Thomas Highs

Thomas Highs (1718–1803), of Leigh, Lancashire, was a reed-maker and manufacturer of cotton carding and spinning engines in the 1780s, during the Industrial Revolution. He is known for claiming patents on a spinning jenny, a carding machine and the throstle (a machine for the continuous twisting and winding of wool).

Thomas Highs, sometimes spelled Thomas Hayes, was born in Leigh, Lancashire in 1718 and lived most of his life there. It is said he was a reed maker. The reed is a comb-like strip attached to the batten of a loom, which keeps the warp threads apart and helps the weaver pack the weft threads tightly on the newly-woven cloth.

He married Sarah Moss on 23 February 1747, at Leigh Parish Church. Five years after his marriage, he became interested in cotton-spinning machinery and between 1763 and 1764, he worked to produce a spinning engine with John Kay, a clockmaker, who was a close neighbour of his at the time. Between 1766 and 1767 he discovered the method of spinning by rollers similar to that patented by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt and employed John Kay to help him with the construction of the mechanism.

It is undisputed that he invented a perpetual carding engine in 1773, and invented an improved double spinning jenny.

Richard Guest, claimed that Thomas Highs was the actual inventor of both Hargreaves' spinning jenny, and Arkwright's rollers, the feature of the water frame. This had been tested in court. Richard Guest firstly wrote 'A History of Cotton Manufacture' in 1823, this was partially quoted by the Baines in History of Lancashire, Vol 1 p118 Vol2 p134 and then by McCullough in the Edinburgh Review. Guest then self-published a 233-page book, 'The British Cotton Manufactures: and a Reply to an Article on the Spinning Contained in a Recent Number of the Edinburgh Review' that accused Baines and McCullough of plagiarism and asserted that Highs was indeed the inventor of both these items. Baines wrote 'History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain'; it was published in 1835. He discusses Guests conjecture in an extensive footnote, where he dismisses Richard Guest's claim

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