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July 28, 2006
The womb of our modern world.
It isn't often you can go to a spot and say that without question you are in a crucible of history... but this little cottage is exactly that.
It is in the next village of Oswaldtwistle and was the old home and workshop of James Hargreaves.
He was a local cotton spinner and carpenter who, as the story goes, was spinning at his wheel in 1767 when his little girl knocked the whole thing over. He looked at the now sidways spinning wheel and had one of those flashes of genius.
He attached several upright bobbins to a frame and was able to do the work of eight hand spinners. Feeling the threat of progress they invaded his cottage,and destroyed his work with hammers. The fertile seed was now however planted and although he died in poverty a few sad years later, his invention is now regarded as the incubus of mechanisation that went on to become the industrial revolution. It struck me that this can be viewed as the Bill Gates garage of its day.
There is also a family connection here as one of his sons married local girl Elizibeth Grimshaw, at Church Kirk Church on September 10th, 1740. My Grandmothers side of the family were the Oswaldtwistle Grimshaws, making him very distant family.
Posted by Andrew at July 28, 2006 07:19 AM