Richard Roberts

:See Richard J. Roberts for the Nobel Prize winning biochemist.

Roberts's textile machines

Roberts moved his business in 1821, to the Globe Works in Faulkner Street. Whilst there he improved a reed-making machine, originally invented by the American Jeptha Avery Wilkinson, and in 1822 he patented a power loom. This was made entirely of iron and being precision-made was able to operate at high speed. They were turned out at the rate of 4000 per year by 1825. In 1824 he invented his most famous machine, the self-acting spinning mule, and patented it in March 1825. These were made in hundreds, and Roberts made extensive use of templates and gauges to standardise production.

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