Introduction 1 Invention: the Technical Evolution of The
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
NOTES INTRODUCTION 1. James McGurn, On your Bicycle: An Illustrated History of Cycling. London: John Murray, 1987, p. 160 and Robert Hurst, The Art of Cycling: A Guide to Bicycling in 21st Century America. Guildford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2007, p. 22. 2. The International Cycling History Conference (ICHC) was formed in 1990 as a forum for bicycle historians and academics. Several popular histories have appeared which interweave derivative (and not always accurate) historical infor- mation with personal memoir and anecdotes. See Robert Penn, It’s All About the Bike. London: Penguin, 2011 and Bella Bathurst, The Bicycle Book. London: HarperCollins, 2011. These confirm that bicycling is once again a topical issue and a popular leisure pursuit. For standard histories, see David Herlihy, Bicycle: The History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004; Frederick Alderson, Bicycling: A History. Newton Abbot, 1972: David and Charles; McGurn, On Your Bicycle; Robert Smith, A Social History of the Bicycle: Its Early Life and Times in America. New York: American Heritage Press, 1972; and Rob Van der Plas, The Penguin Bicycle Handbook. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983. For a more recent technical his- tory that exposes some of the myths of earlier histories, see Tony Hadland and Hans-Erhard Lessing, Bicycle Design: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. 3. The modern Olympics was relaunched in 1896, by which time bicycle racing in the US and Europe was already well established. 4. Edward Howland, ‘A Bicycle Era’, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1881, p. 283. 5. Wendy Griswold, Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. London: Sage, 2004, p. 13. 1 INVENTION: THE TECHNICAL EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN BICYCLE 1. Reported in discussion following paper by George Lacy Hillier, ‘Cycling: Historical and Practical’, Journal of the Society of Arts, London, 1897, 2 April. 156 NOTES, PP. 9–12 157 2. The technical history of the bicycle and its manufacture were popular topics at the Society in the 1890s. Other speakers included John Kemp Starley whose paper is discussed below. 3. Even though the original Lallement patent was for a front-driven velocipede, Albert Pope was able to apply it to the high-wheeled Ordinaries which were imported from Europe and later manufactured by Pope and others (under Pope’s licence) in the US. The Lallement patent continued to add cost to all American bicycles and stifled innovation. Herlihy reports that Lallement was engaged in making ‘children’s coaches’ in France when he hit upon the idea of adding cranks and pedals to the front wheel of a velocipede (David V. Herlihy, Bicycle: The History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, pp. 208–209). 4. Patents tailed off dramatically by 1900, showing that by then the design of the bicycle had stabilised (Andrew Millward, Factors Contributing to the Sustained Success of the UK Cycle Industry 1870–1939, PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1999. Accessed at the National Cycle Archive, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS 328/N29/15/1/1, p. 9). 5. Replicas of the Macmillan bicycle have been installed in the London Science Museum and the Glasgow Museum of Transport. Although the Macmillan was originally claimed to have been built in 1845, it was not ‘discovered’ until much later and it resembles rear-driven bicycles built by Gavin Dalzell and Thomas McCall in the 1860s. Other priority claims are more blatantly chau- vinistic or mischievous according to Hans-Erhard Lessing, who together with other cycle historians at the International Conference of Cycle History has sought to debunk the major priority hoaxes (Tony Hadland and Hans-Erhard Lessing, Bicycle Design: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, USA: MIT Press, 2014, pp. 494–502; see also this chapter, ‘Origins and pre-texts – ulterior motives in bicycle historiography’). 6. For examples of some ingenious approaches to human-powered transport see references to the Mechanics’ Magazine and, from 1865, the English Mechanic, cited in Andrew Ritchie, King of the Road: An Illustrated History of Cycling. London: Ten Speed Press, 1975, pp. 31–49. Note that the first mention of Kirkpatrick Macmillan appears in the English Mechanic in 1869 (Ritchie, King of the Road, p. 37). 7. One notable example was Willard Sawyer of England, who produced a range of four-wheeled ‘self-locomotives’ commercially, showed one at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and supplied velocipedes to the Royalty of Britain, Russia and Europe (Ritchie, King of the Road, pp. 39–40). 