Edmond Cartwright

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Edmond Cartwright

Edmond or Edmund Cartwright (born April 24, 1743 in Marnham , Nottingham , † October 30, 1823 in Kent ) was pastor and canon at Lincoln Cathedral (since 1786) with a doctorate. He is known for inventing the Power Loom mechanical loom .

Life

In 1766 graduated Cartwright, the University College in Oxford from the Master of Arts. He initially worked as a poet and writer. In 1784 Cartwright began to develop a mechanical loom after he, contrary to his contemporaries, believed that weaving could also be automated. The following year he received his first patent for a loom that had to be driven with a hand crank. In this invention, the chain was wound in parallel on a tree . Two strong men were required to operate, and they tire quickly. However, this was a decisive step in the mechanization of the weaving process and the way to the textile factory was shown. Cartwright also invented a wool combing machine (1789), a rope winding machine (1792) and a three-furrow plow, and in 1797 developed a direct-acting steam engine with an overhead shaft and (for the first time) with a metal piston. In 1786 Cartwright received a patent for a further developed weaving machine, the drive of which is not evident on the patent documents. The warp threads were drawn off individually from a creel. The drive of the shooters , reed and shafts via an underlying camshaft and eccentric was new . In the following year Cartwright opened its own mechanical weaving mill, which was operated with steam power. In 1793, however, he had to close the weaving mill, the business was not profitable. Cartwright later had to cede the rights to his patents. Then Cartwright set out to support the American Robert Fulton in the development of the steamship .

It must be a further development of the 2nd patent, which provided the drive with steam. It went down in history under the name Power Loom .

Cartwright's invention was not immediately applied. There may be a variety of reasons for this: The employees feared job losses after the spinning mill had already been automated. The first large factories with power looms were set on fire. In addition, the publishing system shifted the risk of hand weaving from the publisher to some of the homeworkers. In the factories, the entrepreneur had to bear all the risk. The market entry barriers were also quite high, as the Power Looms were expensive. In addition, the productivity gain through the power looms was too low. There were many other parts of this semi-machine to be automated, including such important ones as the goods take-off and the slackening of the chain, as well as coating the chain with size.

Cartwright's invention was not completely new, but developed from John Kays Schnellschützen of 1733 and adapted to wider fabrics.

In 1790 and 1792 Cartwright also patented a comber for worsted yarn spinning . Both inventions had no commercial success, but the second, the so-called Big Ben , served as a template for the development of other combers about 50 years later.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chris Aspin: The woolen industry . Shire Books, Princes Risborough 1994, ISBN 0-85263-598-2 , p. 18 and Friedrich Hassler: Vom Spinnen und Weben. A section from the history of textile technology . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1952, p. 24

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cartwright, Edmond
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cartwright, Edmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Inventor of the Power Loom mechanical loom
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1743
PLACE OF BIRTH Marnham , Nottingham
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1823
Place of death Kent