Möller, Anton

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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fl. c. 1580 Danzig, Poland

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Polish may have been involved with the invention of the ribbon loom.

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Around 1586, Anton Möller related that he saw in Danzig a loom on which four to six pieces of ribbon could be woven at once. Some accounts say he may have invented this loom, which required no skill to use beyond the working of a bar. The city council was afraid that a great many workers might be reduced to begging because of this invention, so they had it suppressed and the inventor strangled or drowned. It seems to have been in use in London c. 1616 and at Leiden in Holland by 1620, but its spread was handicapped both by popular rioting and by restrictive legislation. By 1621 the capacity of the loom had been increased to twenty-four ribbons, and it was later increased to fifty. It made its appearance in Lancashire around 1680 and the way the shuttles were operated could have given John Kay the inspiration for his flying shuttle.

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Further Reading

A.Barlow, 1878, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, London (includes a good description and illustration of the invention).

T.K.Deny and T.I.Williams, 1960, A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times

to AD 1900, Oxford; C.Singer (ed.), 1957, A History of Technology, Vol. III, Oxford: Clarendon Press (both provide brief accounts of the introduction of the ribbon loom).

RLH