John Kay

Born July 16, 1704, in Bury, Lancashire; died 1764. English inventor. A cloth maker by trade.

Kay lived in Colchester beginning in 1730. There he became involved in the manufacture of parts for looms. In 1730 he received a patent for a twisting machine that made a thin thread from cashmere and carded wool. In 1733 he invented a mechanical shuttle, the fly shuttle, for the hand loom. His invention freed the weaver from having to throw the shuttle by hand through the alternate threads of the warp and made it possible for one weaver to make wide cloth on a loom where two weavers had previously been required. Kay died in France.