50th and 75th anniversaries, in both cases invoking the "spirit of Jarrow" in their campaigns against unemployment. In contrast to the Labour Party's coldness in 1936, the post-war party leadership adopted the march as a metaphor for governmental callousness and working-class fortitude.
PS One of the 200 marchers was Tim Hornby, later an RAF sergeant.

 

William Woodruff ex Wiki
William Woodruff (12 September 1916 – 23 September 2008) was a professor of world history, but perhaps most noted for his two autobiographical works: The Road to Nab End and its sequel Beyond Nab End; both became bestsellers in the United Kingdom.^[1] The memoirs, covering Woodruff's impoverished upbringing in an English weaving community during the Great Depression, contain significant amounts of social commentary about the conditions in which he lived.^[2]

Early life
Woodruff was born on 12 September 1916, in Blackburn, Lancashire. His parents were cotton weavers by trade (although at the time of his birth his father was serving on the Western Front).^[3] The Road to Nab End vividly describes his upbringing and his family's fight to survive the Lancashire cotton industry's initial downturn in 1920, through its decline in the 1920s, and the community's slide into the Great Depression that followed. Woodruff contributed to his family's income, initially as a newspaper delivery boy before and after school.^[3] He entered the workforce as a "grocer's lad" (shop assistant) at the age of 14, and after several enforced changes of job decided to leave Lancashire for a promise of a job in London at the age of 16.

London and Oxford
Beyond Nab End describes his life after arriving in London. He worked for two years as a "sand rat" in an East End iron foundry (the sand being used to make moulds into which molten iron was poured).^[3] He attended night school, discovering a love of learning (or perhaps re-discovering, as there are clear indications that his grandmother Bridget, and other adults, encouraged this love when he was younger).^[4] In 1936, with the aid of a London County Council scholarship, he gained a place at the Catholic Workers College (later Plater College), Oxford. In 1938 he was then admitted as a fully accredited member of the University of Oxford, joining St Catherine's Society in St Aldates (now St Catherine's College). In a unique gesture, Oxford waived its entrance examination to admit him.^[5] It was at Oxford that he met his first wife Katharine, whom he married in 1940.^[3]

World War II
In 1939 he volunteered for the army and during the Second World War he fought with the 24th Guards Brigade of the British 1st Infantry Division in North Africa and the Mediterranean region.^[3] His wartime experiences became the basis of his work Vessel of Sadness, which A. L. Rowse called one of the "most sensitive and moving books of the war, both authentic and poetic" in a review in the Times Literary Supplement.^[3]

At the end of 1945 he returned to the wife he had seen for "five weeks in five years" and his eldest son, whom he had never met.^[3] His first wife died of cancer in 1959, and Woodruff remarried in 1960.^[2]

Academic career
In 1946 he renewed his studies in economic and world history at Oxford. In 1950 he became a Houblon-Norman research fellow supported by the Bank of England, and in 1952 he went as a Fulbright Scholar to Harvard University.^[3] He then spent a period as a professor at the University of Illinois before moving in 1956 to head the Department of Economic History at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where he met his second wife Helga.^[3] He followed this with various visiting professorships to Princeton, Berlin, Tokyo and Oxford. He was a Graduate Research Professor at the University of Florida from 1966 to his retirement in 1996, when he became a Professor Emeritus.^[3]

Death
He died in Gainesville, Florida on 23 September 2008.^[6] He is survived by his wife Helga, their daughter and four sons, and by two sons from his first marriage.^[3]

Bibliography

Academic history

• Impact of Western Man – A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy, 1750–1960, London, Macmillan, 1969. It was a path-breaking work which explored the extrusive aspect of European history.
• America's Impact on the World: A Study of the Role of the United States in the World Economy – 1750–1970, London, Macmillan, 1975.

The interrelatedness of continents continued to be the focus of further studies.

• In November 2005 his Concise History of the Modern World: 1500 to the Present was republished in its 5th edition by Abacus (Little, Brown and Company) in London, ISBN 0-349-11837-X

Autobiographical works

• The Road To Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood, Abacus (Eland Books), 2000 (first published as Billy Boy, Ryburn Publishing Ltd., 1993). ISBN 978-190601126-0
• A stage adaptation of The Road to Nab End by Philip Goulding premiered at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre under the direction of Kevin Shaw in June 2010.
• Beyond Nab End, Abacus (Little, Brown and Company), 2003 ISBN 0-316-72530-7

Fiction

• Vessel of Sadness (drawn from his experiences during World War II). Gainesville: Kallman Publishing Co., 1969; London: Chatto and Windus, 1970; London: Abacus, Little, Brown and Company, 2004. ISBN 0-349-11811-6
• Paradise Galore, London: Dent and Sons, 1985
• Shadows of Glory, London: Abacus, Little, Brown and Company, 2003. ISBN 0-349-11689-X

 

The Road To Nab End
A bestseller in England and celebrated as one of the great memoirs in many years, The Road to Nab End is a marvelously evocative account of growing up poor in a British mill town. From William Woodruff's birth in 1916 (in the carding room of a cotton mill) until he ran away to London at the age of sixteen, he lived in the heart of Blackburn's weaving community in the north of England. But after Lancashire's supremacy in cotton textiles ended with the crash of 1920, his father was thrown out of work. From then on, Billy and his family faced a life blighted by extreme poverty. For the ordinary families of Lancashire, unemployment was an ever-present fear: "If you worked you ate. If there was no work you went hungry." Billy's boyhood was not all misery. Working-class pride and culture made for tight family and neighborhood bonds and added savor to the smallest pleasures in life. Mr. Woodruff writes with an understated lyricism and an eye for telling details that effortlessly pulls us into another time and place.