John Kay (flying shuttle)

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Not to be confused with John Kay of Warrington who invented the spinning frame.
Flying shuttle showing metal capped ends, wheels, and a pirn of weft thread
John Kay
File:PublicDomainColourPortraitOfJohnKayBorn1704.jpg
Portrait, said to be of John Kay in the 1750s,[1] but probably of his son,[2] "Frenchman" John Kay.[3]
Born 17 June (N.S 28 June) 1704[4]
Walmersley, Bury, Lancashire, England
Died circa 1779[5][6][7]
France
Nationality English
Occupation Inventor
Known for Flying shuttle
Spouse(s) Anne Holte[8]
Children Lettice, Robert (drop box inventor), Ann, Samuel, Lucy, James, John, Alice, Shuse, William, (and two other children who died in childhood)[9]
Parent(s) Robert Kay and Ellin Kay, née Entwisle

John Kay (17 June 1704 – c. 1779) was the inventor of the flying shuttle, which was a key contribution to the Industrial Revolution. He is often confused with his namesake,[11][12] who built the first "spinning frame".[13]

Early life

John Kay was born on 17 June 1704 (in the Julian calendar) in the Lancashire hamlet of Walmersley,[4] just north of Bury. His yeoman farmer father, Robert, owned the "Park" estate in Walmersley, and John was born there.[14] Robert died before John was born, leaving Park House to his eldest son. As Robert's fifth son (out of ten), John was bequeathed £40 (at age 21) and an education until the age of 14.[15] His mother was responsible for educating him until she remarried.

Apprenticeship

He apprenticed with a hand-loom reed maker, but is said to have returned home within a month claiming to have mastered the business.[16] He designed a metal substitute for the natural reed that proved popular enough for him to sell throughout England.[12] After travelling the country, making and fitting wire reeds, he returned to Bury and, on 29 June 1725, both he and his brother, William, married Bury women. John's wife was Anne Holte.[17] His daughter Lettice was born in 1726, and his son Robert in 1728.[18]

In Bury he continued to design improvements to textile machinery; in 1730 he patented a cording and twisting machine for worsted.[19]

The flying shuttle

In 1733,[20] he received a patent for his most revolutionary device: a "wheeled shuttle" for the hand loom.[21][22] It greatly accelerated weaving,[23] by allowing the shuttle carrying the weft to be passed through the warp threads faster and over a greater width of cloth.[24] It was designed for the broad loom, for which it saved labour over the traditional process, needing only one operator per loom (before Kay's improvements a second worker was needed to catch the shuttle). [25]

Kay always called this invention a "wheeled shuttle", but others used the name "fly-shuttle" (and later, "flying shuttle") because of its continuous speed, especially when a young worker was using it in a narrow loom:

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a speed which cannot be imagined, so great that the shuttle can only be seen like a tiny cloud which disappears the same instant.

— Roland de la Platière, Encyclopédie Méthodique (1785)[26]

Opposition

File:Reed diagram.jpg
Reed structure: A: wires or dents
B: wooden ribs
C: tarred cord

In July 1733, Kay formed a partnership in Colchester, Essex to begin fly-shuttle manufacturing.[27] No industrial unrest was anticipated, this being the first device of the modern era to significantly enhance productivity.[28] But by September 1733 the Colchester weavers, were so concerned for their livelihoods that they petitioned the King to stop Kay's inventions.[27]

The flying shuttle was to create a particular imbalance by doubling weaving productivity without changing the rate at which thread could be spun,[29] disrupting spinners, and weavers alike.

