Marvel's Mill

"The Cotton Mill on the River Nen", from Noble and Butlin's 1746 map of Northampton - the earliest known pictorial representation of a cotton mill.[1]

Marvel's Mill (or Marvell's Mill) on the River Nene in Northampton, England, was the world's second factory for spinning cotton, the first to be operated as a water mill, and the first to be driven by an inanimate power-source.[2] Opened by Edward Cave in 1742, it was one of the Paul-Wyatt cotton mills that used the roller spinning machinery invented by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, which had first been used in their Upper Priory Cotton Mill in Birmingham in the summer of 1741.[3]

  1. ^ Bates 1996, p. 241; Smith, D. (December 1989), "The representation of non-extractive industry on large-scale county maps of England and Wales 1700 -c. 1840", The Cartographic Journal, 26 (2), Maney Publishing: 134–147, doi:10.1179/caj.1989.26.2.134
  2. ^ Wadsworth & Mann 1931, p. 433; Bates 1996, pp. 237; Mantoux 1928, p. 214
  3. ^ Bates 1996, pp. 238–241