The Father of the Bicycle Industry

Tuesday, 21 June 1881 - Coventry, England

I took the early morning train from Kenilworth back to Coventry today. I went straight to my time machine, disguised as a huge wooden crate in a currently empty warehouse. I didn’t bother to get a hotel, for I’m only staying the day. I left my luggage there and changed into my black frock coat and top hat I had been storing in the machine just for this occasion. I have to attend a funeral today.

James Starley

If you will remember on Twitter I had commented last Friday that a James Starley was to die that evening? I was not allowed to stop it, and couldn’t anyway. This was no matter of shoving someone out of the way of a train. Poor Starley had cancer and in 1881 there is no cure. The doctors had found the lump just last December. By Easter he was bed ridden. His death came as no shock to anyone. No one wanted to see him die, but they all must feel a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering.

As is the fashion of the day, the funeral was held four days later. The mood of Coventry is subdued. Many mourn the loss, while the more cynical wonder what the loss of the brilliant James Starley will mean to this town. Hundreds lined the street to watch the passing funeral procession, as four black horses pulled the long dark hearse.

I had a devil of a time squeezing into the church where the memorial service was held. The speaker unfolded the rags to riches story of Coventry’s favorite son. James Starley was born on a farm in Sussex in 1830. He however had an inventive mind that loved to tinker. In another age he would have died a farmer who had built a better mousetrap (which young Starley apparently did with an umbrella rib and a willow branch) but this is the industrial age and it needs engineering geniuses.

Starley ran away as a teenager to London and got a job as a gardener. In his spare time he tinkered with watches and gadgets. He even fixed and improved his employer, John Penn’s, expensive sewing machine. Penn introduced him to Josiah Turner, a partner of Newton, Wilson and Company who had manufactured his sewing machine. Turner got Starley a job at the factory, until he discovered the young man was building his own vastly improved sewing machine. Turner talked him into starting their own company in Coventry in 1861.

James Starley's "Queen of Hearts" Sewing Machine

The new sewing machine, named “the Queen of Hearts,” was a big hit. Starley kept tweaking it, coming up with many improvements that others copied. Then he saw his first bicycle. It was a velocipede from France, nicknamed the Bone-Shaker for good reason. Inefficient, uncomfortable, it was little more than a curiosity, Starley saw huge potential and started producing them in 1868.

Velocipede aka Bone-Shaker

Of course, Starley’s bicycles did not stay bone-shakers for long. Bicycles didn’t have chains then, so one had to peddle furiously. Starley decided increasing the front tire would give more momentum. And thus Starley invented the “Penny-Farthing.”

Penny-Farthing bicycle

The Penny-Farthing was more efficient, but it was difficult to ride. It seemed only young athletic men, wishing to impress girls, raced about on them. Starley wasn’t satisfied with it though, and kept trying to develop what he called a “safety bicycle.” He improved the spokes, the tires, indeed he had dozens of patents. He was constantly reinventing the bicycle.

Why there was a need for the Safety Bicycle

Then Starley made a breakthrough when he devised “differential gears” and perfected the chain drive. This led to the “Salvo,” with two huge tires and small wheels to stabilize it. Even Her Majesty could ride one of these (and she did!)

James Starley on his "Salvo" bicycle

Then James Starley was struck down by cancer at the tender age of fifty. All right, life expectancy in England in 1881 is only about 45 years. Still it is far too soon to take away a man who’s life work was not done.

Fortunately his family will carry on the business. And in four years his nephew, James Kemp Starley, will finish his uncle’s dream, creating the Rover. This safety bicycle is the model we think of today as the bicycle. It will revolutionize bicycling by making it available to just about everyone from young ladies riding in the park to working-class men making deliveries or riding to work.

James Starley has been called the Father of the Bicycle Industry. He may not have invented the first bicycle, or the final version, but without all his innovations, James Kemp Starley may never have invented the safety bicycle--at least not in time for the 1890s, the Golden Age of the Bicycle.

The Rover Bicycle

Others will take James Starley’s differential gears and use them to create automobiles. They are still found in hovercars in our own 27th century, allowing cars to land and drive to their parking spots. It is no coincidence that Coventry will also become the birthplace of the British automobile industry.

There is already talk of making a monument to James Starley. It will be very showy in true Victorian fashion. However I think the James Starley Building on the campus of Coventry University is a more fitting memorial to an inventive genius.

Starley Memorial erected 1884

James Starley’s contribution to Coventry’s growth can not be emphasized enough. When its watch industry was all but snuffed out by foreign imports in the 1880s, bicycle manufacturing took up the slack, and then branched off into the automotive and aeroplane industries. This why Coventry University was so keen to have me record the funeral of one of her most important citizens. James Starley will indeed be missed.

