Cartwright was initially happy with his new creation. “Conceiving, in my great simplicity, that I had accomplished all that was required, I then secured what I thought a most valuable property, by a patent, 4th of April, 1785," he said. "This being done, I then condescended to see how other people wove; and you will guess my great astonishment, when I compared their easy modes of operation with mine. Availing myself, however, of what I then saw, I made a loom in its general principles, nearly as they are now made. But it was not till the year 1787 that I completed my invention, when I took out my last weaving patent, August 1st of that year.”

This second attempt at loom-building was far better. Having taken out a new patent, the same year Cartwright built a weaving shed in Doncaster. A bull was used for power until a steam engine was installed two years later. Of the shed's 20 looms, 18 wove cotton.

By 1790, Cartwright's prospects were looking good. He sold a licence to Robert Grimshaw to build 500 of the new looms in a weaving shed at Knott Mill in Manchester.

But the dream crashed when the building was torched, almost certainly by handloom weavers who were becoming aware of the threat to their livelihoods.

Grimshaw had installed just 24 looms before the fire, and in the light of earlier, anonymous threats he declined to rebuild. A scheme for a second factory in nearby Gorton was shelved, and other manufacturers got the message. No further orders were forthcoming from Cartwright's machinery.

Meanwhile, Cartwright's Doncaster undertaking was lurching from crisis to crisis. Beset by problems both financial and technical, he was finally forced to close the mill in 1793 and declare himself bankrupt. His siblings rallied round and agreed to sell the family estate at Marnham to pay off the debts.

Disillusioned, Cartwright turned his back on cotton weaving and also largely abandoned hopes for another promising invention, a wool-combing machine that would have done the job of 20 workers. It had met with similar opposition.

But inventing was still in his blood and the year 1797 was a busy one for him. He came up with a scheme for a steam engine that used alcohol instead of water, and also invented a rope-making machine or cordelier.