Editing James Hargreaves

{{Short description|English inventor of the Spinning Jenny}}
{{other people}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = James Hargreaves
| image              = 
| birth_name         = 
| birth_date         = 13 December 1720 <!--{{birth date|df=yes|1720|??|??}} -->
| birth_place        = [[Oswaldtwistle]], Lancashire, England
| death_date         = {{death-date and age|22 April 1778|13 December 1720}}
| death_place        = [[Nottingham]], [[Nottinghamshire]], [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]
| death_cause        = 
| resting_place      = St Mary’s Church Yard, Nottingham
| nationality        = British
| known_for          = [[Spinning jenny]]
| employer           = 
| occupation         = Weaver, Carpenter, Inventor
| title              = 
| height             = 5'10
| boards             = 
| spouse             = {{marriage|Elizabeth Grimshaw|1740}}<ref name="Hargreaves1" >{{cite web
  |url=http://www.james-hargreaves-family.net.nz/
  |title=James Hargreaves' Family
  |access-date=8 January 2015
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150522051653/http://www.james-hargreaves-family.net.nz/  |archive-date=22 May 2015
  |url-status=dead 
}}</ref>
| children           = 12<ref name="Hargreaves1"/>
}}
'''James Hargreaves''' ({{circa|1720}} – 22 April 1778)<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-255264/James-Hargreaves |title=James Hargreaves, or James Hargraves (English inventor) – Britannica Online Encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=29 May 2012}}</ref> was an English [[Weaver (occupation)|weaver]], [[carpenter]]{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} and inventor who lived and worked in [[Lancashire]], England. Hargreaves is credited with inventing the [[spinning jenny]] in 1764. 

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.{{sfn|Timmins|1996|pp=21,24}}

==Life and work==
James Hargreaves was born at Stanhill, [[Oswaldtwistle]] in Lancashire. He was described as "stout, broadest man of about five-foot ten, or rather more".{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=162}} He was illiterate{{dubious|reason=Although uneducated, he was certainly able to read and write|date=August 2024}} and worked as a [[Weaving#Hand loom weavers|hand loom weaver]] during most of his life.<ref >{{Cite journal
  |last=Allen  |first=Robert C.
  |title=The Industrial Revolution in Miniature: The Spinning Jenny in Britain, France, and India
  |journal=[[The Journal of Economic History]]
  |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]
  |doi=10.1017/S0022050709001326
  |volume=69  |issue=4  |page=907
  |date=December 2009
  |jstor=25654027
  |s2cid=17803617 
}}</ref> He married and baptismal records show he had 13 children,<ref name="Hargreaves1"/> of whom the author Baines in 1835 was aware of '6 or 7'.{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=162}}

==Spinning jenny==
{{main|Spinning jenny}}
[[File:Spinning Jenny improved 203 Marsden.png|thumb|left|The improved [[spinning jenny]] that was used in textile mills]]
[[File:Spinning jenny.jpg|thumb|Model of the spinning jenny in a museum in [[Wuppertal]], Germany]] 

The idea for the [[Spinning Jenny#Origin and myth|spinning jenny]] is said to have come when a one-thread spinning wheel was overturned on the floor, and Hargreaves saw both the wheel and the [[spindle (textiles)|spindle]] continuing to revolve. He realized that if several spindles were placed upright and side by side, several [[Yarn|threads]] might be spun at once. The spinning jenny was confined to producing cotton weft threads and was unable to produce yarn of sufficient quality for the warp. A high-quality warp was later supplied by [[Richard Arkwright|Arkwright's]] [[Water frame|spinning frame]].

Hargreaves built a jenny for himself and sold several of them to his neighbours.{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=162}}
His invention was initially welcomed by other hand spinners until they saw a fall in the price of yarn.

Opposition to the machine caused Hargreaves to leave for [[Nottingham]], where the cotton [[hosiery]] industry benefited from the increased provision of suitable yarn. In Nottingham Hargreaves made jennies for a man named Shipley, and on 12 June 1770, he was granted a patent, which provided the basis for legal action (later withdrawn) against the Lancashire manufacturers who had begun using it. With a partner, Thomas James, Hargreaves ran a small mill in [[Hockley, Nottingham|Hockley]] and lived in an adjacent house. The business was carried on until he died in 1778 when his wife received a payment of £400.{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=162}} 

==Legacy==
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.{{sfn|Baines|1835|p=159}}

Hargreaves was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning.

