Water frame
Water frame (hiladora hidráulica)
- Date
- 1769 · confidence high
- Place
- Cromford, Derbyshire, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Richard Arkwright (with John Kay of Warrington)
- People
- 👤 Richard Arkwright1732–1792
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A roller-spinning machine driven by a waterwheel, producing strong yarn suitable for warp threads. Its size required a purpose-built structure: the Cromford mill (1771) is the first modern factory.
Arkwright's patent was overturned in 1785 for being based on the ideas of Thomas Highs and Lewis Paul; the machine was designed in Preston/Nottingham and installed at scale in Cromford.
What it led to
- The factory system: fixed hours, shifts and child labour
- Planned industrial villages (Cromford, New Lanark)
- Arkwright as the first 'industrial tycoon'
- Pure cotton fabrics, previously banned or impossible to make
Built on
- Watermill (water wheel)c. 250 BCE
- Saxony spinning wheel with flyer and treadlec. 1480-1533
- Flying shuttle1733
- Cylinder carding machine1748
- Smeaton's experimental study of water wheels1759
- Roller spinning by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt (1738)
Made possible
- Spinning mule1779
- Mechanical flax spinning1810
- Ring spinning frame1828
- Steam-powered mill
- Factory legislation (Factory Acts)