working 1,229,204 spindles; in 1841, 1037 spinners worked 1,431,619.
In Bolton in 1835, there were 30 cotton factories at work, in which were 601,226 spindles; giving employment to 798 spinners, and 2527 piecers. In 1841, of 40 factories, 38 were working, in which were 751,555 spindles, employing 737 spinners and 2457 piecers.
In addition to the increase of spindles, there is also a great advantage gained in the increase of speed. In 1817, a machine for spinning cotton yarn, called a throstle, with twelve dozen spindles, would spin one hank (containing 840 yards of cotton thread) per spindle, per day, which was considered a fair day's work. In 1841, the same sort of machine, worked by the same number of hands, and in which are eighteen dozen spindles, will spin four hanks per spindle, per day, of the same description of yarn.
According to McCullock, there were in the united kingdom in 1834, upwards of 9,000,000 of spindles employed in the cotton manufacture.
Weaving. In 1784, at a public table in Matlock, in Derbyshire, the conversation turned upon the subject of the newly invented machines for spinning cotton yarn. It was observed by some of the company present, that if this new mode of spinning by machinery should be generally adopted, so much more yarn would be manufactured than our own weavers could work up, that the consequence would be a considerable export to the continent, where it might be woven into cloth so cheaply as to injure the trade in England. Dr. Cartwright being one of the company, replied to this observation, that the only remedy for such an evil would be to apply the power of machinery to the art of weaving as well as to that of spinning, by contriving looms to work up the yarn as fast as it was produced by the spindle. Some gentlemen
