the eighteenth century, wool in England was being carded using pairs of hand cards, in a two-stage process: 'working' with the cards opposed and 'stripping' where they are in parallel.

In 1748 Lewis Paul of Birmingham, England, invented two hand driven carding machines. The first used a coat of wires on a flat table moved by foot pedals. This failed. On the second, a coat of wire slips was placed around a card which was then wrapped around a cylinder.Daniel Bourn