His mother, Patience Holt, died when he was only a few months old, and his father, Sir Richard Arkwright, raised him on his own until he was six, then married Margaret Biggens, with whom he had a daughter, Susan and Mary Anne.

Recognition followed of the economy of scale of bulk, quality textiles among consumers and cloth dealers across the world, and thus from investors in turn, making the spinning (together with combing, weaving and various other required stages) of a modern cotton industry the heart of British manufacturing.

Cotton and several other raw textile goods were mass-imported from the British Empire to be worked by the export-heavy zones such as the Lancashire Mill Towns and later processed by the linen, drapery and garment, usually factory-based, industries.

[3] In 1804 he became a partner in the bank of John Toplis, and when the latter died in 1829, he took its full possession and financed agricultural landlords (richly speculating and pledging security for coal mining and iron ore projects), contractors and governmental plans: like his father, he financed great works in the transportation sector and railways, including the Cromford Canal.

At death, his wealth kept ahead of inflation, being over three million pounds (equivalent to £372,013,800,000 in 2023), some decades before having surpassed the late Richard Crawshay as the richest British person from the bourgeoisie (non-aristocracy).

The father is sitting on an ordinary chair, behind his invention, the source of his new social status, whereas the other painting represents Richard junior, with his wife Mary and daughter Anne, all dressed in expensive clothes to the latest fashion with a view of the park of the family estate.