William Radcliffe (1761?, in Mellor, Derbyshire – 20 May 1842, in Stockport[1]) was a British inventor and author of the essay Origin of the New System of Manufacture, Commonly Called Power Loom Weaving.
This development and others such as weavers being able to rely on uninterrupted supplies of yarn led to spinning being concentrated in factories.
In 1789, Radcliffe opened a large cotton weaving factory at Mellor, in Derbyshire (now Greater Manchester).
In a letter dated 1 May 1804, which was never sent but later published in an 1811 book called Letters on the Evils of the Exportation of Cotton Yarns, Radcliffe said he regarded profit as being made up of two parts: interest on money and a sort of entrepreneurial wage.
In 1828, he wrote the essay Origin of the New System of Manufacture, Commonly Called Power Loom Weaving, later reprinted in J. F. C. Harrison's Society and Politics in England, 1780–1960 (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).