HAD Edmund Cartwright thought for one moment of the hardship and
misery he was about to unleash on a vulnerable section of
society, he would never have sat down to invent the power loom.
Cartwright (1743-1823) was a Church of England minister, with a
clergyman's love for his fellow man, so he would have been
mortified to watch the long, agonising death throes of the hand-
loom weaving industry that his invention caused. The 18th
century was full of men who excelled in several different fields
at the same time, but if anyone deserved the description of
polymath, it was Cartwright. Born into a landed family in
Marnham, Nottinghamshire, he was one of three brothers who all
became nationally famous. John, born in 1740, would be one of
Britain's best-known radical politicians while George, the
eldest (born 1739) followed his army career by becoming a fur
trapper and explorer in Canada. He earned the sobriquet of
“Labrador Cartwright,” and was the first man to bring Eskimos to
Britain – a family of five accompanied