A fascinating story 👇
Wilf Hare repairs a cart with a revolutionary Dunlop pneumatic tyre at his father's business in Snape before the outbreak of the Second World War
A reader has taken me to task for missing the bicentenary of the birth of Thomson but I can only plead that I was on holiday at the time. Instead this week sees the 200th anniversary of his baptism which took place on July 26 1822, a month after his birth on June 29. His first practical invention was a boon to his mother – he devised a mangle that allowed wet clothing to pass through rollers both ways, thus halving the amount of mangle use.
Thomson moved to London where he sought out the greatest scientist of the day, Michael Faraday . He was impressed by Thomson’s intellect and commitment and recommended the young Scotsman to the South Eastern Railway Company where the engineers Sir William Cubitt and Robert Stephenson – son of rail pioneer George Stephenson – took him under their wings, with his first major task being the blasting of new routes around Dover.
In December, 1845, he obtained a patent No 10990 for what he called his “aerial wheels”, and further patents followed in France and the USA over the next two years. The problem was that Thomson was far ahead of his time – rubber was very expensive, not particularly reliable and there were no cars and few bicycles.
He also found a wife, Clara Hertz, the daughter of a local diamond merchant, and they would have two children. But Thomson’s health was damaged by the climate in Java, and after 10 years he returned to Scotland, setting up in business and making his home at Moray Place in Edinburgh.
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