Author: Purple Brolly

The pneumatic tyre was invented twice, since the second claimant was unaware of a patent registered in 1846 in France and 1847 in the USA that had lain undeveloped by the horse-drawn carriage industry for which it was intended. The two inventors were both Scotsmen ~ Robert William Thomson (1822-73) from Aberdeenshire and Dr. John Boyd Dunlop (1840-1921) from Ayrshire. Dunlop’s patent of 1889 was invalidated in 1890 but a shrewd, enthusiastic business partner overcame any difficulties and it is Dunlop’s name that became world famous.

Wheels had previously been trimmed in wood, then leather-clad wood, then solid rubber. These progressions aimed to soften the bumpy, noisy ride experienced on the new-fangled bicycle. In 1887 Dunlop, then working as a vet in Belfast, witnessed the discomfort of his young son riding a tricycle on cobbled streets, so made a rubber tube pumped full with air and held round the front wheel with sailcloth and later, for manufacturing purposes, with rubber cement.

Dunlop resigned from the ensuing Dunlop Rubber Company in 1895 and did not make much money from his idea. He was not to know that he was on the cusp of the motor car revolution which would see ‘Fort Dunlop’ built in Coventry to service a mushrooming sector.

(Top images LtoR of Dunlop racing tyre: Peter Taylor at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 and of Dr. Dunlop: picryl.com / Public domain)

John Kay (1704-c.80) from Lancashire and one of his six sons, Robert (1728-1802), made vital contributions to the Industrial Revolution in the textile industry. John first invented, manufactured and installed wire reeds for looms. He later developed a card-making machine and a cording and twisting machine for yarn. In 1733 he invented the flying shuttle, the first step from hand looms to power looms.

His mechanism comprised a wheeled, aerodynamic bobbin tray ferrying the weft to and fro inside the warp ‘shed’ and operated by pulling on a cord attached to the hammers that whacked the tray along a ‘race’. A weaver could do this with one hand while simultaneously operating the reeds. This was far quicker than doing the job manually and enabled the production of much wider cloth.

Some newly laid-off weavers expressed their resentful and some rival businesses ignored Kay’s patent, which he could not afford to continue defending in court, and copied the idea anyway (patents were not fairly regulated then). However, Robert improved the loom further in 1760 by the addition of a ‘drop box’ to hold extra bobbins so that multi-coloured designs could be woven. In spite of any difficulties, the Kays’ innovations were a turning point.

(Top images LtoR: flying shuttle trays by Linda Spashett at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0, John Kay [cropped] by Wellcome Collection by Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)