Lewis Paul (died 1759) was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the

water frame The water frame is a spinning frame that is powered by a water-wheel. History Richard Arkwright, who patented the technology in 1769, designed a model for the production of cotton thread, which was first used in 1765. The Arkwright water f ...

for

spinning Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

in a

cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven ...

Life and work

Lewis Paul was of

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

descent. His father was

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

to Lord Shaftesbury. He may have begun work on designing a spinning machine for cotton as early as 1729, but probably did not make practical progress until after 1732 when he met John Wyatt, a carpenter then working in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

for a gun barrel forger. Wyatt had designed a machine, probably for cutting files, in which Paul took an interest. Roller spinning was certainly Paul's idea, and Wyatt built a machine (or model) for him. Paul obtained a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

for this on 24 June 1738. He then set about trying to license his machine, though some licences were granted in satisfaction of debts. In 1741, he set up a machine powered by two asses in the Upper Priory in Birmingham, near his house in Old Square.

Mills using the roller spinning patent

Edward Cave Edward Cave (27 February 1691 – 10 January 1754) was an English printer, editor and publisher. He coined the term "magazine" for a periodical, founding ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' in 1731, and was the first publisher to successfully fashi ...

, a

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, obtained a licence and set up machines in a warehouse in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. In 1742, he acquired Marvel's Mill on the

River Nene The River Nene ( or ) flows through the counties of Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk in Eastern England from its sources in Arbury Hill in Northamptonshire. Flowing Northeast through East England to its mouth at Lutt ...

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

. He rebuilt the mill to hold four or five water-powered spinning machines, each with 50 spindles. This was thus the first

. Cave died on 10 January 1754, so that the mill passed to his brother William and his nephew Paul. Samuel Touchet, a London merchant had the mill until 1755, but made no profit. It may then have been let to Lewis Paul, but he died in 1759. The Caves forfeited the lease for non-payment of rent in March 1761 and advertised the mill to let in November 1761. By 1768, the mill had reverted to being a

corn mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

. Another mill that operated under Paul's patent was at

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England; it is located at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of almos ...

. This was built in 1744 by John Bourn in partnership with Henry Morris of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. The mill burnt down in November 1754.

Carding machines

In 1748, Daniel Bourn and Lewis Paul separately obtained patents for

carding In Textile manufacturing, textile production, carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passi ...

machines, which were presumably used in the Leominster and Northampton mills respectively. This carding technology of Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn seems to be the basis of later carding machines.

Achievements

The principle of his rolling spinning process was perfected by John Kay and Thomas Highs and promoted by

Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) was an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as ...

. Retrieved on 2008-08-14 Paul's machine seems only to have been modestly profitable, and it is not clear to what extent his work is reflected in Arkwright's much more successful machine, the

, patented in 1769. Like Paul and Bourn, Arkwright subsequently added a carding stage to his machinery, but his use of this as a means of continuing his patent rights beyond the expiry of his original patent failed, because the improvement was not his invention.

Bibliography

*A. P. Wadsworth and J. de L. Mann, ''The Cotton Industry and Industrial Lancashire'' (Manchester University Press 1931), 419-448. *D. L. Bates, 'Cotton-spinning in Northampton: Edward Cave's Mill' ''Northamptonshire Past and Present'' IX(3) (1996), 237-51. *W. English, ''The Textile Industry'' (Longmans, London 1931), 80-2. *R. B. Prosser
‘Paul, Lewis (d. 1759)’
rev. Gillian Cookson, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 25 Feb 2008

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Paul, Lewis English inventors Textile engineering Textile workers Year of birth unknown 1759 deaths Industrial Revolution in England People of the Industrial Revolution Spinning 18th-century British engineers