Weaving a fine web
RAMESH SETH
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Although Kay's invention was a major step in industrialisation, he died a pauper, in obscurity.
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John Kay's invention of the "Flying shuttle" in 1733 started a revolution.
FLYING SHUTTLE: An illustration.
Ever since their discovery, cloth-weaving shuttles have become an integral part of the process of enabling cloth to be woven on looms. John Kay's invention of the "Flying shuttle" in 1733 started a revolution.
John Kay was born in a yeoman farming family at Park, a tiny hamlet just North of Bury, on June 17, 1704. His father died before he was born, and he was eventually apprenticed to a reed maker. Reeds are comb-like devices attached to the handloom that keep the warp threads separated. He was always innovative and he designed a new type of reed made from polished wire, in place of the traditional reeds.
Labour saving
John Kay's invention of the flying shuttle allowed the shuttle containing the weft thread to be shot backwards and forwards across a much wider loom bed, thus overcoming the limitation of the width which was hitherto restricted to an arm's length. The flying shuttle also allowed the thread to be woven at a faster rate, thus enabling the process of weaving to become faster.
To weave a piece of cloth one needs to criss-cross yarn, one thread being horizontal, called warp, and the other crossing it side-wise called weft.
The warp is first mounted lengthwise on a creel and fixed on the loom. It is the weft, which is thrown across the width of the loom, through the shuttle. The speed of the weaving process depends upon the speed of the weft. This was the way looms worked for centuries and it was fine as far as it went. But it meant that a single operator could not weave material wider than his outstretched arms, and both his hands were occupied in catching and throwing the shuttle. What Kay's Flying Shuttle did was to mechanise the process. The shuttle was flung from side to side mechanically, from spring-loaded boxes placed on either side of the loom, using what he termed a fly cord and a picking stick. It needed just one hand to achieve this, freeing the other to operate the reed comb, which, besides separating the warps, also compacted the weft threads to complete the weaving process.
Till that time textile was a household industry. Women of the family spun yarn and the man of the house wove it on his loom. Normally three women could spin enough yarn to feed one loom. Now since the shuttle moved much faster it speeded up the production of cloth. A weaver using the flying loom could easily turn out the output of two or more weavers plying old looms. So he needed more yarn. That set the stage for the next innovation, faster spinning of yarn. These two, the flying shuttle and the spinning jenny, made for the beginning of the industrial revolution in England.
As the flying shuttle halved labour costs, the textile industry was quick to adopt Kay's invention. It was a vast improvement, and proved so popular with weavers that Kay was kept busy making, selling and fitting them to looms all over the country. Later, people started manufacturing such looms even without his consent, despite his patent. Kay fought legal battles to recover royalty but was ruined in the costly litigation. The manufacturers formed an association, which refused to pay Kay any royalty.
REMEMBERED POSTHUMOUSLY
The textile labour considered the flying shuttle an anti-labour device, a direct attack on their livelihood. Machine breakers raided his home in 1753. There is evidence that these neighbours were out to kill him, and Kay escaped their clutches only by climbing out of a window and legging it across the moors.
Despite such acts of vandalism Kay's flying shuttle was taken up first by woollen weavers who, at that time, still dominated the Northern textile trade. But they declined to pay him royalty and he was almost ruined by the cost of litigation in trying to recover royalty. Disillusioned, Kay left again for France and obscurity, dying there, a pauper, around 1780, probably all too painfully aware of the effect his invention was having on the world.
However, in death Kay is being remembered very well. In his native Bury, there is a Kay Memorial Garden where a beautiful monument is raised in his memory.
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