A paper read at the Birmingham Free Reference Library on 16 June 1921 tracing the invention of roller drawing, the principle behind cotton spinning machinery. It compares the claims of Lewis Paul and John Wyatt (patents of 1738 and 1758) with those of Richard Arkwright (1769). It draws on the Wyatt manuscripts, John Dyer's poem 'The Fleece', and testimony from the Arkwright patent trials, and concludes that Arkwright was the true inventor of the working roller drawing system. It includes biographical material on Paul, Wyatt, Arkwright and Jedediah Strutt, a transcribed 1772 Arkwright letter to Strutt, and four plates of spinning machine drawings.