James Starley’s story by legendary British Cyclist Horace William Bartleet

More about James Starley’s Sewing Machines

Penny Farthings On the Road
Apparently in the future, brave men will still ride Penny-Farthings to impress ladies

Normally I don't put advertisements in my blog,
but this was too good to ignore.
Available at Zazzle

The Vicar Who Took On the Luftwaffe--And Won

Sunday, 5 June 1881 - Coventry, Warwickshire, UK

I believe I mentioned “the Three Spires” of Coventry in my last blog? The towers all survived the Blitz of 1940-41, but the churches attached to them did not fair so well. Only one survived--Holy Trinity. That’s where I was today.

Built in the 12th century, and restored several times, Holy Trinity retains most of its medieval flavor. 194 feet long, it would be an impressive church if it wasn’t nearly kiddy-corner to the much larger and grander St. Michael’s Church, which will become a cathedral in 1918. How did Holy Trinity survive the Blitz when St. Michael’s was gutted? Did God protect the smaller house of worship? Well, partly. Mostly it was protected by a stubborn vicar who refused to lose his church.

I know I was at Holy Trinity to record today’s service, but my mind kept drifting back to that fateful day, so long ago (well, nearly sixty years in the future from where I sat.) The fourteenth of November 1940 the German Luftwaffe bombed Coventry. This was no hit and run bombing as they had done before. Five hundred planes, for nearly eleven hours, did their best wipe Coventry off the map.

Rev. Graham Clitheroe

While saner people were huddled in bomb shelters, Holy Trinity’s vicar, Rev Graham William Clitheroe was at his church, doing his best to protect it. He had the help of his son and the curate. It’s believed there was a third man, but no one remembers who it was. I do. His name was Dr. Basil Hancock from the University of London and my friend.

You are probably wondering how I knew someone from the 20th century when I’m only allowed back in the 19th, but Basil was a temporal anthropologist from the 27th century like myself. We went through training at the Institute of Time Travel together and received our licenses at the same time. Basil convinced the Institute that his being at Holy Trinity that night would change nothing and he would be safe.

Basil recorded that whole hellish night. Rev. Clitheroe ran about putting out fires around his church, and even climbed ladders to push bombs off the roof. How he managed is a wonder, for he was not a young man. Basil admitted to me he cried as he watched the city around him going up in flames. Rev. Clitheroe would cry later, that night he had his hands full just saving this one building.

Holy Trinity still standing after the Blitz

The next day Coventry was horrified to find out they had lost their beloved cathedral. However the vision of Holy Trinity standing above the rubble inspired them to carry on. Rev. Clitheroe invited St. Michael’s to share his church, and combined services were held until St. Michael’s could rebuild. For a time, Holy Trinity was the city’s unofficial cathedral.

I understand that when Graham Clitheroe died in 1968 (four years after he retired) his final wish was to be cremated and his ashes buried in the graveyard of the church he loved. He knew the burial ground had long since been filled up, but felt they could surely find a spot for a small urn. The current Vicar at the time, Lawrence Jackson, refused. Clitheroe would not be buried outside the church he had saved--he would be buried inside at a place of honor!

Graham Clitheroe buried inside Holy Trinity Church

The only major damage Holy Trinity suffered that night was the loss of their east and west side stained glass windows. As I stared at the doomed Victorian panes, I thought of Basil. He wanted to record Britain at it’s “finest hour.” He had records of where bombs would drop and what places were safe. He must have lost track, for he would later die in the London Blitz. Not the first temporal anthropologist to lose his life in the line of duty. Although it’s been twenty years since he died, I still miss Basil, even if he won’t be born for another 694 years.

A more detailed account of that night in 1940.

Holy Trinity Church through the ages (video)

Blitz: The Bombing of Coventry (documentary)
Part 1     Part 2    Part 3    Part 4

Monument to Endurance

Sunday, 29 May 1881 - Coventry, England

Today I attended the service of one of the oldest and newest churches in Coventry. Christchurch is Victorian but its spire is medieval and is one of the three spires, along with St. Michael’s and Holy Trinity, that loom above Coventry. This spot will also be the victim of the two worse attacks to hit Coventry.

Three Spires of Coventry

The first church built on this spot was Greyfriars Church, next to a Franciscan monastery, back in the 1200s. It started out humble but was added onto and decorated by nobility, hoping to get into God’s good graces.

The Greyfriars of Coventry were most famous for their mystery play held at the feat of Corpus Christi. The monks did The Bible in 42 acts, the first seven from the Old Testament, the rest from the New Testament. The various scenes were mounted on wheels and the stages drawn about the town for the better advantage of the spectators. Needless to say tourists and pilgrims (one and the same back then) flocked to Coventry to witness this spectacle. More than once the visitors included the reigning King.

