The textile industry was one of the cornerstones of Britain's Industrial Revolution. The production process had changed little in centuries: yarn was spun skillfully on a human-powered wheel. Invariably performed by women and young children, it was hard work and provided little in the way of reward.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, as the demand for textiles for export grew, labor-saving devices enabling yarn to be spun at greater speed began to emerge. The two most significant developments were the water frame and the spinning jenny. The water frame used the principles of the water wheel to power the spinning frame, thus dramatically reducing the amount of human effort required; the spinning jenny, a multispool spinning wheel, boosted output by enabling a single worker to operate up to eight spools at once. In 1779 the inventor Samuel Crompton (1753-1827) combined the main features of both, creating the spinning mule. A multispooled, water powered spinning wheel, the mule could create a strong, thin yarn, high both in quality and consistency, suitable for any kind of textile. And it could do so at considerable speed.
The Industrial Revolution was a period of endless technical innovation, and as steam gradually became the ascendant form of power, the mule was duly converted. This gave rise to the widespread mass production of textiles, and the gradual appearance of the mighty factories that would come to dominate the Lancashire and Yorkshire landscapes.
