The Paul-Wyatt cotton mills were the world's first mechanised cotton spinning factories. Operating from 1741 until 1764 they were built to house the roller spinning machinery invented by

Lewis Paul Lewis Paul (died 1759) was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame for spinning cotton in a cotton mill. Life and work Lewis Paul was of Huguenot descent. His father was physician to Lord Shaftesbury. He may hav ...

and John Wyatt. They were not very profitable but they span cotton successfully for several decades.

Development

In 1738

and John Wyatt obtained a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

for a cotton spinning machine that for the first time used the principle of two sets of rollers travelling at different speeds to enable fully mechanical spinning. The patent outlined the two key developments that were later to underlie both Richard Arkwright's

water frame The water frame is a spinning frame that is powered by a water-wheel. Water frames in general have existed since Ancient Egypt times. Richard Arkwright, who patented the technology in 1769, designed a model for the production of cotton thread; ...

and

James Hargreaves James Hargreaves ( 1720 – 22 April 1778) was an English weaver, carpenter and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. He was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning: Hargreaves is credited with inventing ...

spinning jenny The spinning jenny is a multi- spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in Sta ...

, and made it possible for a single power source to drive more than one spinning machine. Wyatt envisaged "a kind of

mill Mill may refer to: Science and technology * * Mill (grinding) * Milling (machining) * Millwork * Textile mill * Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel * List of types of mill * Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...

, with wheels turned either by horses, water or wind." Using this technology, and with financial support provided by associates of the author Samuel Johnson, in the summer of 1741 Paul and Wyatt set up the

Upper Priory Cotton Mill The Upper Priory Cotton Mill, opened in Birmingham, England in the summer of 1741, was the world's first mechanised cotton-spinning factory or cotton mill. Established by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt in a former warehouse in the Upper Priory, near ...

in Birmingham, the first mill to spin cotton "without the aid of human fingers". The mill "containing fifty rollers ... turned by two donkeys walking round an axis" was not a commercial success, with Wyatt unable to enforce the levels of organisation and discipline that an operation on this scale demanded;

Andrew Ure Andrew Ure FRS (18 May 1778 – 2 January 1857) was a Scottish physician, chemist, scriptural geologist, and early business theorist who founded the Garnet Hill Observatory. He was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal S ...

was to comment that Wyatt was "favourably placed, in a mechanical point of view, for maturing his admirable scheme" but "a gentle and passive spirit, little qualified to cope with the hardships of a new manufacturing enterprise". Two years after its opening the mill was described as being in a "pitiful state" and in 1743 Wyatt was incarcerated in the Fleet Prison for debt.

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engin ...

was later to observe that the Paul-Wyatt mill "would have got money had it been in good hands", but nothing is known of it after Wyatt's release in October 1743. Marvels Mill Northampton

Four other mills were set up using the Paul-Wyatt machinery in the following years.

Edward Cave Edward Cave (27 February 1691 – 10 January 1754) was an English printer, editor and publisher. He coined the term "magazine" for a periodical, founding ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' in 1731, and was the first publisher to successfully fashio ...

– publisher of ''

The Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term '' magazine'' (from the French ''magazine ...

'' and one of the friends of Dr Johnson who had funded the development of Paul and Wyatt's invention – experimented in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

with running the machinery by hand and by 1742 had set up 250 spindles at Marvell's Mill, a

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

in Northampton. This was the first cotton mill to be driven by water power. Cave experienced similar problems organising his workforce to Paul and Wyatt ("I have not got half my people come to work today" he wrote to Wyatt, "and I have no great fascination in the prospect I have to put myself in the power of such people") and the mill generated little profit, but was to continue operation until about 1764.

Samuel Touchet Samuel Touchet (ca. 1705 – 28 May 1773) was an English cotton merchant, manufacturer and politician. Born in Manchester, he was himself the son of a cotton trader and manufacturer and he started his career representing his father's business in ...

set up a second Birmingham mill in conjunction with Paul and Wyatt in 1744; little is known of its fate, but it was sufficiently encouraging for Touchet to lease the Northampton mill from Cave for a period up to 1755. The final mill was Pinsley Mill established by

Daniel Bourn Daniel Bourn was an English inventor, who took out a patent for a carding machine with rotating cylinders in 1748. Though Bourn is thought likely to have had some association with Lancashire, at the time he received the patent he owned a Paul-Wy ...

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England, at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of 11,700, Leominster i ...

. This may have been in operation by 1744, but is first mentioned in 1748, when both Bourn and Paul patented machinery for carding cotton - a premilinary process that must be undertaken before spinning. Bourn's mill burned down in 1754 but must have had a considerable reputation, as the ''Manchester Mercurys report of the fire described it as being "erected there with great expense and skill" and "viewed with great pleasure and admiration by travellers and all who had seen them"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul-Wyatt cotton mills Cotton mills Cotton industry in England Textile machinery manufacturers Spinning History of the textile industry in the United Kingdom Industrial Revolution in England 1741 works English inventions Industrial Revolution Manufacturing companies established in 1741 British companies established in 1741 Textile mills completed in the 18th century