Welsh mechanical engineer and inventor, born in Montgomeryshire in 1789. Roberts was a quarryman until the age of 20 before beginning work as a pattern maker at Bradley and Horseley ironworks in 1809. After various jobs a cabinet-maker, turner and toolmaker in Liverpool, Manchester and Salford, he moved to London in 1814 to work for Henry Maudslay as a turner and fitter in mariine and machine tool engineering. Roberts set up his own business in Deansgate, Manchester, in 1816, producing machine tools. The firm moved in 1818 to Pool Fold, and in 1821 to a larger shop in Faulkner Street, with 12-14 mechanics. In 1823, he went into partnership with Thomas Sharp, which lasted until Sharp's death in 1841. In 1824 he invented his most famous machine, the self-acting spinning mule, and patented it in March 1825. Roberts made extensive use of templates and gauges to standardise production. The mules were made in hundreds, but Roberts gained little financial reward, having spent so much on its development. In 1832, Roberts patented six separate improvements in steam locomotion, and built the Atlas works to accommodate locomotive manufacture, for which his firm became renowned. In the early 1820s Roberts helped to establish the Manchester Mechanics' Institute. He joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1823 and was made an honorary member in 1861. He was elected member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1838. From 1838 to 1843 he served on the council of the borough of Manchester. Roberts wound up his business in 1852, becoming a consulting engineer, in Manchester and then in London. He died in poverty on 11 March 1864.

Edmund Cartwright was a Church of England clergyman and inventor of a power loom. He was born on 24 April 1743 at Marnham in Nottinghamshire, the fourth of five sons of William Cartwright (d. 1781). In his early career he was a respected poet, publishing Armine and Elvira in 1770, which was thought highly of by Sir Walter Scott. His most important work was Prince of Peace, published in 1779, deploring the war in America. In 1772, Cartwright was presented to the perpetual curacy of Brampton near Wakefield, and in 1779 he became rector of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire, an office which he held until 1808. In 1784 Cartwright proposed the mechanisation of weaving during a casual conversation, as a way of restricting the export of British yarn to foreign competitors. He obtained a patent for his design in 1785. It was a primitive machine, but it established the feasibility of power-loom weaving and the underlying principle remained little changed until the development of the Sulzer loom in the twentieth century. In 1785 the family inherited property at Doncaster. Cartwright was then able to work with skill mechanics to develop the Doncaster loom, and to establish a power-loom mill in the town. Twenty looms were initially powered by a bull, which was replaced by a steam engine in 1788–9. Though successful in promoting the principle, the concern was not a success. Cartwright faced powerful opposition from competitors, his patents were infringed, and he rapidly began to run out of money. In 1793, facing losses in excess of £30,000, he assigned his patents to his brothers to pursue in the courts, and gave up the Doncaster works. In 1806 Cartwright discovered that his loom had come into widespread use around Manchester. His debts had continued to rise after 1793, and friends in Manchester presented a petition to parliament on his behalf in 1807, signed by fifty of the largest firms. It was claimed that his loom had benefited Britain to the amount of £1.5 million, which accordingly had been successful in keeping the textile trade. Parliament recognized his contribution, and in 1809 voted him a grant of £10,000. After the failure at Doncaster, in 1793 Cartwright moved to London and continued to invent over a wide range of schemes including building, boat propulsion, steam engines and agriculture. He died in Hastings on 30 October 1823, and was buried at Battle, Sussex.

Inventor of textile manufacturing machinery, was born at Park Farm in the township of Walmersley in the parish of Bury, Lancashire, on 16 July 1704. He originally started as a clockmaker working in Leigh, Lancashire. Working alongside an inventor Thomas Highs and between them collaborated on a few ideas for machines relating to the production of textiles. John Kay had taken an idea of Thomas Highs and developed it further. They had originally come up with the idea of using rollers to spin the yarn. However, Highs stopped working on the idea and moved on to other projects. When Arkwright and Kay used the idea in their machine Highs accused Arkwright and Kay of theft, this was later to be the subject of a court case. Arkwright and Kay began working together in 1767. He was initially engaged to manufacture brass wheels but, 6 months later Arkwright engaged him to build a roller-based spinning machine. The following year, in 1768, Kay and Arkwright moved to Preston to develop the original spinning machine further. By this time Kay had become indentured to Arkwright for 21 years at half a guinea a week. Shortly after this they moved to Nottingham, at the time an established centre of the hosiery industry, in England. Arkwright and two others formed a partnership in order to exploit Arkwright’s spinning machine. It took until 3 July 1769 for the patent to be granted. When Kay heard about this, he was not happy with the situation. Later legal cases brought by Arkwright to settle his claim as being inventor of the machine, with Kay, his wife and Thomas Highs as witnesses against Arkwright. The jury sitting in the case decided to set aside the earlier patent granted to Arkwright.

Born in Stockport in 1761, died in 1842. Radcliffe was an improver of cotton machinery.