Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792), was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited with inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn. A self-made man, he was a leading entrepreneur of the Industrial Revolution. Arkwright's achievement was to combine power, machinery, semi-skilled labour, and a new raw material (cotton) to create, more than a century before Ford, mass produced yarn. His skills of organization made him more than anyone else, the creator of the modern factory system, especially in his mill at Cromford.

Richard Arkwright, the youngest of thirteen children, was born in Preston, Lancashire, England on the 23rd December 1732. His father, Thomas, was a tailor and a Preston Guild burgess. The family are recorded in the Preston Guild Rolls now held by Lancashire Record Office. Richard's parents, Sarah and Thomas, could not afford to send him to school and instead arranged for him to be taught to read and write by his cousin Ellen. Richard was apprenticed to a Mr. Nicholson, a barber at nearby Kirkham and began his working life as a barber and wig-maker, setting up a shop at Churchgate in Bolton in the early 1750s. It was here that he invented a waterproof dye for use on the fashionable 'periwigs' (wigs) of the time, the income from which later facilitated his financing of prototype cotton machinery.