Kirkpatrick Macmillan

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Kirkpatrick Macmillan (around 1839)

Kirkpatrick Macmillan (born September 2, 1812 in Keir , Dumfries and Galloway , Scotland, † January 26, 1878 ibid) was a Scottish blacksmith who is considered the inventor of rear-wheel drive in bicycles .

The development of rear-wheel drive on a trolley using a rocker arm is dated from 1839 to 1842. Macmillan mounted cranks on the rear axle, which were linked via a linkage to pedal levers attached to the front frame. With a frame made of wood, the front wheel with 30 inches and the rear wheel with 40 inches, the weight was given as 26 kg. Macmillan used it to drive the fourteen-mile distance between Courthill and Dumfries for years. The Glasgow Argus newspaper reported an incident on June 9, 1842, in which Macmillan hit a child on this route and was fined five shillings by the Gorbal policewas convicted. While the drive appeared to be working, Macmillan's evidently no intention of marketing it. There were replicas, u. a. by Gavin Dalzell (1846) and Thomas McCall (1860), whose models were mistaken for Macmillan's wheel; beyond Scotland's borders the drive remained unknown.

literature

  • Anton Daul: Illustrated history of the invention of the bicycle and the development of motorcycles . Creutz publishing house, Dresden 1906.
  • Max JB Rauck, Gerd Volke, Felix R. Paturi: By bike through two centuries. The bicycle and its history. 4th edition. AT Verlag, Aarau u. a. 1988, ISBN 3-85502-038-8 .
  • Andrew Ritchie: King of the Road. Wildwood House, London 1975, ISBN 0-913668-42-7 .
  • John Woodeford: The Story of the Bicycle. Routledge & Kegan, London 1970, ISBN 0-7100-6816-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Daul, p. 8.
  2. ↑ bbc.co.uk Kirkpatrick Macmillan (accessed July 9, 2017)
  3. ↑ Andrew Ritchie, p. 36.
  4. ↑ Max JB Rauck, p. 30.
  5. ↑ Woodeford, p. 17.
  6. ↑ Daul, p. 7.
  7. ↑ Andrew Ritchie, p. 36.
  8. ↑ Max JB Rauck, p. 30.
personal data
SURNAME Macmillan, Kirkpatrick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish blacksmith, inventor of the rear-wheel drive bicycle
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1812
PLACE OF BIRTH Keir , Dumfries and Galloway
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1878
Place of death Keir, Dumfries and Galloway