Kirkpatrick Macmillan
Kirkpatrick Macmillan (* 2 September 1812 in Keir, Dumfries and Galloway; † 26 January 1878 in Keir) was a Scottish blacksmith. During much of the 20th century, historians generally credited him with inventing the rear-wheel driven bicycle.
Invention of pedal driven bicycle?
According to the research of his relative James Johnston in the 1890s, Macmillan was the first to invent the pedal-driven bicycle [1][2][3]. Johnston, a corn trader and tricyclist, had the firm aim, in his own words "to prove that to my native country of Dumfries belongs the honour of being the birthplace of the invention of the bicycle" [4].
Macmillan allegedly completed construction of a pedal driven bicycle of wood in 1839 that included iron-rimmed wooden wheels, a steerable wheel in the front and a larger wheel in the rear which was connected to pedals via connecting rods.
A Glasgow newspaper reported in 1842 an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a pedestrian in the Gorbals and was fined five British shillings. Johnston identified Macmillan as that gentleman.
A plaque on the family smithy Courthill reads "He builded better than he knew." Yet MacMillan lived in Glasgow and worked at the Vulcan Foundry during the relevant period around 1840, not at the family smithy Courthill (Dodds 1992).
Scepticism
The Johnston doctrine of the bright, modest and industrious tradesman, achieving what others would only do decades later, captured the public imagination, especially in Scotland. It was also well accepted among historians, at least British ones, in the early 20th century. Late in the century, scepticism became rife.
Johnston did not present conclusive proofs, though he wrote that he had them. Sceptics allege that MacMillan design which he presented was a composite of the two McCall velocipedes of 1869. At the behest of Johnston Thomas McCall, aged 64, built a replica to be presented as MacMillan's at the 1896 Stanley show and now at Dumfries Museum - presumably he needed the money (Clayton 1987).
The identification of MacMillan as recipient of an early speeding ticket for his bicycling is doubted by curator Alastair Dodds on grounds that its application would require an early Victorian newspaper to mistake a blacksmith for a "gentleman"[5]. Scholarly misgivings did not deter popular retelling with interesting details from sources unknown. [6]
Other claims to invention
Some historians who have studied the invention of the pedal-driven bicycle, including David Herlihy, state that Macmillan was not the first inventor. Herlihy states there is no contemporary documentary evidence that a pedal-crank design was applied to a 2-wheeled vehicle and that letters from customers in Scotland to the Michaux company in 1868 state that all of the human-powered vehicles there are tricycles and quadracycles[7]. A similar claim is made in a short introduction in David Gordon Wilson's Bicycling Science, 3rd edition [8].
See also
Literature
- Alastair Dodds: Kirkpatrick MacMillan - Inventor of the bicycle: fact or heresay?, Proceedings of 3rd Int. Cycling-History Conference, Neckarsulm 1992, pp.1-25
- Nicholas Oddy: Kirkpatrick MacMillan, the inventor of the pedal cycle or the invention of cycle history?Proceedings of 1st ICHC, Glasgow 1990, pp. 24-32
- Nicholas Clayton: The first bicycle!, The Boneshaker #113, Spring 1987, pp. 25-29
References
- ^ Kirkpatrick Macmillan on the BBC Biography pages
- ^ Kirkpatrick Macmillan on The Scotsman's webpage
- ^ Kirkpatrick Macmillan on the Great Scots webpages
- ^ Janes Johnston:The first bicycle, The Gallovidian (Dumfries) #4, Winter 1899
- ^ Alastair Dodds: What did Kirkpatrick MacMillan invent?, The Boneshaker #127, Winter 1991, PP. 11-16
- ^ A little story of how it happened
- ^ David V. Herlihy: Bicycle - The History, 2004, pp. 65-69
- ^ David Gordon Wilson: Bicycling Science 3rd ed. 2004, pp.12-13