Spinning frame stolen from) another inventor called Thomas Highs. With the help of other local craftsmen the team produced the spinning frame, which produced a stronger thread than the spinning jenny produced by James Hargreaves. The frame employed the draw rollers invented by Lewis Paul to stretch, or attenuate, the yarn. The roller spinning process starts with a thick 'string' of loose fibres called a "roving", which is passed between three pairs of rollers, each pair rotating slightly faster than the previous one. In this way it is reduced in thickness and increased in length before a strengthening twist is added by
Spinning jenny produced a number for his own growing industry. The price of yarn fell, angering the large spinning community in Blackburn. Eventually they broke into his house and smashed his machines, forcing him to flee to Nottingham in 1768. This was a centre for the hosiery industry, and knitted silks, cottons and wool. There he set up shop producing jennies in secret for one Mr Shipley, with the assistance of a joiner named Thomas James. He and James set up a textile business in Mill Street. On 12 July 1770, he took out a patent (no. 962) on his invention, the