The dramatic rise of the textiles industry in Britain was one of the most important aspects of the world's first Industrial Revolution. Machines had been spinning yarn rapidly and effectively since the 1760s, but the mechanization of weaving did not take hold properly until after 1810. It began when Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823) patented the first powered loom in 1785.
Handlooms had become commonplace by the eighteenth century. They are relatively slow, and each one requires at least one person's full attention. In its basic form, a powered loom is simply a mechanized, automated version of a handloom. It can produce cloth faster than a handloom, and a single person can watch several or many machines.
Power for Cartwright's looms was originally supplied by waterwheels, via a drive shaft and belts and gears. But steam power increasingly took the place of waterpower during the nineteenth century, because steam-powered factories could be built anywhere, not only next to a river.
The weaving process is repetitive, lending itself well to mechanization. But many things can go wrong, as Cartwright discovered after he opened his own textiles factory in Doncaster. He quickly found solutions to many of the problems and was granted several patents between 1785 and 1792. Many other inventors made improvements, too, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, there were nearly 300,000 powered looms in use in Britain alone.
