Samuel Crompton was born on 3 December 1753 and died on 26 June 1827. He was an English inventor who played an important role in the spinning industry. He used ideas from James Hargreaves and Richard Arkwright to create the spinning mule, a machine that changed the industry around the world.
Early life
Samuel Crompton was born on 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire, to George and Betty Crompton (née Elizabeth Holt of Turton). His father worked as a caretaker at Hall i' th' Wood, a nearby location. Samuel had two younger sisters. When he was a child, he lost his father and began helping his family by spinning yarn. He learned to spin using James Hargreaves's spinning jenny. He noticed the spinning jenny had problems, which gave him the idea to create a better machine. He worked on this invention in secret for five or six years. This effort took all of his free time and money, including the money he earned by playing the violin at the Bolton theatre.
On 16 February 1780, at Bolton Parish Church, Crompton married Mary Pimlott (or Pimbley). They had eight children, including George Crompton (born 8 January 1781), who later worked in the same family business.
Spinning mule
In about 1779, Samuel Crompton successfully created a machine called the mule-jenny, which produced yarn suitable for making muslin. The machine was also called the muslin wheel or the Hall i' th' Woodwheel, named after the house where Crompton and his family lived. Later, the machine was known as the spinning mule. There was high demand for the yarn Crompton made at Hall i' th' Wood, but he could not afford to take out a patent. Others secretly tried to learn how he made the machine, forcing Crompton to choose between destroying it or sharing his design. He chose to share it after several manufacturers promised to pay him for using the mule. Afterward, he continued spinning on his own, but with limited success.
The mule-jenny twisted yarn using rollers similar to Arkwright's frame. A spindle carriage moved back and forth 54 inches to stretch the thread and then gathered it into spinning spindles, like Hargreaves' jenny. The mule's importance was that it could spin finer thread than could be made by hand. Coarse thread (40s) sold for 14 shillings per pound, while finer thread (80s) made with the mule sold for 42 shillings per pound.
Because the mule was not patented, others quickly began making similar machines. The machine was built with iron, and by 1790, power was used to help move parts. By 1834, the machine was fully automatic. A survey in 1812 showed that between 4 and 5 million mule spindles were in use. Crompton did not receive any money from his invention.
In 1800, people raised £500 to help Crompton. Later, in 1809, Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power loom, received £10,000 from Parliament. Crompton decided to apply for a grant. In 1811, he visited Lancashire and Scotland to gather evidence about how widely his mule was used. In 1812, Parliament awarded him £5,000. With this money, Crompton started a business as a bleacher and later as a cotton merchant and spinner, but it was not successful. In 1824, friends from Bolton's Black Horse "prosecution" Club secretly gave him an annual payment of £63.
Crompton died on June 26, 1827, at his home in King Street, Bolton. He was buried at St. Peter's Parish Church.