Involvement of the Grimshaws in the Industrial Revolution
Involvement of the Grimshaws in the Industrial Revolution
(Note: Webpage in preparation)
The Industrial Revolution started in northern England generally between 1760 and 1840 with the mechanization of the processes of cotton weaving. Lancashire, and particularly the city of Manchester, were the location of many of the inventions and other early developments. Grimshaw families, who were concentrated northwest of Manchester in the area around Blackburn, played many important and varied roles in the unfolding events of the Industrial Revolution because of their inventiveness and their propitious location at the right time in history. Shown below, with links to other webpages on the Grimshaw Origins website, are cases of Grimshaw involvement in various aspects of the Industrial Revoultion.
Click here for a description of the role of Manchester in the Industrial Revolution.
Click here for a webpage on the geologic context of the Blackburn area.
Contents:
James Hargreaves,
 | James Hargreaves, Widely Credited for Inventing the Spinning Jenny |
James Hargreaves is generally credited* for inventing the spinning jenny, one of the most important early developments of the Industrial Revolution. The spinning jenny also exemplified the kind of inventiveness that made the Industrial Revolution possible in Lancashire.
*(The original idea, subsequently expanded and improved upon by Hargreaves, probably came from Thomas Highs.)
James was born in 1720 at Church Kirk and married Elizabeth Grimshaw, also at Church Kirk, on September 10, 1740. Hargreaves was born at Ostwaldtwistle, about halfway between the Grimshaw locations in Eccleshill and Clayton-le-Moors, and he made his discovery in about 1764 at Stanhill, about half a mile away. He married Elizabeth Grimshaw on September 10, 1740 at nearby Church Kirk, and they had 11 children from 1744 to 1767. Elizabeth was baptized on November 6, 1720 in Churck Kirk; she was born to Henry and Margaret (Broughton) Grimshaw.
Aspin2 provides the following introductory paragraph on James Hargreaves and his origins; additional detail is given below the photo on this webpage.
James Hargreaves, inventor of the spinning jenny, was born in the semi-moorland district of Oswaldtwistle, near Blackburn, Lancashire, and was baptised at Church Kirk on January 8, 1720/1. His exact birthplace is unknown and apart from the fact that he became a hand-loom weaver, little has been discovered about his early life. His father, George Hargreaves, himself a native of the district, had one other child: Elizabeth, who was three years younger than James. On September 10, 1740, Hargreaves married Elizabeth Grimshaw at Church Kirk. Both are described as "of Oswaldtwistle", but they appear to have moved away from East Lancashire soon afterwards for their first children were not baptised at any church within a ten-mile radius of the neighbourhood. On January 13, 1744/5, however, "Susan, daughter of James Hargreaves," was baptised at Church Kirk, and the baptisms of other children show that Hargreaves was living at Brookside, Oswaldtwistle, from 1745/8, and that by 1750 he had settled half a mile away at Stanhill. Hargreaves's cottage, which is now the village post office, was subsequently occupied by his sister-in-law, whose grandson, John Hindle, died there in 1882, at the age of ninety-eight. An obituary notice says that his house, then known as Rose Cottage, was "where Hargreaves lived and where he invented the spinning jenny." Hargreaves's last child, Alice, was born in 1767, while he was living at Ramsclough, on the edge of the moor dividing Oswaldtwistle from Haslingden.
Contrary to popular opinion, the name "jenny" apparently does not come from one of Hargreaves' children, but rather from an old (or, perhaps, playful) reference to "engine".
Click here for the webpage on James and Elizabeth (Grimshaw) Hargreaves.
