Spinning mule
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The spinning mule is a machine used to spin cotton and other fibres like wool. They were used extensively from the late 18th to the early 20th century in the mills of Lancashire and elsewhere. Mules w
The only surviving example of a spinning mule built by the inventor Samuel Crompton
The outward traverse
The inward traverse
Notice the faller wire gear
Samuel Crompton
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Samuel Crompton was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry. Building on the work of James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright, he invented the spinning mule, a machine that revolutionis
Spinning mule
…be 150 feet (46 m) long, and would move forward and back a distance of 5 feet (1.5 m) four times a minute. It was invented between 1775 and 1779 by Samuel Crompton. The self-acting (automatic) mule was patented by Richard Roberts in 1825. At its peak, there were 5,000,000 mule spindles in Lancashire alone. Modern…
c.1800 by Charles Allingham (1788–1850)
"This view of The Hall ith' Wood near Bolton. (where Samuel Crompton invented the first Spinning Mule) ...respectfully dedicated to the Cotton Spinners of Lancashire." Lithograph by F. Jones (Day & Son, Lithographers to the Queen), after Selim Rothwell.
Grave of Samuel Crompton, St Peter's churchyard, Bolton, UK