false claims were being made about hargreaves as early as 1835. a ferocious legal battle had been mounted in the 1780s to have richard arkwright's most important patents annulled. thomas highs had claimed that he was the true inventor of both the spinning frame and the spinning jenny. conflicting evidence as to the circumstances of several inventions was canvassed , and although arkwright's patents were annulled, the question of authorship was not settled. richard guest, writing in the "edinburgh review", introduced several errors, and a distorted view of his life and contributions has persisted ever since. parish burial records show that hargreaves (misspelt as "hargraves") did not die in the workhouse, as had been claimed; other records show that neither hargreaves's wife nor any of his daughters bore the name jenny, contrary to a myth repeated in school textbooks as late as the 1960s, children's books as late as 2005 and on educational websites to the present day. the 'jenny' refers to an engine, a common slang term in lancashire in the 18th century, and encountered occasionally even now.