约翰·凯

约翰·凯伊（英语：John Kay，1704年6月17日—1780年？月？日），著名英国发明家，其发明的滑轮梭子（俗称飞梭）对工业革命有重大的影响、对纺织业有历史性的重大贡献。

约翰·凯
Portrait, said to be of John Kay in the 1750s,[1] but probably of his son,[2] "Frenchman" John Kay.[3]
出生	17 June (N.S 28 June) 1704[4] Walmersley, Bury, Lancashire, England
逝世	circa 1779[5][6][7] France
国籍	English
职业	Inventor
知名于	Flying shuttle
信仰	High Church Anglican[8]
配偶	Anne Holte[9]
儿女	Lettice, Robert (drop box inventor), Ann, Samuel, Lucy, James, John, Alice, Shuse, William, (and two other children who died in childhood)[10]
父母	Robert Kay and Ellin Kay, née Entwisle

约翰·凯

生平

约翰·凯在1704年出生于英国兰开夏郡的伯里市，父亲是一个自耕农民。关于他早期生活的资料不多。

在他发明飞梭前，英国人一直使用手摇纺织机来织布，这机器需要织工用两手使梭子来回穿梭以织成一幅窄幅布，效率不高，织较宽阔的布匹时更需要二人同时操作。这机器被沿用多个世纪，直至1733年约翰·凯为飞梭申请专利，才慢慢的取代了手摇纺织机。

飞梭能自动穿梭往复，令纬纱快速穿越经纱，因而只需一个织工就能快速地织出宽阔的布，大大减少了人力需求。但他并没有因此名成利就，一些工厂使用飞梭织布但拒绝给予他专利权税，就此他花了很多时间和精神以追讨赔偿。此外，由于飞梭使工厂大大减少了劳动需求，一些织布厂织工认为他的发明令他们的生计受到威胁，所以在1753年，暴民洗劫了他在伯雷的房子。约翰·凯为此感到心灰，并迁往法国重新开始他的生活和工作，并在当地售卖飞梭，但成绩不理想。

他被后人称为在纺织工业史上最重要的人物之一，但他在死前仍未得到英国人的认同，并于1780年在贫困中死去。

参考资料

1. Science and Society Picture Library. [2017-08-28]. （原始内容存档于2017-08-28）.
2. John Ainsworth (b. 1777) （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） says in his book Walks around Bury (1842) that he saw this picture in 1842, and that it appeared to show the inventor's son who he knew "very well". Although Ainsworth knew the son as an old man, and could not have met the inventor himself, Lord (1903) wrote that this "settles the question of doubt as regards the portraits which Lieut.-Col. Sutcliffe put into circulation as a portrait of his great-grandfather" (the fly-shuttle inventor) because Ainsworth is a more reliable source than Sutcliffe, who originated the claim that the elder John Kay is pictured.
3. Mann, J. de L. XXII: The introduction of the fly shuttle. The cotton trade and industrial Lancashire, 1600–1780 Book V. Manchester University Press. January 1931: 449 [2017-08-28]. ASIN B0006ALG3Y. （原始内容存档于2019-07-25）. This son was known in later life in Bury as "Frenchman Kay," and the portrait supposed to be that of the inventor is really his. As well as the identification of the sitter given by John Ainsworth, the "French" clothing and tricorne were characteristic of "Frenchman" John Kay in 1790s Bury (where he was considered a "fop" -see Lord (1903) pages 91–92).
4. Lord, John. IV: Documentary Evidence of Descent. Memoir of John Kay. J. Clegg. 1903: 79. ISBN 978-1-150-68477-7. OCLC 12536656.
5. ^ 引用错误：没有为名为bio1998的参考文献提供内容
6. J. B. Thompson's 1964 summary in The achievements of Western civilisation says "date of death unknown". Nobody has yet found exact records or year of his death, though all sources agree it occurred in France between 1764 and 1780. His final year is often given as 1764 (for instance, by the London Science Museum （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）) and often as 1780 (e.g. the BBC's History of the world gives a 1780 death date （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） in the South of France at age 76). Lord (1903) was skeptical that Kay reached 70 （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）. And, in the Bury Times (27 December 1902) Lord wrote "The death of John Kay, in Paris, occurred in 1767 or 1768" (see: Bygone Bury p. 108). Lord acknowledges that no Paris death registration exists for John Kay between 1750 and 1770, but says that this is because "documents of all kinds were destroyed during the Commune revolutionary days" —see Lord (1903) p. 169. Mann (1931) reports a July 1779 letter from Kay (largely ruling out earlier dates) but says that he very probably died shortly after the letter was written and that the author of Thoughts on the Use of Machines （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） (1780, probably Dorning Rasbotham) makes a "natural error" in writing that Kay was still alive in 1780.
7. ^ 引用错误：没有为名为end的参考文献提供内容
8. Lord (1903) p.91, reports the 1850 recollections of John Kay's great-granddaughter, who called the Kays of Park "Jacobites... High Churchmen in Religion and Radical Reformers in Politics."
9. Lord, J. VI: John Kay, Inventor of the Fly-Shuttle. Memoir of John Kay. 1903: 96. OCLC 12536656. He married in 1725, Anne, the daughter of John Holte, probably a near neighbour, and set up housekeeping at Park.
10. ^ 引用错误：没有为名为kids12的参考文献提供内容