==Dispute over Hargreaves' contribution==
False claims were being made about Hargreaves as early as 1828, when [[Richard Guest]], writing in the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' in 1828,{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=161}} 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.{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=163}} 

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.{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=155}} Conflicting evidence as to the circumstances of several inventions was canvassed,{{sfnp|Baines|1835|p=155}} and although Arkwright's patents were annulled, the question of authorship was not settled.{{efn-lr|See [[John Kay (spinning frame)|Disputes over patents]]}} 

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<ref >{{cite book
  |last=Pierce  |first=Alan
  |title=The Industrial Revolution
  |year=2005
  |publisher=ABDO Publishing Company  |location=Edina, Minnesota
  |isbn=9781591979333
  |page=9
}}</ref> and on educational websites to the present day.{{efn-lr|e.g. [http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/010.html Burchill S.A.]}} The 'jenny' refers to an engine, a common slang term in Lancashire in the 18th century, and encountered occasionally even now.

==References==
{{Notelist-lr}}


{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=r8kKAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22james+hargraves%22+spinning+jenny&pg=RA1-PA249 Hargraves Spinning Jenny – Confined to spinning weft]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130917050531/http://www.deutsches-museum.de/sammlungen/ausgewaehlte-objekte/meisterwerke-iv/spinning-jenny/ Deutsches Museum (Auf Deutsch)] Secondary source.
* {{cite book|last=Baines|first=Edward|title=History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain;|publisher=H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson|location=London|year=1835|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofcottonm00bainrich}}
* {{cite book|last=Nasmith|first=Joseph|author-link=Joseph Nasmith|title=Recent Cotton Mill Construction and Engineering|publisher=John Heywood|location=London|year=1895|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AiKgZYuP1xoC&q=Recent+Cotton+Mill+Construction+and+Engineering|edition=Elibron Classics|isbn=978-1-4021-4558-2}}
* {{cite book|last=Marsden|first=Richard|title=Cotton Spinning: its development, principles an practice.|publisher=George Bell and Sons 1903|year=1884|url=https://archive.org/details/cottonspinningit00mars|access-date=26 April 2009}}
* {{cite book|last=Guest|first=Richard|title=The British Cotton Manufactures: and a Reply to an Article on the Spinning Contained in a Recent Number of the Edinburgh Review|publisher=E. Thomson & Sons and W. & W. Clarke and Longman, Rees, & Co|location=London|year=1828|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2noDAAAAYAAJ&q=The+British+Cotton+Manufactures:+and+a+Reply+to+an+Article+on+the+Spinning+Contained+in+a+Recent+Number+of+the+Edinburgh+Review}}
* {{cite book |last=Timmins |first=Geoffrey |url=https://archive.org/details/fourcenturiesofl0000timm |title=Four Centuries of Lancashire Cotton |publisher=Lancashire County Books |location=Preston |year=1996 |isbn=978-1-871236-41-5 |url-access=registration}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite book |author=Abram, W. A. |title=A History of Blackburn Town & Parish |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofblackbu00abrauoft |publisher=Blackburn J.G. & J. Toulmin |year=1877 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofblackbu00abrauoft/page/204 204]–10}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* [http://www.cottontown.org/Names%20of%20Note/Pages/Notable-Names-of-Blackburn-and-Darwen.aspx#5 Essay from www.cottontown.org on Hargreaves and the Spinning Jenny]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040812023748/http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/hargreaveso.htm Essay from www.cottontimes.co.uk/]
<!--This reference needs to be changed. Most of the information is correct, but some details are oddly inaccurate and biased (James Hargreaves's death date is not 1777.  The website also claims that Thomas Highs invented the Spinning Jenny, a claim that has now been dismissed by historians) -->

{{Lancashire cotton}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hargreaves, James}}
[[Category:People of the Industrial Revolution]]
[[Category:English engineers]]
[[Category:English inventors]]







[[Category:People from Oswaldtwistle]]
[[Category:1720s births]]
[[Category:1778 deaths]]
[[Category:Textile engineers]]
[[Category:People from Nottingham]]
[[Category:British weavers]]
[[Category:British carpenters]]