It is generally considered that the world's first Industrial Revolution was begun in the British textile industry, and was stimulated by three inventions: James Hargreaves' spinning jenny, Samuel Crompton's spinning mule, and John Kay's (1704-1764) flying shuttle. Chronologically, the shuttle came first, and it was the use of this device that forced the spinning industry to become more productive and efficient, eventually leading to the mechanization of all spinning and weaving.
Before 1733, most weaving was done by a single weaver sitting at a large loom. With one hand the weaver strung horizontal weft thread through vertical warp threads, beating down each successive layer of weft with the other hand. The weft U thread was attached to a thin wooden slat called a shuttle, which the weaver passed from one hand to the other. This limited the size of the fabric, for it could only be as wide as the distance between the weaver's hands. For wider cloth, two weavers were a employed to throw the shuttle back and forth.
Kay, the twelfth child of poor farm laborers, came up with the idea for an "automatic" shuttle. Mounted on small wheels, this shuttle sat in box at one end of the loom. Using a stick called the picking peg, the weaver pulled a cord that would send the shuttle across to a box at the loom's other end, winding the weft through the warp as it went. The weaver could then send the shuttle back the other way by pulling a second cord. Thus, the weaver could create very wide cloth without leaving his seated position, all the while keeping one hand free to beat and manipulate the weft threads.
Like the inventions of Hargreaves and Crompton, Kay's flying shuttle was not welcomed by the local hand-weavers, who foresaw their imminent obsolescence. It took fourteen years for Kay to construct a reliable loom, during which time he endured the hostility of the town weavers. Finally, in 1747, he fled England for the safety of France, where he died in poverty. However, his son Robert continued to improve upon his father's invention, creating a tiered-boa system that could hold up to four shuttles; by selecting from a variety of pull-cords, the weaver could choose weft threads of several colors and textures.
Because the flying shuttle required only one weaver to quickly and easily create very wide cloth, its use drastically increased the demand for thread, putting pressure on the spinning mills. This demand led to the invention of the water frame spinner, the spinning jenny, and the spinning mule--which, in turn, put even greater pressure upon the weaving industry, forcing the invention of power looms. By the mid-l8OOs, the entire British textile industry had become mechanized.
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