DUNLOP, OF PNEUMATIC TYRE FAME.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3101, 9 January 1922, Page 8

DUNLOP, OF PNEUMATIC TYRE FAME.

A cable message in our last issue mentioned that the late Mr J. 13. Dunlop, inventor of pneumatic tyres, left £IB,OOO, which seems a small fortune to come from an invention so. world famous. But there is an explanation, which wo get in a personal sketch written by Mr T. P. O’Connor in the London Daily Telegraph, from which we glean the following interesting passages, which tell the story of the invention :

Dunlop was born in Ayrshire as far back as 1810: in 1867, when be was 27 years of age, he migrated to Belfast. He had obtained, his diploma as a veterinary surgeon in Edinburgh when lie was but a youngster of 19, and when he came to Belfast he at once found himself a welcome guest, and did a large practice in his profession. It has been said that though he was by profession a veterinary surgeon, he was by taste, more than anything else, an inventor. This statement is misleading to- this extent, that, with all his devotion to experiments in inventions and his marvellous [success, be remained deeply attached to his first profession to- the day of Ins death, and contributed many inventions that facilitated its practice. But Dunlop was, all the same, interested always in invention; ho was also- a doting father, and it is to these fyyo factors that the world owes his great invention. He had a little boy who was very fond of cycling, but cycling was difficult in those days of tho solid tyre, and the lad had to undergo a considerable amount of jolting. And it was in the desire to save his boy from this inconvenience that Dunlop set to work, and conceived the idea of tho pneumatic ly 1 ’ 0 - He gave a local Belfast firm the order to make the first bicycle on these lines. Neither the builder nor the inventor bad the least idea of the astounding possibilities of the rough macinne they were engaged in creating, ft was an accident, and another man that brought the first discovery.

At that time there lived in Dublin a remarkable family with a remarkable head. Harvey du Cros, the head of the family, was a paper merchant by business, and an active and successful one; but he was known to all Ireland mainly as the greatest athlete of his day. 1 here was no athletic prize ring that he had not taken; he was first in fencing; he was first in running; above all, the light-weight champion in boxing. lie had six sons, and all ol them he had brought up in the same lo\ e of sport as himself. They were, among other things, the best cyclists ol the time. They went to all the big cycling gatherings of the period; they carried everything before them; and when they had to meet other competitors they usually had. to accept a big handicap against them. Among the gatherings to which the boys, with their father, went were the sports in the Queen s College, Belfast; the date of this historic and memorable gathering was May 18, 1889. Among the entrants against the hitherto omnipotent brothers was a Belfast lad named Hume. So little was Hume feared that ho got a good start in his favor; hut when it came .to the racing, this despised and unknown youngster on a, new and stra ngc-looking machine—an ugly blighter of a machine, in fact, in comparison with the beautiful machines then manufactured—went ahead of everybody, overlapped them, and came triumphantly yards ahead of them all in every single race that day. Harvey du Cros was so astounded, and disgusted that he left Belfast that day; but he left it with an idea germinating in his head.

This Harvey,Du Cros was a very remarkable fellow; just the man of men for the pneumatic tyro at the stage it had then reached. Somewhat small in stature, in spite of his splendid athletic powers, and with a face that did not suggest tho fighting man—for it had quite regular and handsome features; it was thin; the moustache was long and waxed until it looked like that of Louis Napoleon—he. might have passed for a man of fashion with no particular strength of muscle, until you considered the splendid depth of the chest, the breadth of tho shoulders, and, above all, you realised what kind of man he was if, despite the tranquillity of the expression, you looked steadily at the glittering blue-grey eyes. Ho looked, and he was, a jnau at iron nerves. If it had not been for these qualities the Dunlop tyro would never have como to. anything. Harvey du Cros was not long in making up his mind that the Dun. lop tyre was a big thing; but before ho finally made up his mind he saw another race in Belfast with Arthur, one of his sons, again on the solid ore. His son was easily beaten; then Mr Du Cros tried tho tyro cm private grounds in Dublin; and in tbo end he got into touch with Dun lop and those who were already in touch with him; he went to Mr Booth, tho manufacturer of agricultural implements; to Mr Wood, another Dublin business man; and between them they floated the first Dunlop tyre company, with a subscribed capital of £15,000. I believe Dunlop had the idea throughout his life that l he had not got all tlie glory out of the tyre to which ho was entitled, perhaps, 'also, not ail. the profit; but, allowance living made lor the natural pride of an inventor of a very big tiling, the view was not sound. Without Harvey du Cros there would never have been the great results. For in the first place, though lie did not know it, Dunlop was not the first man to patent a pneumatic tyre. The first patent was taken out in 1846; that was the year in which Harvey du Cros was born; it was taken out, Loo, in Dublin, the city where du Cros was horn ; hut the inventor was Scotchman, Thomason by name. .Thomason died before his time, as lie had invented before his time. But. in addition, then were, serious defects in the original Dunlop machines; these defects were so palpable that other inventions were soon in conflict.

