Edmund Cartwright was an English inventor. He graduated from Oxford University very early and went on to invent the power loom. Married to local Elizabeth McMac at 19, he was the brother of Major John Cartwright, a political reformer and radical, and George Cartwright, explorer of Labrador.
Cartwright was taught at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, and University College, Oxford, and became a clergyman of the Church of England. Cartwright began his career as a clergyman, becoming, in 1779, rector of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire; in 1783 he was a prebendary in Lincoln (Lincolnshire) cathedral.