John Wyatt (April 1700 – 29 November 1766), an English inventor, was born near Lichfield and was related to Sarah Ford, Doctor Johnson's mother.
A carpenter by trade he began work in Birmingham on the development of a spinning machine.
In 1733 he was working in the mill at New Forge (Powells) Pool, Sutton Coldfield attempting to spin the first cotton thread ever spun by mechanical means.
His principal partner was Lewis Paul (who was sponsored by the Duke of Shrewsbury)[citation needed] and together they developed the concept of elongating cotton threads by running them through rollers and then stretching them through a faster second set of rollers.
In their book Das Kapital, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: