John Kay essays

John Kay essays John Kay was born about the year of 1704. He was the twelfth child born to a farmer. He later took charge of his fathers woolen mill. He made advancements to a lot of machinery. What Kay did was make handloom weaving dramatically faster, and easier. He called his invention the Flying Shuttle. This is said to be one of the most important inventions in textile history, and also said to jumpstart the industrial revolution more than any other of the inventions of its time did. Before this invention, handloom weaving was based on a shuttle having yarn being slowly and difficulty moved from one hand to the other hand. He patented his invention in 1733. How he made it was he placed shuttle boxes on both sides of the loom and connected them with a long board. This is better known has a shuttle race. Cords attached to a picking peg making a single weaver, using one hand, could make the shuttle go back and forth across the loom from one shuttle box Someone using this invention could make more cloth in a faster period of time. The first factories to use it were Yorkshire woolen factories. After the started to others did as well. Some manufacturers used his invention. Some were very reluctant to pay the royalties that Kay deserved. Most of the time Kay had to go to court for this money. The winnings and usually plus some were taken as a cost which made Kay poorer than before In 1753 Kays house was ransacked by a group of textile workers who thought Kays invention would ruin their way of making a living as weavers. A very depressed Kay left England to go to France. In France he was believed to die in 1764 a very poor man. Even after his death his invention was still being used in factories. People realized that his invention had changed the world of textiles forever. The factories found out that ...