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NAME: John Kay.

BORN: 1704, Bury, Lanc-ashire.

CLAIM TO FAME: Inventor of the Flying Shuttle, a simple device which increased production from the handloom and helped to start the Industrial Revolution.

His other inventions included a spinning machine and a power loom.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY: Kay's life was an unending battle with the governments of both Britain and France and with the workers who benefited from his inventions.

His Flying Shuttle, patented in 1731, made a mechanical process out of what had been a manual one, and allowed the handloom weaver to work faster and produce wider cloth.

It found immediate favour with woollen weavers.

However, Kay had great difficulty extracting payment for his invention from weavers, who formed "shuttle clubs" to fight his legal actions.

When the British Government refused to help, he emigrated to France in 1747. The French treated him somewhat better, refusing to grant him a lump sum for the Flying Shuttle but awarding him a reasonable pension.

The rest of Kay's life is something of a mystery. He was back home in Bury by 1753, when he invented a spinning machine that pre-dated Thomas Highs and James Hargreaves by more than a decade.

But he had to flee for his life when angry neighbours rioted and broke into his home hungry for blood.

Kay never received his due reward or recognition, and he died in obscurity in the south of France in 1781. No-one knows where he is buried.

However, his legacy is inestimable.

Without his Flying Shuttle, there would have been no need for the spinning machines that followed, and Lancashire's textile industry would never have developed to the point where it was able to bankroll the expansion of the British Empire. In fact, the Industrial Revolution would have been stillborn.

PLACES TO VISIT: Manchester Museum of Science, Castlefield. Helm-shore Textile Musem, Rossendale, Lancashire. Queen St Mill Museum, Burnley.

EXTERNAL LINKS: There are no other sites carrying accurate details of John Kay. Those that do exist are riddled with inaccuracies - you have been warned!