Mule Jenny from 1810. Oldest preserved specimen in the world | Ghent, Museum of Industry
The Mule Jenny
The Advent of Machines and Factories
The Mule Jenny caused a true revolution in the cotton industry: the machine could spin cotton almost two hundred times faster than a traditional spinning wheel. No wonder that the British tried to keep their invention secret as far as possible. Still, Lieven Bauwens from Ghent succeeded in smuggling a Mule Jenny onto the European continent.
Spinning cotton fibres into yarn was work that for a long time took place mainly in the English countryside. It was a labour-intensive process with which women on the farm supplemented their income from agriculture. It required ten spinners to produce enough yarn for one weaver. For that reason, in the 18th century systematic innovations took place designed to make spinning more efficient.
With the invention of the Mule Jenny in 1779 the Briton Samuel Crompton transformed the cotton industry. Spinning with a machine driven by steam power was not only much quicker, but the activity also transferred to great factory shops in new industrial towns like Manchester. Through the activity of Lieven Bauwens Ghent quickly followed the same route.
Ghent, Museum of Industry
At the end of the 18th century the steam machine got the Industrial Revolution started. Until the First World War steam remained the principal driving force.
The Advent of Machines and Factories
Large-scale production was not new. For example, the cotton industry in India and Chinese hemp spinning and iron manufacture were operating at a high capacity. But the mechanisation in the north-west of England in the second half of the 18th century was so radical that it marked the beginning of the industrial revolution. In the area around Manchester there was plenty of coal, the fuel for steam machines. Cotton could be easily brought in by sea and through the many canals. From North-West Europe the industrial revolution spread through the rest of Europe and ultimately the world.
Historians speak of a ‘revolution’ because the changes were ultimately so radical, not because they were that fast. Machines increased productivity and therefore also the wealth of the country.
The industrial revolution also changed ways of working, thinking and living. Machines were large and dependent on steam power, and so had to be located in factories. In this way people lost part of their independence. Instead of working at home they had to go to a factory, often in overpopulated towns. From now on machines determined the rhythm, which led to long working hours. For children particularly factory work was wretched.
At the same time the industrial revolution caused a shift in the balance of power within and between countries. For instance, it offered Great Britain the economic basis to become the leading power in Europe. Through industrialisation Europe was able to dominate world politics for two centuries.
Focal points
Ghent, Archief Gent
Lieven Bauwens’ cotton spinning mill in the former Ghent Carthusian monastery.
Lieven Bauwens Turns Ghent into a ‘Second Manchester’
The French government, which governed the Low Countries at the beginning of the 19th century, looked jealously at the industrialisation that was continuing full speed ahead in Great Britain. Britain prohibited the export of machines and the emigration of technicians, in order to keep the new technologies for itself.
With the help of accomplices, however, the Ghent industrialist Bauwens smuggled a Mule Jenny and a steam machine onto the Continent. He also lured competent technicians to the Continent by misleading them as to their final destination. So the industrial cotton industry could start on the European continent. After an experiment at Passy near Paris, Bauwens went to his hometown of Ghent, which had had a tradition of textile manufacturing since the Middle Ages. He made Ghent the centre of the mechanised cotton industry on the European continent. To achieve that goal, he had few scruples. He paid his workers low wages, and used many Ghent prisoners. He worked closely with the French occupying authorities and sold his wares to the French army.
‘I have created a second Manchester,’ Bauwens wrote in 1803 to the French government. His activities did not bring him lasting success personally. An adventurous strategy led in 1814 to the forced public sale of his factories.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-40.145
King Willem I and John Cockerill meet in Seraing. In the former summer palace of the Prince-Bishops of Liège (in the background of the lithograph) Cockerill built a large factory. From the series Les rencontres, 1829-1830.
Cockerill and Heavy Industry in Wallonia
The cotton industry in Ghent was a powerful driver for the economic development of the surrounding region, but even more important was the industrial cluster of factories, mines and blast furnaces in the province of Hainaut around Liège.
Where Ghent had Lieven Bauwens as a pioneer, Liège had William Cockerill. Cockerill, a smith by trade, crossed the Channel at the end of the 18th century. In 1799, after wandering through Russia and Sweden, he found himself in Verviers. There he sold spinning machines that he had designed himself for the wool industry that was typical of the area. His son John started a machine-building factory in Liège. It was the first factory of its type outside Great Britain, and brought an end to that country’s monopoly.
The production of machines was the first step in a tempestuous development of the metal and coal industry. In the first half of the 19th century those sectors made Liège and Hainaut the first industrial region on the European continent.
The young mechanised industry, both in Ghent and in the Walloon provinces, profited from the large French market. After the fall of Napoleon and the founding of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 it also enjoyed the support of King Willem I.
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Museum Tour – Industriemuseum Gent
Bron: VRT archief – 16 nov 2020
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