Basile Bouchon
Encyclopedia
Basile Bouchon was a textile
worker in the silk
center in Lyon
who invented a way to control a loom
with a perforated paper tape in 1725. The son of an organ
maker, Bouchon partially automated the tedious setting up process of the drawloom in which an operator lifted the warp threads using cords.
This development is considered to be the first industrial application of a semi-automated machine.
The cords of the warp
were passed through the eyes of horizontal needles arranged to slide in a box. These were either raised or not depending on whether there was not or was a hole in the tape at that point. This was similar to the piano roll
developed at the end of the 19th century and may have been inspired by the patterns that were traditionally drawn on squared paper.
Three years later, his assistant Jean-Baptiste Falcon expanded the number of cords that could be handled by arranging the holes in rows and using rectangular cards that were joined together in an endless loop.
Though this eliminated mistakes in the lifting of threads, it still needed an extra operator to control it and the first attempt at automation was made by Jacques Vaucanson in 1745. But it was not until 1805 that the wildly successful Jacquard loom
was finally produced.
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
worker in the silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
center in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
who invented a way to control a loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
with a perforated paper tape in 1725. The son of an organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
maker, Bouchon partially automated the tedious setting up process of the drawloom in which an operator lifted the warp threads using cords.
This development is considered to be the first industrial application of a semi-automated machine.
The cords of the warp
Warp (weaving)
In weaving cloth, the warp is the set of lengthwise yarns that are held in tension on a frame or loom. The yarn that is inserted over-and-under the warp threads is called the weft, woof, or filler. Each individual warp thread in a fabric is called a warp end or end. Warp means "that which is thrown...
were passed through the eyes of horizontal needles arranged to slide in a box. These were either raised or not depending on whether there was not or was a hole in the tape at that point. This was similar to the piano roll
Piano roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. A piano roll is a continuous roll of paper with perforations punched into it. The peforations represent note control data...
developed at the end of the 19th century and may have been inspired by the patterns that were traditionally drawn on squared paper.
Three years later, his assistant Jean-Baptiste Falcon expanded the number of cords that could be handled by arranging the holes in rows and using rectangular cards that were joined together in an endless loop.
Though this eliminated mistakes in the lifting of threads, it still needed an extra operator to control it and the first attempt at automation was made by Jacques Vaucanson in 1745. But it was not until 1805 that the wildly successful Jacquard loom
Jacquard loom
The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row...
was finally produced.
Further reading
- Poncelet, Jean-Victor, Travaux de la Commission Francaise. L’Exposition Universelle de 1851, vol. 3, part 1 (Machines et outils appliqués aux arts textiles), section 2, pages 348-349 (1857). [Poncelet’s history of the Jacquard loom is the basis for most subsequent accounts.]
- Usher, Abbot Payson. A History of Mechanical Inventions. Revised edition. (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 1988), pages 289-291. (Originally published in 1929 by Harvard University Press in Cambridge, Mass.)
- Randell, Brian, ed. The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers , 3rd ed. (N.Y., N.Y.: Springer-Verlag, 1982), page 5.
- Eymard, Paul (1863) “Historique du metier Jacquard” Annales des Sciences physiques et naturelles*, 3rd series, vol. 7, pages 34–56; see especially page 37. (* published in Lyon, France by Barret)
- Ballot, Charles. L’introduction du machinisme dans l’industrie française. (Lille-Paris: F. Rieder, 1923), page 339.
- Ballot, Charles. Revue d'histoire de Lyon: Études, Documents, Bibliographie (Lyon, France: A. Rey et Co., 1913), vol. 2, pages 6–10.
- Barlow, Alfred. The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power (London, England: Kessinger Publishing, 2007). See Chapter 11. (Originally published in 1876 by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington in London.)