Hargreaves

har'grevz, James an English inventor, a native of Stanhill. Hargreaves was an illiterate spinner, working, as was the custom, in his own house. In 1760 he devised a carding machine, and four years later he thought out the "spinning jenny." He had tried frequently to produce more than one thread at a time by paying out between each two fingers of his left hand; but he could not wind the threads on horizontal spindles. The story runs that one of his children upset his wheel while he was spinning at full speed, and that this gave him the notion of vertical spindles. At all events Hargreaves devised a wheel with several vertical spindles. He spun eight threads at a time. This enabled himself and family to produce more yarn than his neighbors. In jealousy and alarm lest the device reduce the number of persons who could have employment they broke into his house and destroyed the frame. It is not pleasant to know that Hargreaves was defrauded of personal benefit from a patent on his invention. He was able to from a small partnership in spinning, however, and died in 1778 in moderate circumstances, but above poverty. See Spinning