James Kay (born near Entwistle, Lancashire, 1774; died Turton, Lancashire, 1857) was a British inventor who developed a successful wet spinning process for flax in 1824, helping industrialise linen spinning in the British Isles.
Kay was born at Edgefold Farm near Entwistle, Lancashire, and became a successful spinner with mills at Preston, Penny Bridge and Pendleton.
Kay was forced to sue Marshall in court in 1835 for non-payment for the use of his patent, but the defendants disputed the validity of the patent on the grounds that so far as the invention was new it was useless (maceration process), and that so far as it was useful it was not new (spinning process with 2½ inch ratch).
It was possibly as a result of the court cases, and the surrounding controversy, that he failed to get any real recognition for what he did.
A recent industrial biography describes the development of his flax wet spinning process, his mills and his patent dispute with James Marshall.