Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Roberts loom was a cast-iron power loom introduced by Richard Roberts in 1830. It was the first power loom considered more viable than a hand loom, being both easily adjustable and reliable, which led to its widespread adoption in the Lancashire cotton industry.
Richard Roberts invented the Roberts loom. He was born at Llanymynech, on the border between England and Wales, the son of a shoemaker who also kept the New Bridge tollgate. Roberts later worked from 15 Deansgate, Manchester, where he developed his most important textile machinery patents.
Britain had around 2,400 power looms in 1803 and around 14,650 by 1820. After the Roberts loom's introduction in 1830, the count rose to around 55,500 by 1829 and reached 100,000 by 1833.
Richard Roberts patented a cast-iron loom in 1822 and then patented the self-acting mule in 1830. The 1830 power loom incorporated ideas already present in the 1822 patent, while the self-acting mule addressed the spinning bottleneck that followed the loom's widespread adoption.
As the warp beam emptied, its effective diameter shrank, causing threads to slacken. Roberts solved this by adding a wooden pulley to the beam, wrapping it with two turns of rope attached to mill weights, so the friction of those weights retarded the beam and kept the warp at even tension.
The Roberts loom, combined with the self-acting mule, transformed textile production from a skilled craft into an industrial process that semi-skilled workers could operate. Mule spinning became identified as men's work, while weaving on the power loom became identified as women's work in contemporary accounts.