CHRONOLOGY
1709 Abraham Darby invents coke smelting
1712 Thomas Newcomen builds his first steam engine
1733 John Kay invents the flying shuttle
1764 James Hargreaves invents the spinning jenny
1765 James Watt builds model of an improved steam engine
1769 Richard Arkwright patents the water frame for spinning
1772 Arkwright opens the first factory, a cotton mill at Cromford
1773 Watt forms partnership with Matthew Boulton to create the firm of Boulton
Watt
1775 Arkwright patents a carding engine
1779 Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale completed
1785 Edmund Cartwright patents the power loom
1788 Watt invents steam-engine governor
1798 Coal gas used to light Watt’s Soho Foundry
1800 Robert Owen takes over New Lanark cotton mills
1801 Joseph M. Jacquard in France invents his jacquard loom
Sir Humphrey Davy invents the basic form of the arc lamp
1802 Mechanized production of pulley blocks begins at Portsmouth Navy Bloc
Mills
First practical steamboat, the Charlotte Dundas, tows barges along a Scottis
canal
