John KayBorn 16 Jul 1704; died 1764 .John Kay was an English machinist and engineer, inventor of the flying shuttle power loom, patented 1733, which was an important step toward automatic weaving. Kay placed shuttle boxes at each side of the loom connected by a long board, known as a shuttle race. By means of cords attached to a picking peg, a single weaver, using one hand, could cause the shuttle to be knocked back and forth across the loom from one shuttle box to the other. A weaver using Kay's flying shuttle could produce much wider cloth at faster speeds than before. However, at first, weavers had furiously resented him for, they thought, harming their livelihood. Thus, he was driven out of the country, and he died in poverty and obsurity in France. |
