Edmund Cartwright FSA (24 April 1743 – 30 October 1823) was an English inventor. He studied at Oxford University and later created the power loom. At the age of 19, he married Elizabeth McMac. He had two brothers: Major John Cartwright, who worked to change laws and support new ideas, and George Cartwright, who explored the area of Labrador.

Life

Edmund Cartwright was the fourth son of William Cartwright and his wife Anne, born in Marnham, Nottinghamshire. He attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield. He enrolled at University College, Oxford in 1760, where he studied before the usual age starting in 1757. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1764 and his Master of Arts degree in 1766. In 1764, he was chosen as a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1806.

He was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England in 1765 and became a priest in 1767. Cartwright was appointed rector of Kilvington in 1767. In 1779, he also became rector of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire. In 1783, he was elected a prebendary at Lincoln Cathedral.

For a time, Cartwright worked as a chaplain to the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey and taught the Duke’s son, Lord John Russell, who later became Prime Minister. After receiving a grant from Parliament, Cartwright bought a small farm in Kent, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Edmund Cartwright died in Sussex after a long illness and was buried in Battle.

Power loom

In 1784, Cartwright created his first power loom and received a patent for it in 1785 after working with textile workers in Manchester. This design proved that the idea could work, but it was not widely used. Similar designs continued to be used until the 20th century. Later improvements by other inventors are often credited for making power looms practical. In 1809, Parliament gave Cartwright £10,000 for his invention.

In 1789, Cartwright patented another loom that later inventors used as a model. For a mechanically driven loom to be successful, either one person must operate multiple machines, or each machine must produce more fabric than a manually operated one. Cartwright improved his loom by adding features like a positive let-off motion, warp and weft stop motions, and sizing the warp while the loom was working. He began making fabrics in Doncaster using these looms but found many problems with them. He tried to fix these issues by adding a crank and eccentric wheels to control the batten, improving the picking mechanism, adding a device to stop the loom if a shuttle failed to enter a box, preventing shuttles from bouncing back in boxes, and using automatic temples to stretch the cloth. His mill was taken over by creditors in 1793.

In 1792, Cartwright received his last patent for weaving machinery, which included multiple shuttle boxes for weaving checks and cross stripes. However, his efforts did not lead to success because no mechanism could work well if warp threads were sized while the loom was not operating. His plans to size warp threads during operation or before placing them in the loom failed. These issues were solved in 1803 by William Radcliffe and Thomas Johnson, who invented the beam warper and the dressing sizing machine.

In 1790, Robert Grimshaw of Gorton, Manchester, built a weaving factory at Knott Mill, intending to use 500 of Cartwright’s power looms. Only 30 looms were installed before the factory burned down, likely due to arson caused by hand loom weavers fearing job loss. The factory was not rebuilt because success seemed unlikely.

In May 1821, Cartwright was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Other inventions

Cartwright invented a wool combing machine in 1789 and a cordelier (a machine for making rope) in 1792. He also created a steam engine that used alcohol as fuel instead of water.

Works

Cartwright had John Langhorne as a tutor and became a minor poet. He published the poem Armine and Elvira in 1770. This was followed by The Prince of Peace in 1779, which criticized the American Revolutionary War. His collection Sonnets to Eminent Men (1783) included an ode to Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham, a notable supporter of American independence.

Family

In 1772, Cartwright married Alice Whitaker, the daughter of Alderman Richard Whitaker of Doncaster, who died in 1785. Their second daughter, Elizabeth (1780–1837), married Reverend John Penrose and wrote books using the name "Mrs Markham." Their daughter Mary married Henry Eustatius Strickland, a younger son of Sir George Strickland, 5th Baronet. Mary was the mother of Hugh Edwin Strickland and wrote a book titled A Memoir of the Life, Writings, and Inventions, of Edmund Cartwright, D.D. FRS (1843), which included a memoir written by Cartwright himself.

Their son, the Rev. Edmund Cartwright (1773–1833), was a member of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London. The youngest child of the marriage was Frances Dorothy Cartwright, a poet and biographer of her uncle, Major John Cartwright.

In 1790, Cartwright married Susannah Kearney, the daughter of John Kearney. He was survived by Susannah and the four children from his first marriage. Cartwright also had many siblings, including the well-known John Cartwright.