Lewis Gompertz

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Lewis Gompertz (also: Louis Gompertz ; * 1783 or 1784 in Surrey , England ; † December 2, 1861 in Kennington ) was an animal rights activist and inventor of a hand crank drive for draisines , which he constructed in 1821.

Life

Karl Drais invented the draisine in 1817, a forerunner of the bicycle . This had no drive yet, but was moved forward by the driver pushing his feet on the ground. Since 1819 there have been attempts to use mechanical devices to help the driver of such a velocipede drive. They failed because they were too complicated. It was not until 1821 that Lewis Gompertz successfully built a mechanism with which the front wheel could be moved by hand. The handlebar was pulled backwards, moving a quadrant with gears (quarter circle) that turned a gear that acted on the front hub. The gear wheel had a freewheel that made it possible to bring the handlebar back to the front position. This mechanism is also described as a precursor to the bicycle chain . It then took a few decades before the development of the bicycle continued with the invention of the crank .

In 1824 Gompertz was a founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which later became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), the world's oldest animal welfare organization.

Lewis Gompertz died of bronchitis in the winter of 1861 and was buried in the cemetery of a Kennington church next to his wife Ann.

literature

  • JT Goddard: The Velocipede: Its History, Varieties, and Practice . Riverside Press, Cambridge 1869, p. 11
  • Cycling . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 7 : Constantine Pavlovich - Demidov . London 1910, p. 683 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 252.
  2. ^ Lewis Gompertz at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
personal data
SURNAME Gompertz, Lewis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gompertz, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Animal rights activist and inventor of a hand crank drive for draisines
DATE OF BIRTH 1783 or 1784
PLACE OF BIRTH Surrey
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1861
Place of death Kennington