Question

When did Richard Arkwright open the first cotton factory?
A. 1765
B. 1769
C. 1771
D. 1773

Answer 1

Hint: Richard Arkwright was a well known British inventor and entrepreneur during the period of the Industrial revolution. He was famous for the development of the spinning frame which was used to spin yarns from the fibres of cotton and wool.

Complete answer: Arkwright’s major achievement was to combine power, semi-skilled labour and the raw material to create mass production. In 1771, Richard Arkwright along with three men opened the first cotton factory with some partners. The factory was located on the banks of the River Derwent in Cromford in Derbyshire. The machine developed by Arkwright came to be known as the ‘water frame’. It was the world’s first water power-based cotton powered spinning wheel. In 1774, he opened up another factory in Chorley where he employed 600 workers. At that point, the government removed tariffs from raw cotton. James Hargreaves spinning jenny did not have the strength which Arkwright’s spinning yarn had. With the expansion of the cotton mills, it became obvious that the entire population of the town would be insufficient for the scale of operations that Arkwright was planning. He had to therefore bring workers from the locality to meet the demands.
Option C is the correct answer.

Note: Arkwright was a difficult man to work with. He bought out all his partners and went on to establish factories in Manchester, Matlock Bath and others in partnership with David Dale. In 1991, the Arkwright scholarships were introduced in the UK to provide scholarships to aspiring future leaders in engineering and technical design.