[4] Ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1765, and priest in 1767, Cartwright was appointed rector of Kilvington in 1767.

[6] Following the award of the parliamentary grant, Cartwright purchased a small farm in Kent, where he spent the rest of his life.

[4] All his efforts were unavailing, however; it became apparent that no mechanism, however perfect, could succeed so long as warps continued to be sized while a loom was stationary.

These problems were resolved in 1803, by William Radcliffe and his assistant Thomas Johnson, by their inventions of the beam warper, and the dressing sizing machine.

In 1790 Robert Grimshaw of Gorton, Manchester erected a weaving factory at Knott Mill which he intended to fill with 500 of Cartwright's power looms, but with only 30 in place the factory was burnt down, probably as an act of arson inspired by the fears of hand loom weavers.

He published the poem Armine and Elvira in 1770, which was followed by The Prince of Peace in 1779, directed against the American Revolutionary War.

[1][10] His Sonnets to Eminent Men (1783) included an ode to Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham, a conspicuous supporter of American independence.

[1] Their second daughter Elizabeth (1780–1837) married the Reverend John Penrose and wrote books under the pseudonym "Mrs Markham".

[14] She was her father's biographer, publishing A Memoir of the Life, Writings, and Inventions, of Edmund Cartwright, D.D.