Kay tried to promote the fly-shuttle in Bury, but could not convince the woollen manufacturers that it was sufficiently robust; he spent the next two years improving the technnology, until it had several advantages over the device specified in the 1733 patent. (Which was to be one of his difficulties in the coming patent disputes.)[30]

In 1738 Kay went to Leeds, where his problem had become royalty collection.[31] (The annual license fee was 15 Shillings per shuttle.)[5] He continued to invent, patenting some machines in the same year, though these were not taken up industrially.[32]

The Shuttle Club

Kay (and, initially, his partners) launched numerous patent infringement lawsuits, but if any of these cases were successful,[33] compensation was below the cost of prosecution. Rather than capitulate, the manufacturers formed "the Shuttle Club", a syndicate which paid the costs of any member brought to court; their strategy of patent piracy and mutual indeminification nearly bankrupted Kay.[34]

In 1745, he and Joseph Stell patented a machine for cloth ribbon weaving, which they anticipated might be worked by water wheel,[20] but they were unable to advance their plans because of Kay's legal costs.[32] Impoverished and harassed, Kay was compelled to leave Leeds, and he returned to Bury.[35] Also in 1745, John's twelfth (and final) child, William, was born.[9]

Kay remained inventive; in 1746 he was working on an efficient method of salt production,[36] and designing improvements to spinning technology – but that made him unpopular among Bury spinners[35] Also, fly-shuttle use was becoming widespread in weaving,[37] increasing cotton yarn demand and its price – and Kay was blamed.[38]

Life in France

He had suffered violent treatment in England, but he did not leave the country on that account, but because of his inability to enforce (or profit from) his patent rights.[39] Trudaine's Bureau de Commerce was known to support textile innovations (and would later actively recruit immigrant inventors).[40] Probably encouraged by the prospect of state support,[41] in 1747, Kay left England for France (where he had never been before, and did not speak the language).

State subsidy

He went to Paris, and throughout 1747 negotiated with the French Government (in English) to sell them his technology.[42]

Denied the huge lump sum he wanted, Kay finally agreed to 3,000 livres plus a pension of 2,500 livre,[5] (annually from 1749) in exchange for his patent, and instruction in its use (to the manufactures of Normandy). He retained the sole rights to shuttle production in France,[43] and brought three of his sons to Paris to make them. Although wary of entering the manufacturing provinces (because of his experiences with rioting weavers in England) he was prevailed upon to do so.

At one time, the French authorities may have discouraged his communication with England,[44] but Kay wrote about the unanticipated use of his technology in England to the French government:

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My new shuttles are also used in England to make all sorts of narrow woollen goods, although their use could have been more perfect had the weavers consulted me

— John Kay, Letter in the French Archives nationales[45]

The beginning of mechanisation in French textile production is traditionally dated to 1753, with the widespread adoption of the flying shuttle there.[46] Most of these new shuttles were copies, not made by the Kays. John Kay unsuccessfully tried to enforce his manufacturing monopoly, and began to quarrel with the French authorities, briefly returning to England, in 1756.[47] (It is said that he was in his Bury home in 1753 when it was vandalised by a mob – and that he narrowly escaped with his life,[32] [48] but this is probably a 19th-century tale based on earlier Colchester riots. Kay was probably in France throughout the early 1750s.)[49]

File:Johnkaymemorial.jpg
William Venn Gough's 1908 Memorial to John Kay (sculpture by John Cassidy) in Bury town centre.[50] Planning began after a 1903 Bury public meeting launched a public subscription. 19th century efforts to acknowledge Kay achieved little, but by 1903 it was felt that Bury "owed John Kay's memory an atonement", and that all Bury should contribute in restitution to "that wonderfully ingenious and martyred man".[51]

He found his prospects in England unimproved; by 1758 he was back in France, which became his adopted country,[5] though he was to visit England at least twice more. In the winter of 1765/66 he appealed to the Royal Society of Arts to reward him for his inventions, and exhibited his card-making machine for them. The Society could find no-one who understood the shuttle,[35] and there was a breakdown in correspondence, so that no award was ever made. He was in England again in 1773, but returned to France in 1774 having lost his pension (at aged 70).

Old age

His offer to teach pupils if the pension were restored was not taken up, and he spent his remaining years developing and building machines for cotton manufactures in Sens and Troyes. Though he was busy with engineering and letter-writing until 1779, he received only 1,700 livres from the French state over these five years, reaching a state of penury in March 1778 before receiving his final advance (to develop yet more machinery).[52]

His last known letter (1779-06-08) listed his latest achievements for the Intendant de Commerce, and proposed further inventions. But since these were never made, and no more is heard of the 75-year-old Kay, it is believed that he must have died later in 1779.[7]

Legacy

John Kay's son, Robert, stayed in Britain,[53] and in 1760 developed the "drop-box",[20][54] which enabled looms to use multiple flying shuttles simultaneously, allowing multicolour wefts.[24]

His son John ("French Kay") had long resided with his father in France. In 1782 he provided an account of his father's troubles to Richard Arkwright, who sought to highlight problems with patent defence in a parliamentary petition.[55]

Ford Madox Brown portrayed Kay and his invention in a mural painting in Manchester Town Hall.

In Bury, Kay has become a local hero: there are still several pubs named after him, as are the Kay Gardens.[56]

Thomas Sutcliffe

In the 1840s, Thomas Sutcliffe (one of Kay's great-grandsons) campaigned to promote a Colchester heritage for Kay's family. In 1846 he unsuccessfully sought a parliamentary grant for Kay's descendants (in compensation for his ancestor's treatment in England).[32] He was inaccurate in the details of his grandfather's genealogy and story, and his "Fanciful and Erroneous Statements" were discredited by John Lord's detailed examination of primary sources.[57][58][59]

See also

References

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  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ John Ainsworth (b. 1777) says in his book Walks around Bury (1842) that he saw this picture in 1842, and that it appeared to show the inventor's son who he knew "very well". Although Ainsworth knew the son as an old man, and could not have met the inventor himself, Lord (1903) wrote that this "settles the question of doubt as regards the portraits which Lieut.-Col. Sutcliffe put into circulation as a portrait of his great-grandfather" (the fly-shuttle inventor) because Ainsworth is a more reliable source than Sutcliffe, who originated the claim that the elder John Kay is pictured.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. As well as the identification of the sitter given by John Ainsworth, the "French" clothing and tricorne were characteristic of "Frenchman" John Kay in 1790s Bury (where he was considered a "fop" -see Lord (1903) pages 91–92).
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ J. B. Thompson's 1964 summary in The achievements of Western civilisation says "date of death unknown". Nobody has yet found exact records or year of his death, though all sources agree it occurred in France between 1764 and 1780. His final year is often given as 1764 (for instance, by the London Science Museum) and often as 1780 (e.g. the BBC's History of the world gives a 1780 death date in the South of France at age 76). Lord (1903) was skeptical that Kay reached 70. And, in the Bury Times (27 December 1902) Lord wrote "The death of John Kay, in Paris, occurred in 1767 or 1768" (see: Bygone Bury p. 108). Lord acknowledges that no Paris death registration exists for John Kay between 1750 and 1770, but says that this is because "documents of all kinds were destroyed during the Commune revolutionary days" —see Lord (1903) p. 169. Mann (1931) reports a July 1779 letter from Kay (largely ruling out earlier dates) but says that he very probably died shortly after the letter was written and that the author of Thoughts on the Use of Machines (1780, probably Dorning Rasbotham) makes a "natural error" in writing that Kay was still alive in 1780.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Mann (1931) p. 464-465
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lord (1903) p.82
  10. ↑ Lord (1903) p.91, reports the 1850 recollections of John Kay's great-granddaughter, who called the Kays of Park "Jacobites... High Churchmen in Religion and Radical Reformers in Politics."
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (John Kay's essay on the two John Kays of the Industrial Revolution).
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. "who has not the slightest connection with John Kay, the inventor of the fly-shuttle" (p. 330)... "John Kay, a watchmaker, who is not for a moment to be confounded with John Kay of Bury, the undoubted inventor of the fly-shuttle" (p. 378)
  14. ↑ Lord (1903) p.86 – The Park House, pictured.
  15. ↑ Lord (1903) p.76
  16. ↑ Lord (1903) p.91
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lord (1903) p. 81
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ More specifically, for a "New Engine or Machine for Opening and Dressing Wool" that incorporated his flying shuttle – John Kay Biography (1704–1764). A less important part of the same patent (British patent no. 542) describes the 'batting machine' he had invented to rid the wool of dust. The critical specification attached to the patent dated 26 May 1733 (No. 542) describes "A new invented shuttle, for the better and more exact weaving of broad cloths, broad bays, sail cloths or any other broad goods...by running on four wheels moves over the lower side of the web and spring, on a board about nine feet long... a small cord commanded by the hand of the weaver, the weaver, sitting in the middle of the loom, with great ease and expedition by a small pull at the cord casts or moves the said new invented shuttle from side to side", quoted in Mantoux (1928).
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (However, the Bury town meeting called to honour John Kay in 1903 noted that the biblical shuttle was still in use at that time in India, where two people often still worked a single loom —though mill production was flourishing there.)
