Robert Owen was born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire (Wales) on 14 May 1771, the sixth of seven children. His father was a sadler and ironmonger who was also a local postmaster; his mother came from one of Newtown's prosperous farming families. Owen attended the local school where he developed a strong passion for reading. At the age of ten, he was sent to seek his fortune in London with his older brother, William. After a few weeks, Owen found a position with a large drapery company in Stamford, Lincolnshire, where he served as an apprentice. After three years he returned to London where he served under another draper. Then, in 1787 or 1788, he moved to Manchester in the employ of Mr. Satterfield, a wholesale and retail drapery merchant. Owen now finds himself in what would soon become the capital of the English Industrial Revolution on the eve of that event as factories were built and textile manufacturing expanded. He was a serious and methodical young man who already had extensive knowledge of the retail side of his chosen profession. In late 1790 he borrowed £100 from his brother William and set up independently with a mechanic named Jones to manufacture the new spinning mules. After a few months he separated from Jones and set out on his own with three mules as a cotton spinner. In 1792 Owen applied for and was appointed manager of Peter Drinkwater's new spinning mill, the Piccadilly Mill, where he quickly gained a reputation as a spinner of fine yarns, through the application of steam by mule. One of Drinkwater's most important customers was Samuel Oldknow, maker of fine muslins. Drinkwater had planned for Owen to become a partner in his new business by 1795, but a proposed matrimonial alliance between Drinkwater's daughter and Oldknow caused the agreement with Owen to be canceled. Injured and unwilling to remain a mere manager, Owen left Piccadilly Mill in 1795. Owen was approached by Samuel Marsland who intended to develop the Chorlton estate in Manchester, but instead found partners in two young men of inexperienced businessmen, Jonathan Scarth and Richard Moulson, who undertook to erect cotton mills on land purchased from Marsland, and the three partners were assisted by Marsland. In 1796 the financial base of the company was expanded with the inclusion of Thomas Atkinson, thus forming the Chorlton Twist Company, which in 1799 negotiated the purchase of the New Lanark mills of David Dale..