The Penny Farthing and its place in the bicycle revolution

The origin of the bicycle is, not uncommonly, rather obscure. Though in the late eighteen hundreds, around 1791, Frenchman the Comte de Sivrac became the centre of attention in the Palais Royal when he appeared riding a ‘wooden horse’ with two wheels. With no steering and powered by pushing the ground alternately with the feet, the celerifere as it was called, was the rudimentary beginning of the bicycles’ evolution.
It is interesting to note that before the Comte de Sivrac had brought it to the attention of the aristocracy, it had probably existed as a child’s toy. It had now become an adult’s toy, and wealthy adult’s toy at that. The bicycle would essentially remain the domain of those with money, plenty of time, and lots of energy, for over a century. They were hand built machines used for pastime.
Further major developments were made including steering which is attributed to Baron von Drais from Mannheim in 1817. Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a blacksmith from Scotland, perhaps has claim to what could be considered the first true bicycle, when around 1840 he designed a machine where the rear axle was driven by foot treadles; pedals pushed forwards and backwards driving the rear axle to turn by the use of levers.

The next big evolution was the one that would give birth to the penny farthing. Another Frenchman, Pierre Michaux attached cranks to the front wheel in 1861 and while he may not have been the first to do this, he was an astute business man and was able to capitalise on the growing industrial and consumer climate of the day. The second cycling boom was underway, and cyclists or ‘velocipedes’ as they were called, were gaining in numbers and commitment to the ‘sport’. There was a growing desire for performance from the velocipede.
Then, in 1869 in an effort to make the machine faster yet another Frenchman, Eugene Meyer, increased the size of the front wheel. The penny farthing was born. A Mr Turner, who was working in Paris for the Coventry Sewing Machine Company, returned to England with a ‘high-wheeler’ and convinced the manager of the company to turn his attention to manufacturing bicycles instead. It was here that James Starley, the companies’ foreman and a keen designer pioneered the penny farthing in its golden age of the 1870’s.
The social impact of the bicycle was quite evident. For a number of reasons, there was an elitist and gentlemens’ club attitude to the penny farthing.
Women were essentially excluded from riding the penny farthing as on a practical level the bicycle required a mounting step and a running start to mount it. Not to mention a fair amount of effort to turn the pedals and to stay on the bike. It was a very dangerous machine with crashes proving catastrophic. The wearing of a dress of course, out of the question. Unless families were rich enough to have servants, the women would also be expected to tend to house keeping and children, and would not have the time to devote to such an involving activity. All together it was not a particularly ‘lady-like’ pursuit.
A Starley bicycle for example was a prized possession, a highly crafted elegant machine, which cost about a years wages for a factory worker, thereby excluding all but the wealthiest people. The cycle clubs that formed were snobbish, with Britain's Amateur Bicycle Club stating that the club’s goal was to promote cycling among the middle, upper and higher classes of society. To join a club you had to be recommended by an existing club member and wear a uniform. In this sort of social climate, without necessarily having rules against such things, most clubs would not accept tradesmen, workers or non-Caucasian people.



The bicycle, although perhaps overshadowed at times in its history by adult domination, had a place as a child’s form of play.
The penny farthing held in the Museum Victoria Collection was donated by Matthew Matheou and was built by his father, a blacksmith in Fiztroy, Melbourne in 1913. A child’s penny farthing would have been a rare sight in the late nineteenth century due to their high cost, but by 1913 elements of the bike such as the leather saddle (which was made by Dunlop), the pedals, hubs and even perhaps wheels, may well have been relatively easily sourced. Compared to the elaborate detail and fine quality finish of a Starley ‘Areil’ high-wheeler, this childs’ bike is quite straight forward. The blacksmith using the skills of his trade, was able to lovingly build the iron frame from a range of processes. The arched body is forged, the rear forks cast, and the front forks made from drawn half round bar. The wooden handle grips, leather seat and solid rubber tyres are typical of the early penny farthings, but it also shows more developed components such as an oil well in the front hub and rubber grips on the pedals.
The penny farthing, with its popularity and need for performance led directly to the inclusion of inventions such as the ball bearing, tangent spoked wheel and the pneumatic tyre into bicycle design. Innovations which according to Ivan Illich are as important to the progression of transport as the wheel itself, the invention of the stirrup, harness and horseshoe, and the first real ocean going vessels capable of carrying cargo around the world. This childs’ bike interestingly has some of these, such as ball bearing hubs, but not others like pneumatic tyres.
The penny farthing or high wheeler is still ‘remembered’ in the way gear sizes are represented today. By taking the wheel diameter in inches, multiplying it by the number of teeth on the chain ring (front gear) and then dividing by the number of teeth on the sprocket (rear gear), you arrive at a figure which is comparable in revolutions to distance travelled, as the size of a Penny Farthing wheel. The largest manufactured penny farthing wheel was 60”, which by today’s standards is a medium sized gear, with some racing gears reaching 100”.
The advancement of technology and manufacturing eventually saw the bicycle made cheaply and for the masses. It liberated those normally relegated to getting around on foot or public transport. Inevitably this lead to a more commonplace attitude to the bike, and particularly in Britain after the second world war, it was viewed as a sign of a lack of achievement, lack of financial standing and unfashionableness. Its perception and what it meant in society had completely shifted. The bicycle had become ubiquitous, owned by the poor and the needy, and had been superseded by the new technological advancement in personal transport, the car.

Without a doubt there is something endearing and enduring about the bicycle. It has a purity about it. A simplicity and efficiency in its design which may have evolved over time but ultimately by its own definition of a two wheeled machine to be powered by the human body, has not radically changed. Perhaps the satisfaction of riding one, described in 1869 as an ‘easy and rapid locomotion as an enjoyment which is positively intense’ (The velocipede: Its history and practical hints how to use it), is derived from the feeling that you and the machine become one. You are solely responsible for effort required to move forward, yet the bicycle play’s its part in making your effort more efficient and transform your effort to motion. It is a balance of human and machine, the rotary motion of the legs, the spinning wheels, motion and stillness. Perhaps it is this zen-like quality that keeps us enamoured with the bicycle. It leaves no footprint.
The motor car that followed in the manufacturing footsteps of the bicycle is now the arch nemesis of the bicycle on the road, and ironically, the bicycle is now having a revolution of its own, again, claiming a footing against the car as a clean mode of transport. Perhaps the bicycle is the tortoise in the race with the technological hare.