pages 84-85
Picture link

84                   Illustrations of Lancashire

Fabrics composed wholly of cotton do not appear to have been made in Lancashire before the time of George ll., Bolton leading the way with cotton velvets about 1756. The cotton weft was spun by the people in their own cottages, chiefly by the women, literally the "spinsters" of the family, representative eighteen centuries afterwards, of the good housewife of the Æneid and of the still older one in the Book of Proverbs, though as the years rolled on so greatly did the demand increase that every child had work of one kind or another. Thus began "infant labour," afterwards so much abused. The employment of children over thirteen in the modern factory is quite a different thing. Placed under legal restrictions, it is a blessing alike to themselves and to their parents, since if not there, the children now earning their bread would be idling, and probably in mischief. Those, it has been well said, who have to live by labour should early be trained to labour. Diligent as they were, the spinsters could not produce weft fast enough for the weavers. Sitting at their looms, which were also in the cottages, thoughtful men pondered the possibilities of quicker methods. Presently the dream took shape, and from the successive inventions of Whyatt, Kay, Highs, and Hargreaves, emerged the