282 



DICKSON ON THE 



application of machinery to the spinning of Flax. This 

 inducement brought forward Girard, who produced designs 

 for a series of machines for preparing and spinning Flax, 

 of great ingenuity and originality, including this plan of 

 wet spinning. But what was the result, so far as the 

 linen-trade of France was concerned ? Girard could find no 

 one in France with the enterprise and capital requisite to 

 perfect and apply his invention. He had to come to England 

 — he had to come to the town of Leeds. A patent was 

 taken out for his inventions in England, especially for the 

 wet spinning, under the name of Hall, in 1816, and was 

 taken up by Robert Busk, of Leeds. Mr. Busk put up a 

 considerable quantity of machinery on this plan, and produced 

 by it yarn much finer than that usually spun. But he kept 

 the new plan to himself, it was not tried by others; but 

 the improvements in the preparatory processes were not 

 then sufficiently advanced to make fine spinning advantageous ; 

 the plan did not answer commercially, and was given up and 

 forgotten. In 1826, however, it was revived in the shape 

 of a new patent with some modifications, by Mr. Kay, of 

 Manchester. The validity of his claim to a new patent was 

 disputed by the body of Flax-spinners, and set aside." 



On the validity of the claim of Mr. Kay for his patent for 

 spinning Flax through hot water, I, J. H. Dickson, will not 

 express an opinion, but this I do assert, as I was agent for him 

 for several years from 1833, that he was the first man to produce 

 yarn spun through hot water ; and I can well recollect 

 Mr. James Kay telling me that he had to sit on the looms in 

 Ireland with the weavers, and not only flatter them but pay 

 them double wages to get them to weave the mill-spun yarns, 

 the yarns being then all spun by hand spinning-wheels that 

 were used for linen-cloth ; and I must here confess we had 

 then better linen, although the yarn was not so level as the 

 mill-spun yarns, than we have had since the hand-spinning 



