Power loom
Telar mecánico
- Date
- 1785 · confidence high
- Place
- Doncaster, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Edmund Cartwright
- People
- 👤 Edmund Cartwright1743–1823
- Field
- Tools
What it is
The first loom driven by mechanical power (water or steam), automating the passage of the shuttle and the beating-up motion. It moved weaving, until then a manual, domestic craft, into the factory.
Cartwright's first looms were crude; they were perfected by William Horrocks (1803) and Richard Roberts (1822) in Lancashire.
What it led to
- The ruin of handloom weavers and the Luddite movement (1811-1816)
- Integrated spinning and weaving mills
- A predominantly female workforce in weaving
- The export of cheap cloth to India and Latin America