Greyfriars Gate (long gone) and Steeple (still here)

It all came to an end in the 16th century. In 1533, when the Pope Clement VII told Henry VIII he would not annul his 24-year marriage to Catherine of Aragon, so the King could marry Anne Boleyn (who he beheaded 3 years later when he got bored with her.) Henry didn’t like anyone telling him what to do, so he broke away from Rome and started the Church of England with himself as the head.

Catholics were outlawed and the monasteries and nunneries disbanded. The Church’s property became his. Coventry at that time was not only home to the Franciscan Greyfriars and Whitefriars, but the even more powerful Benedictine priory and their Cathedral of St. Mary. Henry decided Coventry didn’t need a Cathedral since its population was now too small so St. Mary’s and Greyfriars church were torn down.

The reason why Coventry’s population had plummeted from 7,000 to 3,000 was because of Henry VIII. The kicked out monks not only made up a sizable chunk of the city’s body count, they also brought business to local merchants and craftsmen, as well as tourist money from pilgrims. In some ways, Henry’s destruction was more devastating to Coventry than Hitler’s Blitz!

A few churches were bought by locals and turned into Anglican churches, but not all of them could be saved. Those like Greyfriars were demolished, stone and wood salvaged for other building projects. But when they got to the tower and steeple, they stopped. No one could bring themselves to tear that down.

Christchurch

By the early 19th century, the tower was being used as a pig sty! Coventry was growing and needed a new church. The town decided to save the old steeple and make it part of a church once more. Christchurch was built in 1832, incorporating the tower. The new church was only 124 by 55 feet, nearly half the length of the original 240 by 60 foot Greyfriars Church. Still the steeple was once more part of a church

Then in April of 1941, a bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe destroyed Christchurch. This tragedy was overshadowed by the destruction of the larger St. Michael’s Cathedral in the first air raid five months before. Ten years later Christchurch's shell was demolished and a new church built elsewhere.

Christchurch after Blitz

Greyfriars/Christchurch
Spire 100 years from now

However the ancient steeple again survived. Neither Henry or Hitler could destroy it. The city will rebuild around it, careful not to disturb this monument to endurance.

Coventry

Friday, 19 May 1881 - Coventry, England, UK

I will be exploring Warwickshire over the next few weeks. Right in the heart of England, It is one of her leading industrial counties. Indeed parts have been nicknamed “the Black Country” because of all the soot from the factories.

Broadgate in Coventry
(Kings Head Hotel on the left is where I am staying.)

My first stop is Coventry, an industrial town long before the Industrial Revolution. Coventry gets it’s name from a convent started here in the 700s by the Saxon lady, St. Osburg. In 1016 the not so great Danes, Canute and Edric, destroyed it. In 1043 Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife, Godgifu (Lady Godiva), rebuilt the nunnery as a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Soon people noticed Coventry had more to offer than just a monastery and a castle. The River Sherbourne running through the town was perfect for water mills. There was plenty of forest for lumber and fuel, along with nearby stone quarries and lush fields. It was near the old Roman roads Watling Street and the Fosse Way, making it perfect for trade. Coventry became a wool and textile center, famous throughout Europe for it’s dyers and their non-fading or “true” blue. The town grew to be the fourth largest city in Medieval England. Much of Medieval and Tudor Coventry still remain in the oldest parts of town.

The fortunes of Coventry have waxed and waned since the Tudor period. Coventry’s current (1881) population is 42,111. The nearby and once much smaller Birmingham is over ten times that size of Coventry with 456,221. Still Coventry is hardly a sleepy hamlet. When textile trade was ruined by cheap imports, Coventry turned to “high tech” making watches, clocks, sewing machines and bicycles. Indeed James Starley, who started the first bicycle factory here, is considered the father of the bicycle industry. He and his family has developed many innovations that revolutionized bicycles more than once.

Bicycles factories will lead to England’s first automobile plant in 1897 which will lead to airplane manufactruing in 1916. Unfortunately this will lead to Coventry being a prime target of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. 1,236 people were killed, 75% of the factories were destroyed and much of the wooden medieval buildings in the city centre burned. The damage was so great the word Koventrieren, “to Coventrate,” was added to both the German and English languages. The word means "to annihilate or reduce to rubble." Coventry will not only rebuild, but in an act of reconciliation, make Dresden, the German city that suffered a similar fate, it’s “Twin City” soon after the war.

Coventry Blitz

It’s my job to record not only the ancient parts of the city while they are still here, but also the Victorian additions. Walking through parts of town I feel like I’ve gone back in time. Erm...yes, I know I am back in time, but I meant back to the Medieval Age and not 1881. I’m not the only one who feels this way. Victorians love Medieval things and Coventry has been on the railway lines since 1838, making tourism another important industry in this period. I can see the draw. I’m already charmed by Coventry.

Coventry's old Tudor and Medieval buildings