Industrial Revolution - First Important Inventions
Although minor improvements were made to speed up the process of making yarn in cloth, the procedures of the cottage industry remained fundamentally the same for a very long time. As new inventors tried to improve efficiency and increase production, it ultimately brought an end to the cottage industry.
The most time-consuming part of producing cloth was spinning the cotton into yarn. In 1700, ten spinners were needed to keep just one weaver occupied. John Kay invented the "flying shuttle" in 1733, which sped up the production of for the weavers. However this caused greater disparity between the spinner and weavers. In 1764, it was James Hargreaves who eventually invented the "jenny," which was a hand-operated device to improve the spinning. Now, one person could spin eight threads at once. With additional improvements, a person could eventually able to spin eighty threads simultaneously.
In 1768, Richard Arkwright used the concepts of this to create the "water frame." As the name implies, this machine was powered by water. New spinning mills were set up close to waterways. Samuel Crompton invented a version called the "mule" in 1787 - it also used leveraged the newly perfected steam engine.
The steam engine (made by James Watt) provided the power to run the factories. Primitive and inefficient steam powered engines had been used to pump water from coal mines for many years, but now the steam engine was powerful enough to be used to provide power for this industry. The steam engine was fueled by coal; so now it became more important that factories be located near a cheap supply of coal (rather than depending on the water frames).