About James Hargreaves:

James Hargreaves was born on May 1834. He was a weaver, carpenter and inventor in Lancashire, England. James was one of 3 inventors responsible for mechanising spinning. At the time, he devised the machine, he was a poor, uneducated spinner and weaver living at Stan hill, near Blackburn, Lancashire.

 

One of his daughters accidentally knocked over the spinning wheel. He watched the machine he noticed that the spindle continued to spin, even though it had now been turned over by the fall. He figured out that the same wheel might be used to turn many spindles at the same time. He figured out how to make a machine with eight spindles connected to one wheel. He called his machine the Spinning Jenny, after his daughter knocked it over.

 

In 1764 the machine got improved by James Hargreaves, it used eight spindles onto which the thread was spun from the corresponding set of roving’s. By turning the single wheel the operator could spin eight threads at once. 

 

The spinning jenny created more jobs for people.  It was also able to fit in the homes that people lived in so they could work from home. 

 

If the Spinning Jenny wasn’t invented it would have taken much longer to spin woollen threads.

John Kay was born on the 17^th of June, 1704 in Walmersley, United Kingdom and died in 1779 in France. John’s father died before he was born and his mother was responsible for educating him until she remarried. He was one of ten children, him being the fifth. He apprenticed with a hand-loom reed maker and was a manager for one of his father’s mills and improved them. 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 home and, on June 29, 1725, he got married to Anne Holte.

 

The flying shuttle was made in 1733 by James kay.

 

In previous looms, the shuttle was thrown, or passed, through the threads by hand, and wide fabrics required two weavers seated side by side passing the shuttle between them. Kay mounted his shuttle on wheels in a track and used paddles to shoot the shuttle from side to side when the weaver jerked a cord. Using the flying shuttle, one weaver could weave fabrics of any width more quickly than two could before.

 

Before the flying shuttle people had to pass through the cotton by hand, making the process extremely long and tiring for the person operating. Kay was a weaver at the time and prior to the flying shuttle the weaver could only weave from a man’s body length (arm to arm).

The flying shuttle changed the way every weaver worked and made their job 10 times easier and also more efficient. With the flying shuttle allowing the weaver to weave a further distance and at a faster rate. 

 

If the flying shuttle was never invented we would no doubt have a very different way of weaving, but somewhere down the road someone would of thought of an idea just as good to the flying shuttle.Without it, textiles would still be the same thing it was back before 1733, when weaving still involved 2 people and took up much more time. With the flying shuttle, weavers were able to make more clothes in less time.