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.
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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" (The Gallovidian #4, 1899).
Macmillan allegedly completed construction of a pedal driven bicycle of wood in 1839 that included iron-rimmed wooden wheels, a steerable 30 inch (760 mm) wheel in the front and a 40 inch (1016 mm) wheel in the rear which was connected to pedals via connecting rods. The entire machine weighed 57 lb (26 kg).
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." MacMillan lived in Glasgow and worked at the Vulcan Foundry during the relevant period around 1840, not at the family smithy Courthill.
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.
The identification of MacMillan as recipient of an early speeding ticket for his bicycling is doubted[by whom?] on grounds that its application would require an early Victorian newspaper to mistake a blacksmith for a "gentleman".[citation needed]
Scholarly misgivings did not deter popular retelling with interesting details from sources unknown. [4]
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 quadricycles[5]. A similar claim is made in a short introduction in David Gordon Wilson's Bicycling Science, 3rd edition [6].
See also
History of the bicycle#The 1830s: the reported Scottish inventions
References
- ^ Kirkpatrick Macmillan on the BBC Biography pages
- ^ Kirkpatrick Macmillan on The Scotsman's webpage
- ^ Kirkpatrick Macmillan on the Great Scots webpages
- ^ 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
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