Spinning Jenny

Eldest son and Grandson stayed the night so this morning we had a lovely late cooked breakfast before they went off back south.   Then we went to Helmshore Mills Textile museum.  We started with lunch - a delicious cauliflower cheese soup and then listened to two extremely interesting demonstrations and visited the rest of the museum, finishing off with tea and cake!!!  I think I know why I'm getting plump!!

Here you see the spinning Jenny at work.  It was invented by Samuel Crompton a local lad.  The thread is being twisted to give it strength and then wound onto the bobbins which you can see flying round.  The thread is extremely weak before being twisted and breaks easily.  A child would pick up any  pieces that dropped on the floor with his/her bare toes - much safer than bending down between the moving machines!  He or she would also join broken threads while the machines were dancing back and forth!  They used kids from the work house for this work!! If a child could touch his opposite ear over his head he was deemed old enough to work.  In those days the birth records were almost non-existent.