8. See, for example, recent Proceedings of the ICHC, which, as we might expect, emphasise international bicycle research; David Herlihy’s greater focus on the US in his Bicycle (2004); Claude Reynaud’s recent book, Le Grand Bi (2011), pressing the claims for France’s Eugène Meyer; and Hans Erhard-Lessing’s emphasis on the contribution of Germany’s Karl Drais and greater prominence given to the Draisine in Hadland and Lessing, Bicycle Design. 9. The Michaux factory in Paris was already importing wrought-iron frames in bulk from a foundry in Marseille in 1868 (Herlihy, Bicycle, p. 96), while the Coventry bicycle producers were drawing on component suppliers across the UK by the 1870s. Most of the inventors and suppliers of components have been ignored by 158 NOTES, PP. 13–22 history, with the notable exception of John Boyd Dunlop, who began commer- cial development of the pneumatic tyre in 1888 (see also, below, J. K. Starley’s acknowledgement of the essential contribution of component makers). 10. Although Lessing presents arguments to the contrary in Hadland and Lessing, Bicycle Design and Hans-Erhard Lessing, ‘What Led to the Invention of the Early Bicycle?’ Cycle History, 2001, 11: 28–36. 11. The summer of 1869 appears to be the moment when a form of high-wheeler made its first appearance on the racetrack. It had an immediate impact and was soon the machine of choice for racers from France and England (Nick Clayton, ‘Who Invented the “Penny-Farthing”?’ Cycle History, 1997, 7: 31–42, p. 35). 12. David V. Herlihy, ‘Mind the Gap: An Explanation for the Primitive Bicycle’s Surprisingly Low Profile from 1864 to 1867’, Cycle History, 2009, 20: 157–159. 13. Frederick Alderson, Bicycling: A History. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1972, p. 25. 14. The suspension wheel was a great advance. According to J. K. Starley, early versions were made by ‘heading the spokes, screwing down screw nipples into the hubs, and tightening them with lock nuts’. Clayton credits Meyer with the invention of the suspension wheel in 1869 (Clayton, ‘Who Invented the “Penny-Farthing”?’), but E. A. Cowper of England took out a patent for a velocipede using suspension wheels made with ‘hollow felloes and steel wire spokes’ in December 1868. According to J. K. Starley, W. H. J. Grout also pat- ented a radially spoked, nipple-adjusted wheel in 1870 (John Kemp Starley, ‘The Evolution of the Cycle’, Journal of the Society of Arts, 1898, 46: 601–612, p. 603). According to Clayton, the Cowper patent was ‘probably filed … on behalf of a French principal’ (see Clayton, ‘Who Invented the “Penny-Farthing”?’, p. 41). 15. According to reports in the local press and a letter written to the English Mechanic in October 187[0] (the same publication which announced the Kirkpatrick machine to the world) – see Clayton, ‘Who Invented the “Penny- Farthing”?’, p. 36 (the date seems to be misprinted in Clayton’s article). 16. Clayton, ‘Who Invented the “Penny-Farthing”?’ and Reynaud, Le Grand Bi. 17. Starley, ‘The Evolution of the Cycle’, p. 603. 18. Frank J. Berto, The Dancing Chain: History and Development of the Derailleur Bicycle. San Francisco: Van der Plas Publications, 2009, pp. 24–25. 19. Although Guilmet was killed in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Meyer company continued to produce bicycles after the war: Watson and Gray, The Penguin Book of the Bicycle, p. 109. See also Nick Clayton, ‘The Meyer-Guilmet Bicycle 1869 or 1879?’, Cycle History, 1991, 1: 41–56. 20. The rear wheel was geared to 56” on the 1886 Rover. The 1884 Rover had a 36” front wheel, and 30” rear wheel geared to 55” (see Berto, The Dancing Chain, p. 38). 21. There have been several families involved in bicycle production, including Pierre Michaux and his sons in Paris and the Starleys of Coventry whose dynasty spanned the development of the high-wheeler and the safety bicycle. 22. The price of Ordinaries between 1875 and 1889 averaged £12–£18; safeties from 1875–1890 averaged £15–£19, but cheaper models of £6 were being pro- duced by 1889. Wages in 1900 averaged £1 10 shillings a week (20 shillings = £1); see Millward, Factors Contributing to the Sustained Success of the UK Cycle Industry 1870–1939, p. 188. Hire Purchase agreements were also becoming NOTES, PP. 23–28 159 commonplace, and it was possible to buy new or second-hand bicycles in 1893 for 1 shilling a week, see, for example, advertisements in Cycling, 28 January 1893, 5: 106. 23. The 1816 global ecological ‘event’ is usually attributed to the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa. As well as local devas- tation, the eruption affected weather systems across the western world through 1816, causing crop failures, riots and starvation. The near-coincidence of Drais’ invention and the ‘year without a summer’ (1816), when crops failed and the price of oats increased eightfold, supports the theory that the lack of horses was an impetus to the development of this form of ‘horseless’ transport (see Lessing, ‘What Led to the Invention of the Early Bicycle?’). But the price of oats, as Drais must surely have realised, was bound to fall again.