James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves (c. 1720 – 22 April 1778)[2] was an English weaver, carpenter and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in 1764.
For other people named James Hargreaves, see James Hargreaves (disambiguation).
James Hargreaves
13 December 1720
22 April 1778 (aged 57)
St Mary’s Church Yard, Nottingham
British
Weaver, Carpenter, Inventor
5'10
13[1]
He was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning: Richard Arkwright patented the water frame in 1769 and Samuel Crompton combined the two, creating the spinning mule in 1779.[3]
Life and work[edit]
James Hargreaves was born at Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire. He was described as "stout, broadest man of about five-foot ten, or rather more".[4] He was illiterate and worked as a hand loom weaver during most of his life.[5] He married and baptismal records show he had 13 children,[1] of whom the author Baines in 1835 was aware of '6 or 7'.[4]
Legacy[edit]
When Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in c.1779, he stated he had learned to spin in 1769 on a jenny that Hargreaves had built.[6]
Hargreaves was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning.
Dispute over Hargreaves' contribution[edit]
False claims were being made about Hargreaves as early as 1828, when Richard Guest, writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1828,[7] introduced several errors, and a distorted view of his life and contributions has persisted ever since. Parish burial records show that Hargreaves (misspelt as "Hargraves") did not die in the workhouse, as had been claimed.[8]
A ferocious legal battle had been mounted in the 1780s to have Richard Arkwright's most important patents annulled.
Thomas Highs had claimed that he was the true inventor of both the spinning frame and the spinning jenny.[9] Conflicting evidence as to the circumstances of several inventions was canvassed,[9] and although Arkwright's patents were annulled, the question of authorship was not settled.[10]
Other records show that neither Hargreaves's wife nor any of his daughters bore the name Jenny, contrary to a myth repeated in school textbooks as late as the 1960s, children's books as late as 2005[11] and on educational websites to the present day.[12] The 'jenny' refers to an engine, a common slang term in Lancashire in the 18th century, and encountered occasionally even now.