The Textilfabrik Cromford in Ratingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany was built in 1783 by Johann Gottfried Brügelmann. It was the first cotton spinning mill on the European mainland. Today it is an industrial museum specialising in textile history.

Brügelmann, came from a rich Elberfelder trading family. He heard of the Waterframes, an invention of Richard Arkwright in the Derbyshire village of Cromford, England, in the early 1770s – during a long stay in Basel. On his return to Wuppertal the cotton market was booming, it was impossible to fulfill the demand. Brügelmann recognised the potential that Arkwright's mechanising of the labour-intensive Spinning process offered. As a rule of thumb each weaver needed all the yarn that 10 hand-spinners could produce.