James Hargreaves was born in 1720 near Blackburn, England. His family was poor so James had no formal education that meant he was unable to read or write. From a young age James was interested in engineering. By 1760 James lived in Stanhill a small little village. James was one of the many people who owned their own spinning wheel and loom. In 1764 James built the Spinning Jenny. Because the design was the same as the spinning wheel the yarn produced was very lumpy and uneven.
The machine used eight spindles which the threads was spun from. With this machine you could turn one big wheel and you could spin eight threads at once. Originally the spinning jenny was just for the family use but when he began selling his machine other spinners feared that they would lose their business and snuck into James home and destroyed the original machine. After this incident he and his family moved to Nottingham Since James didn’t apply for a patent for the spinning jenny until 1770 people stole his design without paying him. His patent was denied. When James died in 1778 over 20,000 Spinning jennys were being used in Great Britian. Hargreaves died a poor man.