Transforming Industry Through Textiles: Tailoring and Technical Advancements from 1600 to 1780

In the mid-18th century, the British cotton industry underwent a significant transformation, driven by the challenges and opportunities of the time. This transformation was largely shaped by the rise of four "fashion fabrics" - printed fabrics made with cotton, cotton stockings, cotton velvets, and muslins.

Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the spinning mule, was born in Firwood Fold near Bolton, Lancashire, and later lived and died in Bolton. His invention was one of the key mechanical spinning inventions that emerged during this period, responding to the quality and supply challenges in the semi-luxury textile manufacturing.

Cotton velvets, a cheaper, harder-wearing substitute for silk velvet, were in high demand. They resembled silk velvet in their dense pile and were used for men's breeches and waistcoats. Despite commanding a premium due to their close resemblance to fashionable silks, they enjoyed rapidly increasing demand.

Cotton stockings, made entirely of cotton, could reproduce the pure white of fashionable silk stockings at a small fraction of the cost. They accounted for approaching 40% of all stockings stolen in London by the 1780s, grabbing market share from stockings made both from worsted and from thread (linen).

Printed fabrics, such as cotton-linens for printing and muslins imported from India, also saw significant growth during this period. In North America, prints on Indian all-cotton fabric outsold British cotton-linen prints in North America by almost four to one during the three years 1769 to 1771.

The objective of this growth was not necessarily import substitution in the British domestic market, but rather export-orientated, aimed at substituting British for Indian products in overseas markets for premium textiles, especially in North America, but ultimately also in continental Europe.

The decades from the 1740s to the 1770s saw growth in the domestic market for fustians, checks, and Blackburn greys, a type of cotton-linen. Non-calico printing was undertaken both on Blackburn greys from Lancashire, and on all-linen fabrics imported from Germany and Ireland.

The challenges faced by prints on cotton-linens in the 1750s and 1760s were not confined to the domestic market. In the British colonies in the Americas, decorated, all-cotton Indian calicoes were not subjected to the prohibitions and tariffs imposed in Great Britain in the early decades of the 18th century.

The pace, scale, and impact of subsequent incremental improvements in mechanical cotton spinning and associated mechanical technologies, which dramatically increased productivity, were remarkable. Within another fifteen years, the new cotton spinning machines had been adapted to spin flax, long-staple wool, short-staple wool, and waste silk.

This burst of inventive effort generated mechanical techniques that could be applied profitably to the commercial manufacture of almost every type of cotton yarn. It was these challenges that gave rise to the three key mechanical spinning inventions of the early Industrial Revolution - Hargreaves' jenny, Arkwright's frame, and Crompton's mule.

The article was contributed by Matthew McIntosh and was published by Firenze University Press under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. The middle decades of the 18th century were challenging for the British cotton textile industry. New opportunities and rapid expansion confronted unprecedented constraints. However, the industry rose to the challenge, leading to the emergence of the mechanical spinning inventions that shaped the future of the industry.