Engineers
Richard Arkwright
Textile Engineering
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Richard Arkwright was an English textile engineer and entrepreneur who developed the water frame spinning machine and pioneered the factory system of manufacturing. His water frame, patented in 1769, used water power to drive multiple spinning spindles at once, producing stronger cotton thread than earlier hand-powered machines and enabling continuous, large-scale spinning, and he built Cromford Mill in Derbyshire in 1771, one of the first factories organized around powered machinery, a shift-based workforce and centralized production that became the model for industrial manufacturing. He was knighted in 1786 in recognition of his contribution to British industry.
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Patented the water-powered cotton-spinning machine in 1769, having put a working model to use in 1765, and installed it at his Cromford mill in 1771, helping establish the modern factory system.
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