Month: July 2023

Inventions

The pneumatic tyre

The pneumatic tyre was invented twice, since the second claimant was unaware of a patent registered in 1846 in France and 1847 […]

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.

*Image of the enormous Fort Dunlop: David Dixon at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0*

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

14/07/2023
3 min
1 year
240 words

The Battle of the Boyne

The Battle of the Boyne was fought on 1st July 1690 on the banks of Ireland’s River Boyne at Oldbridge. King James […]

The Battle of the Boyne was fought on 1st July 1690 on the banks of Ireland’s River Boyne at Oldbridge. King James II & VII (1633-1701, Catholic) of England, Scotland and Ireland had been deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 after fleeing to France but returned to Ireland to raise an army against his replacement, King William III (1650-1702, Protestant) who was also his nephew and son-in-law!

William had the advantage of better equipment and although he was injured when he brazenly picnicked within firing range of the Jacobites (supporters of James), the Williamite troops were victorious. The Jacobites were finally crushed the next year in the Battle of Aughrim on 12th July. However, the former Battle was perhaps more notable for being led by both Kings in person and, aided by a retrospective re-dating of the 1st to the 12th following the calendar shift of 1752, the Battle of the Boyne eventually became the main focus of ‘the Twelfth’ celebrations.

A bank holiday in Northern Ireland, it features Protestant parades and marching bands. With changing demographics the traditional routes have sometimes caused an upset in Catholic communities. Nevertheless, the Orange Order organisation (established in 1795) continues to run multiple family-friendly, festive events across the region.

(Image showing an Orange lodge banner in a march on the Twelfth/Orangemen’s Day 2018: Eric Jones at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

09/07/2023
3 min
1 year
227 words

Quoting Neil Oliver...

I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.