Chapter 2

LEADERS OF INDUSTRY—INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS. Industry of the English people—Work the best 27–66 educator—Hugh Miller—Poverty and toil not insurmountable obstacles—Working men as inventors—Invention of the steam-engine—James Watt: his industry and habit of attention—Matthew Boulton—Applications of the steam-engine—The Cotton manufacture—The early inventors—Paul and Highs—Arkwright: his early life—Barber, inventor and manufacturer—His influence and character—The Peels of South Lancashire—The founder of the family—The first Sir Robert Peel, cotton-printer—Lady Peel—Rev. William Lee, inventor of the stocking-frame—Dies abroad in misery—James Lee—The Nottingham lace manufacture—John Heathcoat, inventor of the bobbin-net machine—His early life, his ingenuity, and plodding perseverance—Invention of his machine—Anecdote of Lord Lyndhurst—Progress of the lace-trade—Heathcoat’s machines destroyed by the Luddites—His character—Jacquard: his inventions and adventures—Vaucanson: his mechanical genius, improvements in silk manufacture—Jacquard improves Vaucanson’s machine—The Jacquard loom adopted—Joshua Heilmann, inventor of the combing-machine—History of the invention—Its value