What did John Kay of Bury invent in 1733?

John Kay (1704 – 1779) was born in Walmersley near Bury, Lancashire and is not to confused with John Kay of Warrington, another inventor of textile machinery.

His father died before John was born and, as a fifth son (out of ten children), Jhe was bequeathed £40 (at age 21) and an education until the age of 14. His mother was responsible for educating him until she remarried. He apprenticed with a hand-loom reed maker, but is said to have returned home within a month claiming to have mastered the business. He designed a metal substitute for the natural reed that proved popular enough for him to sell throughout England. 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.

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

In 1733, he received a patent for his most revolutionary device: a "wheeled shuttle" for the hand loom. It greatly accelerated weaving, by allowing the shuttle carrying the weft to be passed through the warp threads faster and over a greater width of cloth. It was designed for the broad loom, for which it saved labour over the traditional process, needing only one operator per loom. It was later called the "flying shuttle") because of its continuous speed, especially when a young worker was using it in a narrow loom.

The picture shows John Kay's memorial in Bury.