required time to overcome the sluggishness of society. Five years were requisite before Arkwright himself began to receive a profit. It needed other examples of success, to attract capital in a full stream to this employment. In the five years ending with 1775, the average import of cotton wool into Great Britain did not exceed 4,764,589 lbs. a year, only four times as much as the average import at the beginning of the century."

From the year 1770 cotton became the almost universal material for employment, the hand-wheels were all thrown into lumber rooms, the yarn was all spun on common jennies, the carding, for all numbers up to forty hanks in the pound, was done on carding engines; but the finer numbers of sixty to eighty were still carded by hand, it being a general opinion at that time that machine carding would never answer for fine numbers. In weaving, no great alteration had taken place, save the introduction of the fly shuttle, a change of many woollen looms for cords and velveteens, and the linen nearly gone, except the few fabrics in which there was a mixture of cotton. It was not till subsequent to 1773, that warps of linen yarn were entirely abandoned, and cotton goods were for the first time in this country, woven wholly of cotton. This change was produced by the hard and firm thread of Arkwright's water frame.

The principal cotton manufacturers who were engaged in business at Oldham, from 1750 to 1770, were Thomas Kay, School croft and Dolstile; John Ogden, North moor; John Scholes, Greenacres moor; Samuel Smethurst, Bent; John Lees, Side of moor; John Hilton, Hathershaw; Joseph Dunkerley, Rhodes; James Newton, Oldham; John Smethurst, Bent; Robert and William Dalton, Bent; John Haigh, Fog lane; Thomas Winterbottom, Goldbourn; John Lees, Mumps; John Waring, Waterhead mill; and Michael Rowbottom, Burnley lane.

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