John Dunlop: Reinventing the Wheel.
A bike ride through the sunny countryside wouldn’t be half as enjoyable today without the inventiveness of one Scot 130 years ago.
Early cyclists felt every bump in the road as they peddled their crude and cumbersome contraptions through the countryside. Imagine tackling the West Highland Way on iron-rimmed, wooden wheels. No wonder early bicycles were called “bone-shakers”.
However, that didn’t stop hardy athletes from competing in boneshaker races. One cyclist of the era, a member of the Bristol Bicycle and Tricycle Club even remarked:
‘The cycler of these days risked his neck, with the other parts of his anatomy, on what, in appearance at least, was a pair of cart wheels connected by a pump handle. On this fearful contrivance he ventured forth into the country, at that time, practically a terra incognita to the ordinary town resident.’
A worthy challenge for professional cyclists but completely impractical (not to mention painful) for everyday use.
Then in 1887 John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish veterinarian, reinvented the wheel with the first practical pneumatic rubber tyre. The Dunlop brand went stratospheric and became the world-famous name we recognise today. Yet Dunlop’s rise to renown wasn’t without controversy.
From boneshaker to easy rider
John Dunlop grew up in rural Ayrshire and trained as a vet at the University of Edinburgh. He subsequently moved to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland in 1867 where he married Margaret Stevenson and had two children.
Interestingly, John Dunlop’s invention didn’t arise from a desire to win races or fame. Diffident but kind by nature, he couldn’t bear to watch his son struggle to ride a tricycle on hard tyres. He invented air-filled tyres to cushion the rider from bumps, making cycling easier and more enjoyable. Dunlop called them pneumatic tyres.
The tyres were essentially rubber tubes wrapped in canvas and glued to the wheel’s wooden rim. Dunlop fashioned a rudimentary prototype using an infant’s dummy as a valve. His son became the fastest child on the street where they lived in Belfast, zooming along the uneven road surface with ease.
Dunlop saw potential in his invention and secured a patent. Professional cyclists endorsed Dunlop’s design, too. When one of them triumphed in race after race, Dunlop's pneumatic tyres started to gain traction.
Irish cyclist Willie Hume, captain of Belfast Cruisers Cycling Club, left competitors in the dust as he whizzed by on a safety bicycle fitted with Dunlop’s tyres. In 1889 Hume won 4 out of 4 races in Belfast and 3 out of 4 races in Liverpool — a supreme victory and world-first for Ireland and England’s first use of pneumatic tyres.
This caught the attention of Dublin-born financier William Harvey du Cros as Hume soundly beat not one but two of his sons in a race using Dunlop’s tyres. An enthusiastic cyclist himself, Harvey du Cros financially supported the development of John Dunlop’s design.
But trouble brewed. As Dunlop’s invention grew in popularity it attracted the attention of another man — Robert William Thomson, the original inventor of the pneumatic tyre.
Thomson from Stonehaven, a fellow Scot and inventor, already held the patent for pneumatic tyres. And had done for 40 years! His air-inflated tyres had been demonstrated on horse-drawn carriages in Regent’s Park as early as 1847.
Yet Thomson’s tyre was ahead of its time. Without development it had fallen into obscurity and it seems likely that John Dunlop’s patent for a similar invention was an innocent mistake. The fault lay with the UK Patent Office which should never have granted John Dunlop’s patent.
Despite this bump in the road, Dunlop’s tyre came out on top. With Harvey du Cros’ business acumen, they refloated the company and achieved widespread commercial success with the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company. By the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, all cyclists competed on pneumatic tyres.
It wasn’t all bad news for the original re-inventor of the wheel. Robert Thomson’s aptitude for invention created the fountain pen and innovations in railway construction, bringing him lucrative financial rewards.
Freewheeling
Despite losing the patent, Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company became a commercial success. Harvey du Cros had grand expansion plans, but the quiet life called to Dunlop. Accepting a payout and shares from du Cros (he sold the rights to his invention for a mere £3,000) John Dunlop had no further involvement in the company after 1896.
Only after his retirement did the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company begin manufacturing car tyres, which meant John Boyd Dunlop profited little from his invention. Ironically, his likeness appears on a variant of the Irish £10 note which is still in circulation today.
Free of the burden of a multi-million-pound business, John Dunlop returned to Ireland where he’d lived most of his life. Between taking on a local drapery business and continuing his veterinary practice, Dunlop still found time to invent, even creating an eau de toilette.
Shy and retiring, Dunlop ran the drapery and lived quietly until his death in 1921. He leaves behind a little-known but important legacy, and the Dunlop brand is still going strong today.
Velocipede enthusiast? You might enjoy our recent blog about the ‘Daft Pate’ — Dumfriesshire blacksmith and inventor of the bicycle.