ers. After getting Kay to construct for him certain
wooden models, which convinced him that the solution of the problem had
been accomplished, he is said to have applied to a Mr. Atherton, of
Warrington, to make the spinning-machine, who, from the poverty of
Arkwright's appearance, declined to undertake it. He, however, agreed to
lend Kay a smith and watch-tool maker to do the heavier part of the
engine, and Kay undertook to make the clockmaker's part of it. Arkwright
and Kay then went to Preston, where, with the cooperation of a friend of
Arkwright, John Smalley, described as a "liquor-merchant and painter,"
the machine was constructed and set up in the parlor of the house
belonging to the Free Grammar-school. The room appears to have been
chosen for its secluded position, being hidden by a garden filled with
gooseberry-trees; but the very secrecy of their operations aroused
suspicion, and popular superstition at once connected them with some
kind of witchcraft or sorcery. Two old women who lived close by averred
that they heard strange noises in it of a humming nature, as if the
devil were tuning his bagpipes, and Arkwright and Kay were dancing a
reel, and so much consternation was produced that many were inclined to
break open the place. The building has since been changed into a
public-house, which is known as the Arkwright Arms. As a proof of the
straits to which Arkwright was then reduced, and the degree to which he
had sacrificed his comfort in order to obtain the means of completing
his invention, it is said that his clothes were in such a ragged state
that he declined, unless supplied with a new suit, to go to record his
vote at the Preston election in 1768, which took place while he was
engaged in setting up his machine. Having thoroughly satisfied himself
of the practical value of his invention, he removed to Nottingham, an
important seat of the stocking trade, whither Hargreaves, the inventor
of the spinning-jenny, had removed the year previously, after his
machines had been destroyed by a mob at Blackburn. Arkwright entered
into partnership with Smalley from Preston, Kay continuing with him
under a bond as a workman, and they erected a spinning-mill between
Hockley and Woolpack Lane, a patent being taken out by Arkwright for the
machine, July 3, 1769.

The spinning-frame of Arkwright was the result of inventive power of a
higher and rarer order than that necessary to originate the
spinning-jenny. It was muc