There was another reason why the Dunlop tyre required du t'ros; for years there were constant attempts to infringe its rights; case after ease had to be fought in the law courts, ami the light was, not easy .when the discovery was made of the precedence of the Thomason patent; it was only the tremendous force of character of this hlfle, clapper, well-groomed and waxed moustached man that was able to carry through all these conllicfs. And. finally, there wore the meetings of shareholders. sometimes friendly but sometimes hostile', and there was no man in the world then who had such a power over shareholders. Dry. phlegmatic, in • flexible, and yet persuasive, Harvey dn t'ros went into a meeting that was inclined to hiss and left it amid cheers. AH tliv’rc excitable people bent bcfo;e this man of iron and of ice—of ice, but also of lire beneath. In another way Harvey du (Vos created The industry: In' himself travelled through almosi every country in Europe, breaking down prejudice, helping to get old machinery scrapped, founding factories, creating, in short, a world-wide business. And if anybody thinks that this was an ea-y task, he ought to have seen Allred du Cros entering Coventry with a Dunlop machine on a hansome, followed and jeered at, almost pelted hy a mocking crowd, and turned from almost every door. For I here was no desire to welcome this new machine that would iu-

volve the scrapping of so many ancient things and such big money The subsequent history of the business to which Dunlop gave the name and the machine is too well known to require recounting at this moment; suffice- it to say that it was floated at ■five millions a. few vears after it hadl been started with £1&000; that it helped to create another and oven greater business when the tyro was adapted to the automob-.e; and that neither the automobile nor the cycle industry would have been possible as it is to-day if it had not been for the discovery by this eccentric old veterinary surgeon, who had conceived the- machine to please his little boy. Mr Dunlop migrated from Belfast to Dublin. He was a somewhat well-known figure in the streets of Dublin —an old man with a long white heard that descended half-down his chest, bent almost double as he walked, and evidently in declining health as„ ho descended deeper into the Valley of the Shadow, (t used to be said in the early days of the Dunlop Company that, Dunlop himself was the man that had the least faith in the magnificence and the possibilities of bis invention. Lucky for him and for those interested in the invention that by his side was this strange, hard little man, with a burning ardor, half-Irish, 'half-French, within his veins 1 and underneath his frozen face, and always convinced that he had won one of the big prizes in the- lottery of life.

The final chapter of the relations between Dunlop and his associates had just that element of comedy—perhaps also of pathos—which was required to make the great commercial drama complete. For some years tho Dunlop Company added to their advertisement of their wares the picture of a tall, very handsome, very stylishlydressed old imm, with a shiny hat, hoots that had spats, and who had all tho airs of an old beau. A cane and an eye-glass added to the splendor of the figure. The picture was so well done and so complete that an advertisement expert would at once recognise it as one of those excellent mnemonics which got for an advertisement that hold on the mind of newspaper readers which it is the business of an advertisement to create.

But this poor,"ailing, bent, mid partially disgruntled old man could see in such an advertisement nothing better than a satire upon himself; and certainly the contrast between the reality and the image, was sufficiently poignant to excite the bitterness of old ago looking back on its youth. Mr Dunlop complained that the whole thing was offensive, injurious, and insulting. The company—whose intentions, doubtless, were quite innocent—pleaded that Mr Dunlop had surrendered to them tin' right to reproduce his signature and his face, but he retorted that ho had given the right to publish him as lie was, and not to affix his bust to a body and to a dress that were a. caricature of him. The case was tried in a Lower Court, and there seemed a possibility of it going into many courts. But somehow or other the parties got together, and some consolation was offered to Mr Dunlop which induced him to bear with resignation the reproductions of the famous figure. And there he and history separate from each other, until nbw it is announced that his interesting and chequered life has come to an end at the ripe age of 82.