Threads of Connection A workshop on the history of cotton, India and the Peak District National Park

13-04-2013

Dr. Chamu Kuppuswamy, Lecturer in Law, Univ. of Sheffield

Arkwright & Arunachalam

Inspired by Cotton

Richard Arkwright (1732 - 1792)

An Entrepreneur of the Industrial era

Spinning Frame Rollers produced yarn of correct thickness+ spindles twisted them = strong thread

Employee invention (John Kay, a clockmaker) (possible collaborator – Thomas Highs – or sponsor?

Licenses – Mills in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Scotland and elsewhere (high royalties)

Patent Infringements – wide spread copying

Revocation – between 1781 and 1785, lack of novelty

1769

Carding Machine

Converted raw cotton buds to cotton fibres for spinning into yarn

Incremental improvement over the Paul Lewis invention (1748) or novel?

Revocation 1781

Much of Arkwright’s £500,000 from exploitation of his patents

1775

Muruganantham Arunachalam

A social Entrepreneur in the 21st century

“Why make money and then come to philanthropy? Adopt philanthropy from the start”

Mini Sanitary Napkin making machine

Fluffing

Sealing

Pressing down

President’s award for innovation

http://youtu.be/d6QxcmVqaLY

Low cost machine Low cost napkin(branded min 25 Rupees) Rupees 17

3 hours training time Self-repair

Increases local employment

Primarily rural female employment

Non exclusive royalty free licenses

Growth market Profit margin -31% Life of dignity and literacy

Changing times……..then

"Arkwright's machines require so few hands, and those only children, with the assistance of an overlooker. A child can produce as much as would, and did upon an average, employ ten grown up persons. Jennies for spinning with one hundred or two hundred spindles, or more, going all at once, and requiring but one person to manage them. Within the space of ten years, from being a poor man worth £5, Richard Arkwright has purchased an estate of £20,000; while thousands of women, when they can get work, must make a long day to card, spin, and reel 5040 yards of cotton, and for this they have four-pence or five-pence and no more."Ralph Mather (1780) ,

An Impartial Representation of the Case of the Poor Cotton Spinners in Lancashire

And of course…..

• Impacted on domestic cotton market in India. • Political dimensions of cotton trade – cotton

yarn spinning implement – Charka is the symbol of the Indian Independence Movement

Also consider…

• The Derby Mercury (22nd October 1779) reported that Arkwright feared that people made unemployed by his new methods might destroy his factory: "There is some fear of the mob coming to destroy the works at Cromford, but they are well prepared to receive them should they come here. All the gentlemen in this neighbourhood being determined to defend the works, which have been of such utility to this country. 5,000 or 6,000 men can be at any time assembled in less than an hour by signals agreed upon, who are determined to defend to the very last extremity, the works, by which many hundreds of their wives and children get a decent and comfortable livelihood."

Changing times…..Now

• Inequalities – gap widening • Muruganantham’s model addresses the issue

of rampant unemployment amongst the poor in rural, urban and semi-urban areas of all developing nations.

• Overall, Muruganantham’s model offers livelihood, hygiene, dignity and empowerment to women all over the world. And it does so using a sustainable business framework.