Samuel Crompton was born in a tiny cottage in Firwood Fold on December 3, 1753, and was only a teenager when he started working on what became the famous Spinning Mule.

But his invention, which streamlined the spinning process, proved to be a pivotal part of the Industrial Revolution and helped make Lancashire a centre of international textile production — thrusting his home town to the forefront of this industry and changing it forever.

For all this, he was never really a success in his own lifetime. He was not a good businessman and was unlucky in a number of ways. But he was a trier, started a number of businesses and cooperated with a number of partners.

His invention was named “The Mule” because it was thought to be a hybrid of previous ideas, the spinning jenny and the water frame. It produced finer, stronger yarns than its predecessors and was the main stay of cotton thread production in Lancashire for a century and a half. The story of how the parents of the Mule came into being is quite a long and complex one with its share of cheating and dishonesty along the way.

But the story in the history books is that the machine was invented accidentally by James Hargreaves (1764) whose daughter Jenny knocked over a spinning wheel which continued to spin. This gave him the idea of creating a machine working a whole line of spindles from one wheel. History doesn’t tell us how he solved the drafting problem. It may be that James Hargreaves was assisting Highs and took over the spinning jenny while Highs with Kay went back to solving the problem of drafting rollers. It seems likely that Hargreaves did make a number of improvements to the spinning jenny. Was the Spinning Jenny named after Hargreaves' daughter (so folk lore says) or was it, jinny or jenny, just a Lancashire form of the word "engine" (more likely)?

In 1766 Hargreaves built his own machine with eight spindles instead of six and produced machines for friends and family to use. Robert Peel, the grandfather of the so-named Prime Minister, installed some in his Brookside mill. In fact it is thought that Peel may have had considerable input into the development of the spinning jenny. But neighbours were jealous of Hargreaves ability to produce more yarn than they could.

In 1768 an irate mob gathered at Blackburn's market cross and marched to Stanhill, where they smashed the frames of 20 machines he was building for Peel in a barn. (Samuel Crompton also had problems with machine-breakers and a Luddite riot in Westhoughton burned down a mill, Westhoughton Mill or Rowe and Dunscough's Mill, in Mill Street on 24 April 1812, forty years after the machine breakers destroying Hargreaves and Peel’s machines. On this occasion nine men were deported and four hanged.)

1770 - Hargreaves finally took out a patent on the spinning jenny but it was too late because hundreds of copies had already been made and improvements were seeing machines with up to eighty spindles.

1760-1767 Meanwhile, Kay and Highs finally produced a design for the drafting rollers where the second set of rollers rotated at exactly five times the first set so stretching the slub (roving) to five times its original length prior to being given its twist. This new machine required more effort than a person could sustain so almost from its earliest days it needed a source of power – in the 1760s the only such power was the water wheel and the device became known as the water frame for that reason, not because water took any part in the spinning process, although one attempt was made to produce power by horses. The water frame finally could produce harder and stronger thread than the previous mechanical devices – which could be used for warp as well as weft.

Highs gave Kay a wooden model of what was to become the water frame and asked Kay to make it in metal which Kay did before returning to live in Warrington.

Now we need to step back in time a little.

In 1732 Richard Arkwright was born in Preston.

In 1755 he opened a barber’s shop on Churchgate in Bolton. He was an entrepreneur from a young age. He bought and ran the Black Boy pub and became an expert wig, or peruke, maker alongside his haircutting. He travelled widely to buy hair for his wigs. During these travels he heard of the efforts to speed up the spinning process and met both Thomas Highs and John Kay.

In 1767 Arkwright, on his business travels, met Kay. gained his confidence, and over a drink in a pub persuaded him to hand over the secrets of Highs' machine. With Kay in tow - presumably to prevent him from talking - he decamped swiftly to Preston, bought the clockmaker's loyalty with the promise of a job, and found an investor willing to back development of the water frame. Highs might not have patented his invention because of lack of money but Arkwright had no such problem. In 1768 he moved to Nottingham and a year after that patented the water frame as his own invention.

Part of Sunnyside Mills, Daubhill, Bolton

The notice says, "Sir Richard Arkwright Co.

                             English Sewing Ltd."

The area of Churchgate, Bolton where Richard Arkwright had a barber's shop. Note the white plaque on the newsagent's shop, between the Brass Cat and Booth's music shop.

The plaque. Whether it is true that he was the "inventor" is a moot point. The text shows that he probably wasn't.

The same area of Churchgate around 1900 but the buildings may be the same as they were around 1755.

Note James booth's with the brass instruments in the window. Booths was to the left of the Golden Lion until it moved in the 1960s. Then we have the Golden Lion which became known as the Brass Cat (unofficially at first) in the 1960s.

Then we have W Mandy's shop which is where Arkwright had had his barbers

1775 Arkwright developed cotton spinning into a continuous process, patenting a variety of machinery that performed all the processes of manufacture, from cleaning to carding to final spinning. But some writers say that not one of the ideas parented really belonged to him.

In 1781 he went to court to protect his patents against people copying his machines but instead his patents were overturned. In further court cases his patents were restored but later the truth came out and all his patents were permanently set aside. Highs, Kay, Kay's wife and the widow of James Hargreaves all testified that Arkwright had stolen their inventions.

1772 Crompton began work on the Mule.

1779 Crompton produces the Mule.