Hargreaves, James (1722?-1778), invented the spinning jenny, the first commercially successful machine to spin many threads at a time. He turned the spindles of several spinning wheels upright and placed them in a row. He then added a frame that alternately held and pulled the rovings (crude twists of cotton) used to make thread. Hargreaves patented the jenny in 1770, though he is thought to have invented it in 1764. John Kay’s fly shuttle (also called flying shuttle) had doubled the amount of cloth weavers could produce, and the jenny supplied the weavers with enough thread to make the cloth. The origin of the term jenny is unknown, but some historians think it was the name of Hargreaves’s daughter.
Hargreaves was a weaver in Standhill, England, and first used the jenny at home. He then sold some machines. The sales made his patent invalid, and he was never rewarded for his invention. Local spinners worried that the increased amount of yarn the jenny spun might cost them their jobs. They burned Hargreaves’s machine and drove him from the town. He moved to Nottingham in 1768 and helped found a prosperous spinning mill. His machine was used in the mill. Other manufacturers used the jenny without paying him. Hargreaves lived comfortably during the last years of his life. But he never profited from his invention as much as he might have. He died on April 22, 1778.
