Daily AncestorMule spinner
A mule spinner ran a spinning mule, a long machine whose moving carriage drew out and twisted yarn on hundreds of spindles at once.
The spinning mule was invented in England in the late 1700s and was used in cotton and wool mills into the 1900s. Its carriage rolled back and forth across the floor, stretching and twisting the yarn.
One spinner, called a minder in Lancashire, worked a pair of mules with the help of boys called piecers, who joined broken threads. In a census the title marks a skilled position, a step above the general mill operative.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1880 census
Jas. Whitehead, 38, Mule spinner, England
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Mule spinner." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/mule-spinner. Last checked 2026-10-01.