John Thorp

At Pawtucket, R. I., last week a group of cotton manufacturers solemnly watched an oblong bronze plaque uncovered and heard Vice President Robert Amory of the Cotton Textile Institute say:

"Today the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers meets here one century after the invention of John Thorp, to honor his memory by dedicating this tablet. We should all solemnly resolve that the industry which John Thorp, more than any other man, made possible, shall not languish, but shall gather renewed energy to the end that the textile industry of New England shall regain the leadership to which it is entitled."

John Thorp's invention was a ring device for spinning cotton thread from cotton fibre more rapidly and perfectly than any previous machine. Mainly because of it is the present vastness of the world's textile industries possible. Of 160,000,000 cotton spinning spindles in the world, 100,-ooo.ooo use the Thorp ring. Very little is known about the inventor. The Ency-clopcedia Britannica mentions him only twice, misspelling his name "Thorpe" both times.

But Charles H. Clark, editor of the Textile World, has been zealous & learned. He solemnly told the cotton men at Pawtucket last week, that: "Thorp was born in 1784, presumably in Rehoboth, Mass., the son of Reuben and Hannah (Bucklin) Thorp. No records of the date and place of his birth have been located, but entries in the Bibles of his brothers, David and Comfort, agree that at the time of his death, Nov. 15, 1848, he was sixty-four years old. For the assumption that he was born in Rehoboth there is the fact that his father and mother were married there and a record showing the birth of his elder brother, David, at Rehoboth, Mass. . . . Thorp died without issue and outlived his wife. . . . He had left no evidence of having been distinguished by any quality excepting great mechanical skill and vision." Bound to this sadly thin genealogy was a picture. The New York Journal of Commerce reproduced that picture and under it printed:

"John Thorp, Putative Photograph of Inventor of Ring Spinning Honored at Cotton Manufacturers' Convention." No more.