Robert Owen was born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire (Wales) on 14 May 1771, the sixth of seven children. His father was a saddler and ironmonger who also served as local postmaster; his mother came from one of Newtown's wealthy 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 work in 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 found himself in what would soon become the capital of England's industrial revolution on the eve of that event as factories were built and textile production expanded. He was a serious and methodical young man who already possessed extensive knowledge of the retail aspect of his chosen profession. In the late 1790s he borrowed £100 from his brother William and set up his own business with a mechanic named Jones as the maker of the new spinning mules. After a few months he separated from Jones and started his own business with three mules as a cotton spinner. In 1792, Owen applied for and was appointed manager of Peter Drinkwater's new spinning factory, the Piccadilly Mill, where he quickly gained a reputation as a spinner of fine yarn, thanks to the application of steam power to the mule. One of Drinkwater's most important customers was Samuel Oldknow, a manufacturer of fine muslins. Drinkwater had intended for Owen to become a partner in his new business by 1795, but a marriage alliance engineered between Drinkwater's daughter and Oldknow caused the agreement with Owen to be cancelled. 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 and inexperienced businessmen, Jonathan Scarth and Richard Moulson, who undertook to build cotton mills on land purchased from Marsland, and the three partners were assisted by Marsland. In 1796, the company's financial base was expanded with the inclusion of Thomas Atkinson, thus forming the Chorlton Twist Company, which in 1799 negotiated the purchase of David Dale's works in New Lanark..