Click here for a webpage on the ancestry of Elizabeth Grimshaw.
| Nicholas Grimshaw, Mayor of Preston, Assisted Richard Arkwright during the Time of His Inventions |
One of the most noted and successful of the Grimshaws in their native Lancashire was Nicholas, who served as mayor of Preston seven times. His noteworthy political career spanned more than 40 years, from 1790 to 1832, and included two Guild mayoralties. A noteworthy historical role that Nicholas Grimshaw's played was to assist Richard Arkwright in the invention of the waterframe, which is described by Wright and Allen2 (p. 44):
So completely was the mechanist obstructed by poverty at every step, that when he had completed his great invention, he was unable to apply it either for the purposes of experiment or manufacturing profits; and, not being able to procure any further assistance in Liverpool, he removed to Preston, his native town, in search of friends. The great contested election which ended in the return of General Burgoyne, then agitated the inhabitants, and Arkwright was instantly canvassed, and obliged to select a candidate. So fragile, however, was the nature of his garments, so forlorn and neglected his whole appearance, that his friends felt it necessary to furnish him with a new suit of clothes, the expense of which was defrayed by a subscription on the spot. This was the first act of friendship which this "son of science" experienced in his native town; others, equally generous, soon succeeded. John Smalley, a liquor-merchant, obtained the use of a room in the Free Grammar School, for the erection and exhibition of the engine, and Mr. Nicholas Grimshaw generously supplied Arkwright with means to prosecute his experiments. Warned by the fate of Hargrave in 1767, and of others who had attempted to abridge human labour by the substitution of machinery, he now secretly withdrew from Preston, and, migrating to Nottingham, received some trifling assistance from Messrs. Wright, the bankers. These gentlemen becoming impatient at the delay attending the completion of the work, introduced the mechanist to Messrs. Need and Strutt, who declared the invention an admirable effort of genius, quickly foresaw its boundless capabilities, and, closing a partnership with the proprietor, terminated his painful anxieties and rewarded his meritorious labours.
Arkwright was a native of Preston and returned there briefly during the time Nicholas Grimshaw was mayor.
Click here for the webpage on Nicholas Grimshaw.
| Robert Grimshaw Obtained a License for Cotton Weaving from Cartwright and Built a Mill that Was Burned Down in 1792 |
Click here for the webpage on Robert Grimshaw and his mill at Knott's Mill near Manchester.
| Nicholas Grimshaw Brought the Industrial Revolution to Ireland in 1776 |
Click here for the webpage on Nicholas Grimshaw of Ireland.
| Mortimer Grimshaw, the "Thunderer of Lancashire" - Activist for Labor Reform around 1853 |
Click here for the webpage on Mortimer Grimshaw.
| Coal Mining and the Industrial Revolution at Eccleshill |
Click here for the webpage on coal mining at Eccleshill.
Click here for the webpage on Industrial Development at Eccleshill.
Click here for the webpage on the attacks on the Grimshaw mill during the 1826 power loom riots.
Click here for the webpage on Eccleshill on an 1846 map.
| Coal Mining and the Industrial Revolution at Clayton-le-Moors |
Click here for the webpage on coal mining at Clayton-le-Moors.
Click here for the webpage on Industrial Development at Clayton-le-Moors.
Click here for the webpage on Clayton-le-Moors in 1790.
Click here for the webpage on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, built in Clayton-le-Moors in 1801
Click here for the webpage on the 1826 Power Loom Riots at Clayton-le-Moors
Click here for the webpage on the Moorfield Pit Disaster of 1883
| Grimshaw Involvement in the Power Loom Riots of 1826 |
Click here for the webpage on Grimshaw involvement in the Power Loom Riots
| Henry Ewart Grimshaw Wrote a Thesis Entitled "Hand-Loom Weavers in England during the Firsl Half of the Nineteenth Century" in 1915 |
Click here for the webpage on Henry Ewart Grimshaw.
| References |
1Author
2Author
2Aspin, Christopher, 1964, James Hargreaves and the Spinning Jenny: Preston, England, The Guardian Press, 75 p.
5Wright, Geoffrey Norman, and Thomas Allen, date unknown, Lancashire, It's History, Legends & Manufactures: London, Caxton Press, Volume 1 (of 2 volumes), unk. p.
Webpage posted April 2011.
