His son Captain Arkwright married Francis Kemble, daughter of the theatre manager Stephen Kemble. Richard Arkwright junior was born in Bolton. His mother, Patience Holt, died when he was only a few months and his father, Sir Richard Arkwright, raised him on his own until he was six, and married Margaret Biggensin, with whom he had a daughter, Susan.
Sir Richard had earlier patented the water frame, a roller-spinning machine powered by water, that turned textile spinning into a factory industry and in so doing he founded the factory system of manufacture. Richard Arkwright junior followed in his illustrious father’s footsteps and he developed the factory system even further. He was an outstanding organiser of labour and machinery processing, ambitious, forceful and persevering.
The wealth of Arkwright, much greater than that of his father, was not only due to the textile industry.
He decided to invest in real estate and banks, and began to sell some factories to invest in government securities and real estate. This saved him from bankruptcy when a major economic depression descended upon Great Britain, after the defeat of Napoleon.
At his death he was at the head of a fortune amounting to over three million pounds, which made him the richest British man from the bourgeoisie. Arkwright was the High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1801.
These two works illustrate the difference in wealth between the two generations.
The painting of Richard junior and his family, painted in 1790, was intended as a pendant to Wright"s portrait of Sir Richard, and was thought the best of the four paintings which hung in the Arkwrights family estate dining room at Willersley Castle. This painting was on loan and in the collection of Derby Museum and Art Gallery, where it was exhibited next to the one representing his father. The painting was sold at Sotheby’s on 29 November 2001.
In 2003, the painting was to be moved to the United States but the Derby Museum launched a petition to keep it in its home country.
lieutenant is a cornerstone to the society. The Arkwright Society, which was also concerned about the departure of the painting, took an active part in this campaign and the picture eventually remained in England.
