Key Inventions of the Industrial Revolution
1. Spinning Jenny
The Spinning Jenny was invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves. It was a machine which span multiple threads at the same time, allowing one person (even children) to do the work of six or more people using their hands in the old method (depending on the design) far faster, saving money and increasing production. The machine was cheap and easy to make; however, the thread produced was soft and suitable for use only as weft in cotton-linen production, and the Water Frame would improve by creating cotton warp thread too. ‘Jenny’ derives from ‘engine’, so the Spinning Engine.
2. Water Frame
The Water Frame was invented by Richard Arkwright and unveiled in 1771. It was a spinning machine which – like the Spinning Jenny –could spin thread far faster and in greater quantities than older hand spinners. However, the Water Frame was advanced enough that it could create both cotton warp and weft thread, unlike the Jenny, and allowed for all cotton thread unlike the older cotton-linen mix, and had been designed to be used en masse in factories, powered first by horse, than water, and then stream. Thanks to this invention cotton fabric production could move wholesale into factories and increase greatly.3. Power Loom
Patented by Edmund Arkwright in 1787, the Power Loom was the weaving element of the textile industry catching up with the developments in spinning (such as the Water Frame). Powered by water, but chiefly by steam, the Power Loom enabled fewer and unskilled workers to produce vastly more woven fabric, and factories were used to greatly increase production. However, hand weavers were strongly opposed and there was a battle of wills and economics, but the power looms easily won.
4. Coke Fired Blast Furnaces
The first blast furnaces used charcoal and were built of brick, producing iron by smelting the charcoal with iron ore and limestone. Production was limited by size, access to charcoal, and running water. However, in 1709 the Darby and the Coalbrookdale Company used ‘coked’ coal to fire a blast furnace. As charcoal prices rose and iron demand increased thanks to the early stirrings of the industrial revolution the use of coke became widespread and was improved upon, with steam engines being used instead of water. Soon coke fired blast furnaces were producing far more per furnace, and could be run all the year round instead of being seasonal. Consequently iron production grew, and furnaces moved to be nearer coal and iron ore. More on iron.
5. Seed Drill
Although Jethro Tull was able to unveil a seed drill in 1733, he was far from the first in the world to use a machine to sow and cover seeds, and his device was expensive to make and not suitable for all soils. However, around 1800 the Smyth brothers produced a seed drill which had many improvements, including aids to staying straight and use on heavy soil. Their device was cheaper to make, and quickly spread in use, making farming more efficient.
6. Flying Shuttle
The shuttle is a device used in weaving to pass the crossways threads along and between the lengthwise ones. In 1733, John Kay demonstrated the Flying Shuttle: whereas older weaving required people to manually pass the shuttle along, the Flying Shuttle used wheels and tracks to move far quicker and efficiently with fewer weavers.
7. Mule / Spinning Mule
Hargreaves and Arkwight had pushed spinning forward with the Spinning Jenny and Water Frame, but in 1779 Samuel Crompton combined the best features of both into a cotton making machine which was consequently billed the ‘Mule’. By 1790 there was a water powered automatic one, and it was soon filling factories, dominating the cotton industry.
8. Steam Engine
Perhaps the most famous invention of the first industrial revolution was the steam engine. Thomas Savery had produced a forerunner near the end of the seventeenth century (condensing steam for suction) before Newcomen produced a model with a piston c.1712. However, it was James Watt who pushed the technology further by incorporating a separate condenser to improve efficiency in 1765, and a format which provided a shaft for powering machines. The engines were first used to pump water from mines, and to raise and lower miners, but the steam engine was developed to drive machinery, often in the new factories, allowing production to increase greatly. More on steam.
9. Railways / Steam Locomotive
Watt has pushed steam engine technology forward in the 1760s, and Frenchman Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot created a steam vehicle for roads. However, it was Richard Trevithick who created a steam locomotive on rails at the start of the nineteenth century, and George Stephenson who developed things further with the Rocket. Steam Locomotion now became a commercial success, with the railways spreading vastly. More on Railways.
10. Canals
The first canal of the industrial revolution was built from St. Helens to Liverpool, an artificial river along which coal could be more efficiently carried and opened in 1757. However, it was the Bridgewater Canal which really began the era of the canal in Britain, and soon a network were being cut to carry raw materials, finished products, and in some places people. There was plenty of variation in width, depth and other aspects of the canals, which proved problematic for long distance transport. They were largely replaced by the invention of the railways, but not without a fight. More on Canals.
11. Puddling and Rolling
Henry Cort’s Puddling and Rolling techniques emerged in the 1780s, and allowed for pig iron to be turned into wrought iron far quicker, far more effectively, and with far greater success. Molten iron was stirred, hammered and squeezed through hit rollers. Steam engines powered the process, and the process became the dominant one very quickly, allowing the massive new demand for iron to be met.
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