A political and legal theorist as well as a belletristic writer, John Mercer was born in Dublin, the namesake of his Anglo-Irish merchant father. Mercer claimed to have attended Trinity College, but since records do not show a graduation date, he...

During the mid-to-late 1800s there were a number of important advances in the textiles industry: the inventions of the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame spinner, and the mechanical loom all helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution....