James Hargreaves (c. 1720 – 22 April 1778) was an English weaver, carpenter, and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. He invented the spinning jenny in 1764.

He was one of three men who helped make the spinning process faster using machines. Richard Arkwright patented the water frame in 1769, and Samuel Crompton combined the two inventions to create the spinning mule in 1779.

Life and work

James Hargreaves was born in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire. He was described as a stocky, broad-shouldered man who was about five feet ten inches tall, or slightly taller. He could not read or write and worked as a hand loom weaver most of his life. He married, and church records indicate he had 13 children. However, in 1835, an author named Baines noted that he had 6 or 7 children.

Spinning jenny

The idea for the spinning jenny is said to have come when a single-thread spinning wheel was knocked over, and Hargreaves noticed the wheel and spindle still turning. He realized that placing several spindles upright and next to each other could spin multiple threads at the same time. The spinning jenny could only produce cotton weft threads and was unable to make warp yarn of good enough quality. Later, Arkwright's spinning frame provided high-quality warp yarn.

Hargreaves built a jenny for himself and sold several to his neighbors. His invention was first welcomed by hand spinners until yarn prices dropped.

Opposition to the machine led Hargreaves to move to Nottingham, where the cotton hosiery industry used the increased supply of suitable yarn. In Nottingham, Hargreaves made jennies for a man named Shipley. On 12 June 1770, he received a patent that allowed legal action against Lancashire manufacturers who used his invention, though the action was later withdrawn. With a partner, Thomas James, Hargreaves operated a small mill in Hockley and lived in a nearby house. The business continued until his death in 1778, when his wife received a payment of £400.

Legacy

In about 1779, Samuel Crompton created the spinning mule. He said he learned to spin in 1769 using a jenny that John Hargreaves had built. Hargreaves was one of three people who helped make spinning easier with machines.

Dispute over Hargreaves' contribution

False statements about Hargreaves appeared as early as 1828. Richard Guest, who wrote in the Edinburgh Review that year, included several mistakes and created a misleading picture of Hargreaves' life and work. This incorrect view has continued over time. Parish records show that Hargreaves (incorrectly spelled as "Hargraves") did not die in a workhouse, as some had claimed.

In the 1780s, there was an intense legal fight to cancel Richard Arkwright's most important patents. Thomas Highs argued he was the real inventor of both the spinning frame and the spinning jenny. Evidence about the origins of these inventions was debated, but Arkwright's patents were canceled, and the question of who truly invented them remained unanswered.

Other records confirm that Hargreaves' wife or any of his daughters did not have the name Jenny. This myth appeared in school textbooks until the 1960s, children's books until 2005, and on educational websites today. The word "jenny" in this context refers to a type of engine. In 18th-century Lancashire, "jenny" was a common slang term for an engine, and the term is still occasionally used today.