Up to the present time weft-replenishing devices are almost exclusively restricted to single-box looms employed in the production of standard varieties of fabrics of comparatively simple construction, and containing but one kind of weft requiring the use of only one shuttle. These devices have, however, been employed on check-looms weaving with more than one kind of weft, and therefore requiring the use of a corresponding number of shuttles at the same time; but automatic check-looms have not yet passed the experimental stage and become established on a commercial basis, although there are prospects of this taking effect in the near future.
Having thus far introduced the reader to what constitutes the chief elements of an automatic or self-acting loom, it will, at this stage, and before examining the details of their special mechanism, be both instructive and profitable to briefly survey the work of pioneers in this sphere of invention, as revealed in the records of the numerous Letters Patent that have from time to time been granted for inventions of devices for the automatic replenishing of weft in looms, and to trace the origin and development of such devices from the earliest authentically recorded date of their inception down to the present time.
From a research of the earliest published records of patents relating to weaving, which records date from 15th July, =1620=, it would appear that the credit for the first patent for an automatic weft-replenishing device for looms is due to Messrs. John Paterson Reid and Thomas Johnson, both of Glasgow, who are the joint patentees of an invention of such a device described in the Patent Specification, dated 20th March, =1834=, No. 6579. This is a large document of 69 pages of text comprising over 35,000 words and 12 sheets of diagrams. It describes in a very lucid manner several improvements in power-looms, of which that relating to the automatic replenishing of weft is treated almost as if it were regarded, by the inventors, as of only secondary importance to the other improvements which they describe.
In view of the great progress which has been made within recent years in the development of these looms, and also in consideration of the fact that a patent, which was granted to Charles Parker nearly seven years subsequently, and is described in the Specification dated 22nd October, =1840=, No. 8664, has been frequently cited as the first patent relating to the automatic supply of weft in looms, the first-named document acquires a special interest, not only as a record of what is probably the first attempt in that direction, but also because it establishes, beyond refutation, the date and rightful title to the first patent granted for such an invention.