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Edmund Cartwright was born in Nottinghamshire, England on April 18th, 1743.
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Richard Arkwright invented the water frame, or the spinning frame, in 1769.
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In 1784 Cartwright visited Richard Arkwright's cotton-spinning mills at Cromford in Derbyshire. He was inspired by them to construct a weaving machine of his own. His idea was scornful to many. They thought that such a complex process would be imposibble to make automatic.
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Edmund Cartwright finally built the first water powered loom, or power loom for short. On April 4th he obtained a patent for it.
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In 1786 Cartwright invented a second powered loom that was more efficient than his first one. He used this type of loom in his factory at Doncaster.
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Cartwright set up a factory in Doncaster for his looms in 1787.
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In 1791, a mill at Manchester ordered 400 of Cartwright's second water-powered looms. But workers who feared that the looms would remove their jobs burned the mill down before the looms began work in the factory.
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Cartwright was no businessman. His factory in Doncaster went bankrupt in 1793.
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In 1803 William Horrock patented an improved power-loom based off of Cartwright's design.
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In 1809 the House of Commons voted Edmund Catwright £10,000 to recognize the benefits of his water-powered loom. It was something equivalent to $50,000 in today's money.
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By 1823 Richard Guest was able to claim that "a boy or girl aged fourteen or fifteen could manage two power-looms and could produce three and a half times as much as the best handloom weaver".
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Edmund Cartwright died on October 30, 1823.
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By 1850 there were 250,000 water-powered looms in use in Europe. About 177,000 of those were in Lancashire.
