Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre (1888): Air-Filled Tyres for Bicycles

The pneumatic (air-filled) tyre was developed in Belfast in 1887-1888 by John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish-born veterinary surgeon, to give his son a smoother ride on his tricycle. Patented in 1888, Dunlop’s tyre made cycling far faster and more comfortable, sparked a cycling boom and created a new industry. Although an earlier patent by Robert William Thomson later invalidated Dunlop’s claim, it was Dunlop’s tyre that went into production and made the idea a success.

Background: the solid-tyre problem

By the 1880s bicycles were becoming popular, especially the new “safety bicycle” with two wheels of equal size and a chain drive. Their wheels, however, ran on solid rubber or even iron tyres, which gave a hard, jolting ride on cobbles and rough roads. The iron-tyred velocipedes of the 1860s had earned the nickname “boneshakers”, and solid rubber was only a partial improvement.

The idea of cushioning a wheel with air was not new. In 1845 the Scottish engineer Robert William Thomson patented “aerial wheels”, a leather casing around an inflated rubber tube, for horse-drawn carriages. They were demonstrated in London and gave a quieter, smoother ride, but rubber was expensive and the tyres were difficult to make and maintain. The invention was forgotten.

Dunlop’s experiments

John Boyd Dunlop was born on 5 February 1840 in Dreghorn, Ayrshire, and trained as a vet in Edinburgh. He moved to Ireland in 1867, practising first in Downpatrick, County Down, and then built up a large veterinary practice in Belfast.

In 1887 his young son Johnnie complained about the discomfort of riding his tricycle. Dunlop experimented with a wooden disc and a tube of thin rubber sheet, inflated with a football pump and wrapped in linen. Rolled across his yard, the air-cushioned disc travelled further than a solid-tyred wheel. He then fitted inflated tubes to the rear wheels of his son’s tricycle, and in early 1888 tried them on a bicycle.

Dunlop applied for a British patent in July 1888, and it was granted in December that year. He was apparently unaware of Thomson’s work.

Racing success and the first company

Many cyclists at first laughed at the fat, sausage-like tyres. Opinion changed on 18 May 1889, when the Belfast cyclist Willie Hume rode a bicycle fitted with Dunlop tyres at sports held at Queen’s College, Belfast, and won all four cycling races he entered. Among the beaten riders were sons of Harvey du Cros, a Dublin businessman and president of the Irish Cyclists’ Association.

Du Cros saw the commercial potential. In November 1889 he and others founded a company in Dublin, the Pneumatic Tyre and Booth’s Cycle Agency, to exploit the patent. Dunlop received a share in the business but played only a limited role in its management and withdrew from it in the mid-1890s.

The patent problem and new improvements

In 1890 the company learned that Dunlop’s patent was invalid because Thomson had patented the same principle 45 years earlier. The business survived by buying patents on improvements. The key problem was that Dunlop’s original tyres were glued to the rim, making punctures very hard to repair.

In 1890 Charles Kingston Welch patented a tyre held on by wires in its edges, and William Erskine Bartlett patented a “clincher” design that hooked under the rim. Both made tyres detachable. In France, André and Édouard Michelin produced their own removable bicycle tyre in 1891. The Dunlop company moved its manufacturing to England, and in 1900 it took the name Dunlop Rubber Company.

From bicycles to cars

Pneumatic tyres helped fuel a bicycle craze in the 1890s, when cycling gave many people, including large numbers of women, a new freedom to travel.

The new motor cars that followed the Benz Patent-Motorwagen at first ran on solid tyres. In the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race of 1895 the Michelin brothers drove a car fitted with pneumatic tyres; it suffered many punctures but showed the possibilities. By the early 1900s air-filled tyres were standard, and the growing car industry, culminating in mass-produced vehicles such as the Ford Model T, made tyre-making one of the great industries of the twentieth century.

Dunlop died in Dublin on 23 October 1921. His portrait appeared on banknotes issued in Northern Ireland, and plaques in Belfast mark the sites associated with his invention.

Timeline

• 1840, 5 February: John Boyd Dunlop is born in Dreghorn, Ayrshire.
• 1845, 10 December: Robert William Thomson patents his “aerial wheels”.
• 1887: Dunlop experiments with an air-filled tyre for his son’s tricycle.
• 1888, July: Dunlop applies for a British patent, granted in December.
• 1889, 18 May: Willie Hume wins four races in Belfast on Dunlop tyres.
• 1889, November: The Pneumatic Tyre and Booth’s Cycle Agency is founded in Dublin.
• 1890: Dunlop’s patent is found invalid because of Thomson’s earlier patent.
• 1895, June: The Michelin brothers race a car on pneumatic tyres.
• 1921, 23 October: Dunlop dies in Dublin.

Why it matters

The pneumatic tyre was a small invention with huge consequences. It made bicycles practical for everyday travel and made the motor car comfortable and fast enough to replace the horse, while the companies built on it became giants of the rubber industry.