- Goulding, John
- SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 1791 Massachusetts, USA d. 1877[br]American inventor of an early form of condenser carding machine.[br]The condenser method of spinning was developed chiefly by manufacturers and machine makers in eastern Massachusetts between 1824 and 1826. John Goulding, a machinist from Dedham in Massachusetts, combined the ring doffer, patented by Ezekiel Hale in 1825, and the revolving twist tube, patented by George Danforth in 1824; with the addition of twisting keys in the tubes, the carded woollen sliver could be divided and then completely and continuously twisted. He divided the carded web longitudinally with the ring doffer and twisted these strips to consolidate them into slubbings. The dividing was carried out by covering the periphery of the doffer cylinder with separate rings of card clothing and spacing these rings apart by rings of leather, so that instead of width-way detached strips leaving the card, the strips were continuous and did not require piecing. The strips were passed through rotating tubes and wound on bobbins, and although the twist was false it sufficed to compress the fibres together ready for spinning. Goulding patented his invention in both Britain and the USA in 1826, but while his condensers were very successful and within twenty years had been adopted by a high proportion of woollen mills in America, they were not adopted in Britain until much later. Goulding also worked on other improvements to woollen machinery: he developed friction drums, on which the spools of roving from the condenser cards were placed to help transform the woollen jenny into the woollen mule or jack.[br]Bibliography1826, British patent no. 5,355 (condenser carding machine).Further ReadingD.J.Jeremy, 1981, Transatlantic Industrial Revolution. The Diffusion of Textile Technologies Between Britain and America, 1790–1830s, Oxford (provides a good explanation of the development of the condenser card).W.English, 1969, The Textile Industry, London (a brief account).C.Singer (ed.), 1958, A History of Technology, Vol. IV, Oxford: Clarendon Press (a brief account).RLH
Biographical history of technology. - Taylor & Francis e-Librar. Lance Day and Ian McNeil. 2005.
