Hargreaves, James (c.1720–1778)

English inventor of the spinning jenny (c.1764), a machine for spinning several threads at once. Public uproar forced him to flee his native Blackburn for Nottingham (1768), where he patented the jenny (1770). In 1777 he adopted Richard Arkwright's more sophisticated machine. See also Crompton, Samuel.

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• ENGINEERS & INVENTORS

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