Who Invented the Pneumatic?

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 1, 1 November 1910, Page 442

Who Invented the Pneumatic?

A proposal to erect in Edinburgh a memorial to the inventor of the pneumatic tire has given rise to some dispute as to who was the real inventor. This is not the first time that a dispute has arisen as to the real author of an important invention or discovery. The fact is that a really distinct invention is not, in its earlier stages, a simple matter, however simple and commonplace it may appear to the general mind after its development and widespread use. Such being the condition, it may be. asserted that a really new article of utility is seldom developed by a single mind, but is the result of co-ordinated effort on the part of the inventor himself, of engineers and factory superintendents who assist in developing it, of his patent attorneys, the patent office examiners, of the manufacturers who ultimately undertake its protraction, and of an indefinite number of users of the article. Every man of a practical turn of mind, who takes up the use of a newly invented article is liable to make some suggestion bearing upon its possible improvement, or its better adaptation to its intended uses, to the end that as long as the article remains in demand.

each year's output of it may possibly be better that) the preceding types. Many of the improvements so suggested are likely to be covered by patents—often in the name of the original inventor—but others, relating merely to details and not to new principles of invention, are utilised as part and parcel of the original patent. To take the pneumatic tire, Robert William Thompson, while the first patentee of such an article, cannot be claimed to have produced a practical article of commerce. His aerial wheel was regarded simply as an interesting novelty, for the world was not ready yet for pneumatic tires, and Thomson and his patent were soon forgotten. Dunlop's pneumatic tire brought out at a time when the public mind was more receptive, led to more practical results, but his invention disclosed no principle not anticipated by Thomson, and hence patent protection could not be claimed for it. The patents under which the really successful pneumatic tires have been made did not relate primarily to the principle of an air cushioned wheel, but to details of attaching these cushions to the wheel rim, and holding them in place. Credit is due both to Thomson and to Dunlop for their study and application to the subject of rendering vehicular traffic more comfortable, but there is not being made on earth to-day any tire, the shape or means of attaching of which can be traced to any suggestion made by either of the gentleman named. The Dunlop company early in its career dropped the Dunlop invention in favour of tires distinctly different, and to-day the tires made by that important concern are not even the same as were covered by various patents which the company acquired as development was made in the tire art.

The standard automobile tire to-day was protected in England by the patent granted to Bartlett. The tires made under this patent were developed year by year until they became the modern "clincher" tire, and it is informing to consider that the tire section of the present time has been a gradual outgrowth from Bartlett's specification. The purpose of this article is not to claim pre-eminence for any particular inventor in respect of the pneumatic tire, but to point out that the standard type of tire to-day is not the work of any one man, but of countless workers and students in the tire field.