Richard Arkwright did something in 1768

In a rented room in Stoneygate

(That’s just behind Preston’s parish church

So get off your glutes and go for a search)

He was making a loud whirring drone

A rhythm mistaken by a nearby crone  

For Arky and his chums having a jig

To the devil’s bagpipes at some weirdo gig

Thanks to the start of the Age of Cotton

Her hovel was shaking something rotten

Little did she know she was hearing a sound

That would make a million cogs go round

Inside mills all dark and satanic

Kicked off by Ricky – the Preston mechanic

The wheels whirled – he got ‘em turning

Dead of night deeds during Rick’s stay

Caused a loud purring

The place was quaking

It made the locals gripe

Cos Rick was acting in a way-

Suspiciously

This bad-assed dude who made toupees

Bled people, pulled teeth and looked for ways

Of getting ahead and making some dough

Cottoned on to weaving and gave it a go

By checking out the guys on the spinning scene

Then taking their ideas and making a machine

Now here we come to a point of contention

Did Tricky Dick nick someone else’s invention?

Let’s just call it ”idea appropriation”

That made the Water-Frame a winning creation

Of his rival inventors searing rebuttal

Arky didn’t give a Flying Shuttle!

He just stuck on a couple of little bits

That would bring to him big, big profits

With the patent in the bag, he was sitting pretty

And Nottingham became his spin city

Weavers off the world – he was history makin’

He was the one with his bud Kay

To stop the thread breaking

He found correct spacing

On weighted rollers

Spun a better way

Nipping fibres tightly

A nation hungry for cloth, he couldn’t meet demand

So, like his waist, Rick began to expand

By getting some guys called Sammy and Jed

To stump up the cash for a monster shed

For spinning by a river in the Derbyshire hills

Where one kid matched ten weavers skills

Working 13 hour shifts they were very cheap

When knacked he chucked them on the scrap heap

Or sent them to jail if they tried to pull a sicky

Such was the power of the cotton lord Dicky

Yet we shouldn’t judge Rick by the standards of our time

Back them they were used to hardship and grime

With squillions in the bank, Rick fatally departed

With a place in history for  having kick-started

The Industrial Revolution, for good or for bad

Not bad for a teeth pulling Lancashire lad

Workers of the world – it’s chillin’

To think what he did down Avenham way

Began the age of millin’

With product mass making

That changed a nation’s life

And Britain led the way

Industrially

Copyright  ã Michael Helme