Cotton-spinning machinery The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning wheel. It was invented circa 1764, its invention attributed to James Hargreaves in Stanhill, near Blackburn, Lancashire. The Water frame was developed and patented by Arkwright in the 1770s. The roving was attenuated (stretched) by drafting rollers and twisted by winding it onto a spindle. It was heavy large scale machine that needed to be driven by power, which in the late 18th century meant by a water wheel. Cotton mills were designed for the purpose by Arkwright, Jedediah Strutt and others along the River Derwent in Derbyshire. Water frames could only spin
Spinning mule speed was controlled by a drum and weighted ropes, as the headstock moved the ropes twisted the drum, which using a tooth wheel turned the spindles. None of this would have been possible using the technology of Crompton's time, fifty years earlier. With the invention of the self actor, the hand operated mule was increasingly referred to as a mule-jenny. Oldham counts refers to the medium thickness cotton that was used for general purpose cloth. Roberts didn't profit from his self-acting spinning mule, but on the expiry of the patent other firms took forward the development, and the mule was