J. B. Dunlop-Pioneer Of Pneumatic Tyres

Northern Advocate, 28 May 1938, Page 15

J. B. Dunlop-Pioneer Of Pneumatic Tyres

When one considers that there are today over 42.000,000 motor cars and commercial motor vehicles transporting people and merchandise throughout the world and yearly consuming some 68,000.000 tons of petrol and wearing out approximately 56,000,000 tyres in providing mankind with speedy and comfortable transport, one begins to realise the colossal benefits bestowed on the world by J. B. Dunlop when he perfected his pneumatic tyre in 1888.

The employment provided in manufacturing over 6,000,000 new cars and trucks annually, in maintaining the tens of millions of units already in service, in yearly winning from the earth crude oil from which 25,500 million gallons of petrol is refined and consumed by automobiles, and the Rowing and- care of rubber trees to annually produce the 700,000 tons of crude rubber essential to keeping the wheels of the world’s automobiles running smoothly, reaches such colossal figures that the stability of employment in the motorised Countries of the world is now dependent, to a very considerable degree, on the prosperity and progress of this gigantic industry.

Yet all this wonderful development traces back to the advent of Dunlop’s pneumatic tyre, ‘ which signalises its Jubilee this year. The world certainly owes much to the genius of the Dublin veterinary surgeon for an invention which, during the past half century, Has changed the habits of civilisation and made life better worth living for hundreds of millions of people.

J. B. DunJop was born in Ayrshire. Scotland, in 1840. That the world narrowly missed losing the inventive brain that evolved the pneumatic tyre is revealed by the fact that the infant Dunlop came into the world two months before he was expected, and the doctors did not think much of his chance of surviving. However, he lived to a ripe old ago and saw what his invention had done for mankind and labour. He died in 1921.—“Dunlop Bulletin." - The important part bitumen is playing in highway construction is shown by that, during 1937, some 3,768,000 tons, or over 1.000,000,000 gallons of bitumenous products were used throughout the world in road surfacing, etc. Not only does the use of this asphaltic material provide better motor travel, and lessens tyre wear, but it also reduces road maintenance costs by about two-thirds.