The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It allowed a single weaver to weave much wider fabrics, and it could be mechanized, allowing for automatic machine looms. The flying shuttle, which was patented by John Kay (1704 – c. 1779) in 1733, greatly sped up the previous hand process and halved the labor force. Where a broad-cloth loom previously required a weaver on each side, it could now be worked by a single operator. Until this point, the textile industry had required four spinners to service one weaver. Kay's innovation, in wide use by the 1750s, greatly increased this disparity. History The history of this device is difficult to accurately ascertain due to poor recordings. Nonetheless, there are two general schools of thought around this; first those that believe that it "appears" to have been invented in the region of Languedoc of southern France (one year before its introduction in England), but was destroyed by state cloth inspectors of the rent-seeking Ancien Regime. On the other side, are those that believe it simply originated where it was industrialized; England. Operation In a typical frame loom, as used previous to the invention of the flying shuttle, the operator sat with the newly woven cloth before them, using treadles or some other mechanism to raise and lower the heddles, which opened the shed in the warp threads. They then had to reach forward while holding the shuttle in one hand and pass this through the shed; the shuttle carried a bobbin for the weft. The shuttle then had to be caught in the other hand, the shed closed, and the beater pulled forward to push the weft into place. This action (called a "pick") required regularly bending forward over the fabric; more importantly, the coordination between the throwing and catching of the shuttle required multiple operators if the width of the fabric exceeded that which could be reasonably reached across (typically or less). The flying shuttle employs a board, called the "race," which runs, side to side, along the front of the beater, forming a track on which the shuttle runs. The lower threads of the shed rest on the track and the shuttle slides over them. At each end of the race, there is a box which catches the shuttle at the end of its journey, and which contains