James Hargreaves

James Hargreaves was an English weaver, carpenter and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire and is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in 1764. Born at Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, he was illiterate, worked as a hand loom weaver for most of his life and had thirteen children. The idea is said to have come when a one thread spinning wheel was overturned and he saw the wheel and spindle still turning. Opposition from hand spinners caused him to move to Nottingham, where he was granted a patent in 1770. He was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning, with Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton, and he died in 1778.