Lancashire Loom

1842 · Lancashire Loom · Work 303 of 1,871

Lancashire Loom, 1842, Lancashire Loom

The Lancashire loom in a Blackburn weaving shed, its weft stop motion and loose reed set among long rows of identical looms standing under a sawtooth shed roof.

What it was used for
It came out of Brookhouse Mills in Blackburn, the firm of Hornby & Kenworthy: William Kenworthy was managing partner there, James Bullough an overlooker. Patent No. 8790 is dated 14 January 1841 and has two parts, a roller temple and the weft detector. The loom now stopped itself, held the width of the cloth, took up and let off; what the weaver chiefly still had to do was refill the shuttles with full pirns. Marsden wrote in 1895 that formerly the most skilful weaver could not venture upon more than two looms, at only about 120 to 130 picks a minute, whereas it was now common practice to take charge of four to six looms running at 220 to 260. Queen Street Mill at Briercliffe near Burnley, built 1894-95, holds some 308 such looms.
What was new
The function was not new. Ramsbottom and Holt of Todmorden had patented the first automatic weft detector in 1834 as patent No. 6644; Marsden judged in 1895 that though somewhat crude, the essence of the more perfect conception is there. Hornby & Kenworthy themselves had already worked on the vibrating reed in 1834 under No. 6619, and Clinton G. Gilroy claimed the invention for himself in his book of 1844, which Marsden holds unsupported by evidence. What Kenworthy and Bullough added was an escapement which, in their own words, stops the taking-up motion and all other actions of the loom simultaneously merely by the absence of the very first pick of weft, and which may be readily applied to looms in general. Who was first is unresolved; what is documented is that the function was patented in 1834 and made to work in 1841.

Further reading