Ring spinning frame

M1 type ring spinning frame, with associated parts and accessories, manufactured by Platt Bros & Co. Ltd in Oldham, about 1950-1960 and used at the University of Manchester Institute of Technology.

Ring spinning is one of a variety of methods used to spin yarn. It is known as a continuous spinning process, because the yarn is twisted and wound onto a bobbin at the same time. This is in contrast to mule spinning, which is known as an intermittent spinning process, because the yarn is first twisted, before being wound onto a bobbin.

Ring spinning technology was developed from the 1830s in North America, and was employed extensively in the cotton mills of New England. However, the Lancashire textiles industry was much slower to adopt the ring spinning frame, with mule spinning continuing to predominate.

Whilst ring spinning machines could produce more yarn per hour than a mule, could be operated by lower skilled (and therefore cheaper) workers, and produced strong yarn, the process generally produced a coarser quality of thread. It was more difficult to produce the fine yarn which could be spun on a mule, the market for which Lancashire's industry catered heavily.

There are other factors that held back the wider adoption of the technology in Lancashire, including the fact that the ring frame treated the cotton fibres more harshly, and therefore required higher quality (and therefore more expensive) raw cotton. The ring frame also produced packages of yarn which had to be re-wound before they was ready to be used in loom's shuttle. In contrast, mules treated the cotton more gently, and could produce shuttle-ready yarn.

Nevertheless, ring spinning frames like this example were employed by a sizeable number of Lancashire textile firms, including those producing coarser yarn, and those manufacturing the strong warp threads required for used on automatic looms. Many of the machines were supplied by Platt Brothers and Co. of Oldham, who produced this example in around 1950. The M1 type ring frame became a popular model and was also exported by Platt Brothers to mills around the world. Today, ring spinning is the most widely employed method of yarn production.