Kissing the Shuttle
How an invention that sparked the industrial revolution in Lancashire became a hidden killer of the region's mill workers
When John Kay from Bury near Manchester developed the flying shuttle in 1733, it was such a pivotal moment that it lit the fires of the industrial revolution.
With its brass-tipped, bullet-shaped ends, Kay’s shuttle was soon zipping like a rocket across the weaving looms of Lancashire — signalling the death of the handloom and a future of towering cotton mills.
It carried the cotton yarn — the weft — back and forth to weave cloth as it passed over and under the warp threads.
“It travels at a speed which cannot be imagined — so great that the shuttle can only be seen like a tiny cloud which disappears the same instant,” a French writer wrote.
It was one of a number of inventions that led to the towns around Manchester becoming the beating heart of Cottonopolis.
But the shuttle also had a hidden cost for the health of generations of weavers lasting well into the twentieth century.
It was due to a strange practice known as “kissing the shuttle”.
Kay’s shuttle could only work as long as it had enough yarn spooled around its rod or “pirn” and at some point a weaver had to remove the pirn and replace it.
To keep up with the lightning pace of the loom, they had to quickly suck the thread through a small hole or eye in the shuttle before it continued on its way.
But little did the weavers know that, with so many of them sharing a kiss with the same shuttles, their jobs were giving them deadly diseases.
The first disease they could contract was brown lung or byssinosis, a chronic asthma-like condition caused by cotton fibres obstructing the airways.
The second was tuberculosis — the world’s top infectious killer.
Shuttle kissing was outlawed in the mills of Massachusetts in the US in 1906 after factory bosses there found that the breathing in cotton dust was causing their workers to spit on the floor.
But back in Lancashire, bacteriology was slow to develop and it was still believed by the turn of the century that tuberculosis or consumption as it was also known was due to poor sanitation or immoral behaviour rather than infection.
At that time more than 70,000 people were involved in the cotton industry in Manchester district — nearly three-quarters of them women.
A weaver working four looms had to perform the act of shuttle kissing an astonishing 450 to 500 times a day.
“A sudden and strong inhalation is required,” one report said. “As a result, any particles of dust, fluff, dye, thread, or disease germs, which may be resting in or near the eye of the shuttle are apt to be inhaled.”
But in 1912, a Home Office investigation into working conditions in Lancashire mills claimed to have found only five cases of industrial diseases and it linked none of them to shuttle kissing.
It was another five years before a health officer in the town of Preston realised that weavers had the highest tuberculosis rates of any cotton operatives.
Shuttle kissing was then recommending to be stopped by the Parliamentary Shuttle Kissing Committee but it left the decision to individual towns.
And factory owners in those towns rejected the recommendation because they did not want to spend money on newly designed, hand-threaded shuttles.
Shuttle kissing did not stop officially until 1952.
But even then it is said the practice continued in dozens of mills — causing untold damage to the men and women who kissed John Kay’s flying shuttle.
The Manchester Mooch
Here’s your weekly list of history-related events and days out in and around Manchester…
⚙️ If you want to find out how cotton was spun and weaved in the mills around Greater Manchester, the Museum of Science and Industry textiles gallery is open daily with live demonstrations.
🏠 The Elizabeth Gaskell House is hosting an exhibition until March of textile work created by the Trailblazing Stitching group, which celebrates trailblazing women connected with Greater Manchester.
📚 If you live in Burnage or Levenshulme and want to come along to the Burnage Local History Group, we meet at 2pm every other Monday in term time. I’ll be doing a talk at this Monday’s meeting about the Salford Sioux.
Angel Meadow Tours
I hope you’ve all had a good Christmas and New Year and have been okay in the cold weather.
Just a note to end this week’s letter by saying that if you’re looking for something to do when the weather warms up, I’ll be back with my Angel Meadow tours in spring.
I’m really looking forward to getting back on the road and, if you haven’t been on the tour, I’m hoping you’ll be able to join me.
Tickets are available now via my ticketing website here.
Have a great weekend!
I had heard of this particular practice but didn't realise it had persisted into the second half of thd 20th Century.
Thank you for this article. Several of my female ancestors - mostly weavers - died from lung disease. I am reminded of Julie Leibrich's poem "Kissing the Shuttle".
"It might have been an aunt of mine.
Or yours. This factory girl clattering
her way through seven o'clock silence.
Clog by clog, flinting up the morning dark
down weathered streets.
Clack signalled start. Listen for the crack
of steel on stone and look for the spark.
See the bench where she watched
the shuttle fly. Warping, wefting, weaving
till the yarn ran out.
That's when the kissing began.
Mouth to teak, sucking threads from India.
Taste the fibre in the lungs. Watch romance
slip away. But feel the quality of cotton
at the other end of day."