Highs's Spinning Jenny was crude and simple and it produced soft thread that was suitable only for weft. The tougher warp threads still had to be made by hand. Highs was too poor to think about patenting it, so he made a few examples which he either sold or rented to neighbours and friends before quickly turning his attention to roller spinning.

It was only now that Blackburn's James Hargreaves came onto the scene, producing his own version of the Jenny, reputedly using a pocket knife as his main tool. This, however, was the version that became world famous.

The big advantages of the jenny were that it was small enough to be used in a farmhouse kitchen, simple enough to operate using just manpower - or more often child power - but still produced 12, 16 or even more threads simultaneously. But it was clumsy and difficult to operate.

It was the next big development that was to take cotton spinning out of the home and into the factory.

The Water Frame used the differential rollers invented by Paul and Wyatt, coupled with the bobbin-and-flyer system of twisting and reeling the thread as used in the Saxony Wheel.

It produced a thread that was strong enough to be used for the warp as well as the weft.

It was a Preston barber called Richard Arkwright who patented the Water Frame in 1769, but that poor, unfortunate Highs had actually invented it two years earlier, only to have it stolen from him by the man who was to become the first great industrialist.

The Water Frame was too big for a domestic situation and needed to be installed in a factory. Water was the obvious source of power at that time, so factories had to be sited by rivers or streams powerful enough to turn a water wheel. This is why cotton factories were known as "mills."

Bolton's Samuel Crompton designed the most elegant solution