Arkwright's Water Frame and the First Mills

Richard Arkwright, a former barber and wigmaker, patented the water frame in 1769. Unlike the jenny, it produced strong yarn suitable for the warp, and it was too large to work by hand, so it needed water power. In 1771 Arkwright and his partners opened a mill at Cromford in Derbyshire, beside a fast stream. Cromford is often called the first true factory system: workers came to one building, worked set hours, and followed the pace of machines.

Arkwright built housing for workers and recruited many children and families. His success made him enormously rich and was copied across Britain and abroad. Yet his patents were challenged in court, and in 1785 they were overturned, partly because rivals argued he had borrowed ideas from others such as Thomas Highs. Arkwright's real genius may have been organization rather than invention.