“The roguery practised in this department is beyond imagination”
William Bolts and the East India Company
On August 1, 1771, Richard Arkwright, an inventor who hailed from Preston, Lancashire, rented, along with four business partners, a piece of land in the Derbyshire village of Cromford. On a lease that the partners signed, they recorded their intention “to Erect and Build one or more Mill or Mills for Spinning, Winding, or throwing Silk Worsted Linen Cotton or other Materials.”1 Originally a wigmaker, Arkwright had, two years earlier, patented a spinning frame, a hefty contraption that used wooden and metal rollers to stretch and twist cotton threads into yarn. There is still controversy over whether Arkwright invented his frame or stole the design from others. In any case, after experimenting with horses to power his new machine, he decided that a waterwheel would be more effective. Running through the land he leased at Cromford, there was a river, Bonsall Brook, as well as an underground channel, or sough, that drained water from some nearby lead mines.
Arkwright and his partners built a five-story mill and a large waterwheel. In a local newspaper, they posted a job listing for skilled artisans—clockmakers, wood turners, a blacksmith—and unskilled workers. When Cromford Mill started production in 1772, it employed about two hundred people. Many of them were women and children, who were willing to work for lower wages than adult men.
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