  26. ↑ Translation given in Mann (1931) p.470. If Roland wrote this part of the Encyclopédie Méthodique, he was writing about a shuttle he'd seen in Rouen in 1785, that would have been manufactured under Kay's supervision, or modelled after his design.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. In 1738 Patent No. 561 was issued to Kay for a windmill for working pumps and for an improved pump-chain.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Barlow (1878) p.97
  36. ↑ Mann (1931) p.456
  37. ↑ Mantoux (1928) says that the shuttle appears in some districts much later, and violence against the 'engine weavers' was continuing in 1760s London (pg.208). In Britain, the invention was only acknowledged to be in 'general use' by 1760, and then only for cotton, but it was standard practice much earlier. In 1747, before making any offers to Kay, the French Government inquired in London about the shuttles' uptake, and were assured that "no one uses anything but his shuttles" – Mann (1931) p.467. The impression that the "fly-shuttle" had been very widely adopted by 1746 may have been due to a confusion of this advance with another that Kay had made in 1734–1735: in the method of shuttle bobbin winding to reduce breaks. It was this simpler step that was first widely copied and became known as "Kay's shuttle"; this improved, non-wheeled shuttle was in (dubiously legal) general use throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire by 1737, and also substantially increased productivity – see: Mann (1931) p.467-468.
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ Inability to enforce patent is the reason given by Kay – Mann (1931) p. 456
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Mann (1931) p.195 proposes that the prospect of French state support attracted Kay and later inventors to France. Also, Kay's politics and religion would have been compatible (as that of Hugenotes inventors probably were not).
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (The amount Kay demanded would be equivalent to £1.43 million at today's prices.)
  43. ↑ He did not hold the right of production in Languedoc, having sold all rights there (for 15,000 livres) before reaching agreement with the French Government in 1749. But outside of Langudoc, he retained the monopoly on legal production of fly-shuttles for use in France, see: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ Although Kay certainly did write to the Society of Arts, and was in contact with his sons in Bury, it was thought by some in England that was unreachable; a letter published in Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser is 7 February 1766 reads "a long time ago he was obliged to decline all Correspondence with his native land as it was not agreeable to his new Masters"
  45. ↑ Extract quoted p. 470 of Mann (1931) from the Paris archives range F/12 (992 à 1083: Inventions & related correspondence 1702–1830) section 993.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. ↑ According to Barlow (1878) Kay only survived this 1753 break-in because "two friends carried him away in a wool sheet" -a story given by Dickens in his weekly magazine 28 April 1860, and traced back to a 1766 letter from an unconnected party in the Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser by Mann (1931). Bennet Woodcroft's A Complete History of the Cotton Trade says he was smuggled out in a "sack of wool" (p.302).
  49. ↑ Although he (or his son) wrote of an anti-"Wheel Shuttle" riot, no mention of a 1753 attack predates the 19th century and this story has probably grown out of earlier disturbances in Colchester – see Mann (1931) p.456
  50. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (Many more images and details of the memorial are available at johncassidy.org.)
  51. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  52. ↑ Mann (1931) p. 463-464
  53. ↑ If Robert stayed in France at all, he had permanently returned to Bury by 1748. Since Robert was born in 1728, he probably never left Britain when John Kay did. See: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  54. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  55. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  56. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  57. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  58. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  59. ↑ Whilst Colchester had a long association with weaving and the wool trade, this link seems to rely on an 1848 source (White's History Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Essex) which has been repeated uncritically by later writers. There is an exploration of this in an article by Don Scott in the Essex Journal (Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.) which finds no independent evidence of the Colchester connection. (This article also explores the archives of the Royal Society of Arts and their dealings with John Kay.)
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