Robert William Thomson: inventor of the pneumatic tyre

If asked to state who invented the pneumatic vehicle tyre, most people would answer that the honour belongs to the Scottish veterinary surgeon John Dunlop, whose invention in 1888 of a reliable rubber tyre for bicycles was certainly a very significant step on the way to the modern tyre.

However, the concept of pumping air inside a tube surrounding a wheel, with a view to absorbing most of the bumps and producing a smoother ride, goes back to 1845 and the Scottish civil engineer Robert William Thomson (1822-73). 

 

Thomson had his own workshop from the age of 17 and later became a civil engineer on the burgeoning railway system. One of his most useful inventions in this capacity was a method for firing explosive charges remotely by using electricity, which no doubt saved many lives as tunnels and cuttings were blasted out of solid rock.

He was only 23 when he thought up the idea of the pneumatic tyre, which he termed the “aerial wheel”. It consisted of an air-filled tube of natural rubber encased in leather which in turn was fixed to the wheel of a carriage. He patented his invention in France in 1846 and the United States in 1847, and it proved to be a reasonable success. However, the leather coverings did not prove to be very durable, and Thomson did not proceed with further developments.

Instead, Thomson turned his attention to the possibilities offered by a new form of rubber, namely vulcanized rubber, that was tougher and more resilient to changes in temperature. The process had been invented in 1839 by Charles Goodyear, and it involved heat-treating rubber to which sulphur had been added. However, Thomson abandoned the concept of air-filled tubes and concentrated on developing carriage wheels shod with solid rubber tyres.

It was therefore left to John Dunlop to combine the use of air-filled tubes and vulcanized rubber covers to produce the sort of tyre that is familiar to us today. Dunlop’s work was extremely timely, given the important improvements in bicycle design in the 1870s and 1880s. The combination of the “safety” bicycle and Dunlop’s tyres led to a massive boost in popularity of the bicycle, which was to become a “must have” for people across the social classes.

However, Robert Thomson had the last laugh, because Dunlop was told in 1890 that Thomson’s earlier patents invalidated his own of 1888.

© John Welford

Louis and Auguste Lumière, inventors of cinematography

On 28^th December 1895 the Lumière brothers, Louis and Auguste, demonstrated the first true motion picture, via a system which they called the cinématographe.

The brothers were born in Besançon, eastern France (Louis in 1862 and Auguste in 1864) but grew up in Lyon. They showed an early interest in still photography and Louis saw a career opportunity in the production of photographic plates. He persuaded his father Antoine to finance the venture, which was producing 15 million plates a year within ten years of the factory opening.

It was Antoine who first directed his sons’ interest towards motion pictures. After he saw a demonstration in Paris of Thomas Edison’s “Kinetoscope” he went home to Lyon and suggested to the brothers that they develop a means of projecting moving images on to a screen instead of the “peepshow” system that Edison had patented.

The Lumières came up with something that was to form the basis of cinematography for many years to come. They appreciated that the human brain could interpret the viewing of fifteen frames a second as motion, so they gave themselves a modicum of insurance by introducing a system that recorded and played at sixteen frames a second, which is the standard still used to the present day. By contrast, Edison’s system ran at 46 frames a second, which meant that vastly more film was needed to record sequences that ran for the same length of time.

The patrons of the Café de la Paix, near the Paris Opera, were treated to two short films, one showing a train apparently charging out of the screen at them and the other being somewhat less dramatic and bearing the title “Workers leaving the Lumière factory”. However, the brothers were to go on to make more than 1000 films over the next four years and thus give birth to a new industry and a new form of entertainment.

© John Welford

Thomas Edison, arguably the world's greatest inventor

Thomas Alva Edison was born on 11^th February 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was arguably the greatest inventive genius of all time, with more than 1,000 United States patents to his name, but he was relatively modest about his achievements, once stating that: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”.

At the heart of his work was the desire to create innovations that were of practical value in making peoples’ lives more productive and enjoyable. He said that he never wasted his time working on things that people would not want to buy.

He also stated that many of his inventions were not original in concept, but he took the concept forward so that it became a reality. The invention for which he is best remembered, namely the electric light bulb, was a case in point. The idea of heating platinum strips to incandescence by applying an electric current had been formulated in 1801 by the British scientist Sir Humphrey Davy. However, Edison turned this into a practical proposition, after considerable trial and error, 78 years later.

Edison’s first invention was an electric machine for recording votes, although this was rejected by the government of Massachusetts who realised that it would no longer be possible to rig votes if such a device became commonplace.

Later inventions included a dictaphone, a mimeograph and a practical electric storage battery. However, the “big three” inventions were undoubtedly the electric light bulb as mentioned above, the phonograph, and the “kinetiscope” which was the earliest device for viewing silent films although it did not project an image.

Edison lived to the age of 84, continuing to apply for patents until shortly before his death in October 1931.

© John Welford