and left off weaving. … I had not used it constantly more than Six Months before I was beset on every side by people of various descriptions from the distance of 60 miles and upwards as well as my neighbours … whose curiosity was excited by the superior quality and fineness of the yarn I spun hitherto unknown, and which at that time the trade was much in want of. In the end of 1780 it was made public.
The mule was first known as the muslin wheel, and the inventor himself later described it as 'that piece of mechanism that has produced and increased one of the first manufactories in Europe, viz. the fine Muslin and cambric'.[1] In view of the fact that the manufacture of muslins had actually been attempted at Anderton when Oldknow was a boy of eight in 1764, and had failed for want of finer yarn, the inference above made seems irresistible.[2] The fortunate survival of a number of letters, rescued one by one from the factory debris at Mellor, and of two of Oldknow's earliest account-books, with only a page or two missing, enables us to follow in some detail his operations as a manufacturer from his settlement at Anderton in midsummer 1782, up to and beyond the removal of his head-quarters to Stockport in 1784. The first six months were obviously a period of experiment. The weavers whom he was recruiting for his muslin manufacture had at first to be employed on the articles they were accustomed to make. These were the fancy cotton goods of which James Ogden in his famous description of Manchester in 1783 has attempted an enumeration; velverets and velveteens, king's cords and queen's cords, herringbones and buff jennets, dyed pillows and waistcoat jeans, &c. Not until November does the dispatch to three several customers of three pieces of Balassore handkerchief suggest that Oldknow's career as a muslin manufacturer is beginning. During the three months from 24 September (when the record of sales begins) to Christmas about £400 worth of piece goods were sent out. Half of these were disposed of by the Nottingham shop and by a firm of linendrapers in Mansfield, and one of the remaining quarters was taken by Mr. Samuel Mather, who is probably the silk and fustian manufacturer of King Street mentioned in the Manchester directory of 1788. As Oldknow spent far more on cotton than on yarn at this time, he must have found work for a number of small spinners in the neighbourhood of Anderton. He likewise opened an account with Messrs. Peel & Yates for printing and with a fustian calenderer for the finishing of his goods.
- ↑ Daniels, pp. 101–2, 128–9, 167–9.
- ↑ Under the heading 'An Old Romance', the Bolton Journal and Guardian for 13 January 1922 cites a letter in the Manchester Courier of 18 April 1829 signed Civis which claims that the muslin manufacture was permanently established by Thomas Ainsworth at Bolton in 1780.
