If you driven across Lancashire
you’ll have witnessed the steady demise and disappearance of mills. Many of these
old dinosaurs were built to process cotton as Lancashire’s damp climate made
the fibres less likely to snap during spinning. Here I am in Bolton at the
final resting place of Samuel Crompton who invented the “spinning mule” which
meant thread and yarn could be manufactured on a scale vast enough to supply
the world. There weren't thousands but millions of "mules" installed
in the mills.
As a lad Samuel spun cotton on a spinning jenny
for his family (after his dad died he had to provide money.) It was faulty so
he tried to invent a better device knowing there was a hungry market for fine
cottons. He devoted most of his spare time and money to this endeavour and was
26 years old when he produced an effective machine called the “mule”. It was
like magic: you fed raw cotton tufts into one end which were stretched and then
brought together to produced fine thread at the other end. This sounds simple
now but at the time such a machine revolutionized the cotton industry
worldwide. The “mule” wasn’t totally original as it combined the features of
two earlier inventions but it simulated hand-spinner’s fingers.
Samuel revealed the machine’s secret to some
manufacturers on the promise that they would pay him but ultimately all he
received was £60. The “mule” revolutionized the yarn and cotton mill production
in England and by the early 1800s nearly all bleached cotton goods were woven
on the Compton "mule". Factory owners couldn’t buy it fast enough and
at one point there were at least 360 mills using 4.6 million mules.
Samuel made no money as he sold the rights for
his machine. Thankfully Parliament felt sorry for him and gave him £5,000. He
used the money to invest in a cotton factory but the venture ended in failure.
He died in poverty at home and is buried at Bolton’s central St Peter's church.
After his death a statue was erected to commemorate his achievements.
I found the grave quickly as only eminent folk
are obvious buried here in the centre of the town. Samuel married his wife Mary
at this church a few feet away but there's no mention of her on the headstone. Many
factory owners attended the funeral as they owed their success and dazzling fortunes
to this pioneering individual. I did a salute and left.