Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Dunlop, John Boyd
DUNLOP, JOHN BOYD (1840-1921), inventor and pioneer of the pneumatic rubber tyre, was born 5 February 1840 at Dreghorn, Ayrshire, of a farming family. As a boy he attended the local parish school and, being considered too delicate for farm work, was allowed to continue his studies at Irvine’s Academy, Edinburgh. Reared in a farming atmosphere, it was natural that he should be interested in horses, and later he studied veterinary surgery so successfully that at the age of nineteen he secured his diploma. For eight years he worked at his profession in Edinburgh, and in 1867 migrated to Belfast, where he established a practice in Glouchester Street. His personal and professional qualities brought success, and within twenty years the practice was one of the largest in Ireland.
The invention which made Dunlop’s name famous was devised in October 1887. His son John, then nine years of age, who had a tricycle fitted with solid rubber tyres, complained of being jarred as he rode over the rough setts with which the streets were paved. Dunlop’s mind was attracted by the problem. He obtained a disk of wood and, being skilled at working in rubber, constructed an air-tube and laid it round the periphery of the disk, fastening it down by a covering of linen tacked to the wood. He tested this disk against one of the tricycle wheels by throwing the two along the cobbles of a long courtyard, and the enormously greater resilience and liveliness of the air-tyred disk was at once obvious. Developing the idea further, Dunlop made two rims of wood, fastened air-tubes and covers to them, and fixed them over the existing tyres of the rear wheels of his son’s machine. A trial of this device in February 1888 proving eminently successful, a new tricycle frame was ordered, for which wheels with pneumatic tyres were built and fitted; and a demonstration took place before several Belfast business men, with the result that, on 28 July 1888, the first application for a provisional protection was lodged at the Patent Office. This was finally accepted on 7 December.
After exhaustive tests on a bicycle, Dunlop began to procure from Edinburgh tyres made to his specification and, in conjunction with Messrs. Edlin & Co., of Belfast, who built the tricycle, he put on the market machines complete with pneumatic tyres. A racing bicycle was also built to the order of W. Hume, captain of a local cycling club, who rode the new machine at a local sports meeting on 18 May 1889 and easily beat a number of superior riders mounted on solid-tyred cycles. Among the defeated riders were the sons of William Harvey Du Cros, who, being impressed with the possibilities of the new tyre, made the acquaintance of the inventor and eventually, late in 1889, refloated with him the business of Booth Brothers, cycle and agricultural implement agents, of Dublin, as the Pneumatic Tyre and Booth’s Cycle Agency. Dunlop, who had been on the point of retiring from his practice, made over his patent to Du Cros for a moderate sum and took 1,500 shares in the company, the capital of which (£25,000) was not at first fully subscribed. In 1892 Dunlop removed to Dublin.
Dunlop continued to play an important part in the business for several years, but was overshadowed by Du Cros, whose ability helped to guide the company through many struggles. It was found that the pneumatic principle had already been patented in 1846 by a certain Mr. Thompson, a fact which invalidated the Dunlop patent. The company had, however, secured valuable patents for rims, valves, and fixing methods; and, after a brief fight with the short-lived cushion tyre and much litigation, it prospered, and in time pneumatic tyres achieved worldwide popularity. The pneumatic tyre revolutionized cycling and made possible the motor road vehicle. Dunlop himself did not profit greatly from the success of his invention, and he took no further part in its development after the original company had been sold in 1896 for £3,000,000 to the financier, Ernest Terah Hooley, who refloated it for £5,000,000. Eventually it became the Dunlop Rubber Company, Ltd., with a huge capital and many subsidiary companies. Dunlop lived quietly at Balls Bridge, Dublin, his only business interest being in a drapery establishment there. He died there 23 October 1921. He married in 1876 and had a son and a daughter (Mrs. McClintock); the latter in 1923 published some of her father’s reminiscences as The History of the Pneumatic Tyre.
[Jean McClintock, History of the Pneumatic Tyre, 1923; private information; personal knowledge.]