account of the twist delivered at Anderton in November 1784. Out of a total of 1,620 lb. only 20 lb. was in counts over 60 (the highest being 66), and three-quarters of it was in counts of 28 and under. There can be no doubt that the greater part of this was produced on Arkwright's machine. Fine counts of weft as high as 70 were being supplied to Oldknow in 1783 by spinners of Bolton and Ashton and by merchants in Manchester who combined dealings in cotton and yarn.
One of the advantages of Oldknow's establishment at Stockport was that it enabled him to deal directly with a large number of small spinners. The accounts of some fifty of these in the tattered fragments of a ledger of 1786–7 reveal a considerable variety of types, from the woman who earned a pound a fortnight by spinning low counts on a jenny to the owner of a small factory of mules or jennies who supplied fifty pounds' worth of weft in a month. Perhaps the broadest distinction is between those who were paid in cash, fortnightly or oftener, and those who were paid usually by bill every month or two months. All the former class and most of the latter received, and were held accountable for, the cotton, but did not purchase it. Only in a few exceptional cases was the cotton sold to and the yarn bought from the spinner, and in one of these interest was charged, showing that the sale of cotton had been on credit. More than a dozen clearly specialized in high counts from 70 upwards to 92, and these lived chiefly in the Mellor district and at Ashton, Hyde, and Stalybridge.
But it was weft that all these small spinners were engaged in producing, and whilst still finer counts of weft were required for the improvement of his muslins, the chief technical problem that confronted Oldknow was to get finer twist of regular quality in large quantities and at lower prices. This problem was solved by the application of power to the mule, which by the end of 1791 was producing in Oldknow's own factory at Stockport no. 120 weft at 22s. per lb. and no. 120 twist at 23s. At that date, however, Oldknow's career as muslin manufacturer was drawing to a close; it was in the previous five years that he acquired his reputation and his fortune, and the beginnings of fine spinning during this period have hitherto been obscure. William Kelly, the manager of the New Lanark Mills, claimed to have been the first to apply water-power to the mule in 1790,[1] and the establishment of Drinkwater's factory in Manchester, of which Robert Owen was the manager, belongs to the same year.[2] But the mule was in general use before power was applied to it, and William Radcliffe tells us that 'the mule-twist came into vogue for warp as well as weft' in the year 1788, and that this
