Occupations

The invention of the bicycle brought many economic benefits and the most immediate was new jobs directly linked to it, including manufacturing and repair. By the 1880s the largest Scottish manufacturer of both tricycles and bicycles was the Howe Machine Company. This American owned company opened a large factory in Bridgeton, Glasgow in 1873 to produce sewing machines in competition with the nearby Singer Sewing machine factory and around 1880, when demand for sewing machines began to decline, switched production to cycle manufacture. Initially, 170 employees produced 100 high wheel bicycles a week but by 1885, when the company had changed to producing safety bicycles, around 5,000 machines were being produced annually. A large number of these were exported to France. Howe closed in the late 1890s. Slater’s Scottish Commercial Directory of 1903 listed upwards of 100 cycle manufacturers although the great majority of these were small firms such as A. & A. Campbell who produced their own models at the Woolston Cycle Works in Bathgate. The main locale of British cycle production was Coventry in England.

Shops selling and renting bicycles opened across Scotland from around 1880. These often were called Cycle Depots and while the largest were in the cities, a few substantial ones opened elsewhere, such as that established in 1886 by John Clark, ‘the spirited proprietor of the Market Hall in Dumfries’: ‘The arrangements of the cycles display great taste with all the leading makes represented, and only the very best. A large number of accessories of every description will form an attractive feature for cyclists visiting the hall. The current numbers of cycle journals, catalogues, and other literature are at hand for consultation, and constitute quite a cyclist’s reference library. Portraits of the principle champions of the road and cinder path are also on view. Mr Clark has a tasteful exhibition on a smaller scale in the window of Mr Hay, hatter, Bank Street. A specimen of the “kangaroo” bicycle – probably the finest safety ever invented – fitted up in the most approved manner, forms the central object, and grouped round it are accessories of all kinds, while Mr Hay’s athletic costumes make a suitable background. Mr Clark seems determined to make the only cycling depot in the south of Scotland well worthy of ranking with the largest city houses.'[1]

In the early days, cycles and accessories also were sold in non-specialist shops, such as hardware merchants and general stores. The Emporium store in the small hamlet of Forgue near Huntly claimed to supply ‘anything and everything’ – a boast that possibly was true as it advertised in 1906 for the return of two lost tame Indian Mongooses. In that same year the store advertised: ‘Cyclists. If you haven't already bought, you really cannot do better than follow the lead of all the others, and purchase your mount at The Forgue Emporium. Reliable machines at very reasonable price. Any make supplied. Write for lists and prices. We're sold over 50 machines this month.’[2] An early photograph shows at least thirty new bicycles being delivered on a horse-drawn cart to the Emporium.

The 1903 Slater’s Commercial Directory listed well over 400 cycle dealers and agents across Scotland, a number of which were agencies for large English manufacturers in the main cities, such as the depots in Glasgow and Edinburgh operated by Rudge & Company. This manufacturing company was established by Daniel Rudge who added numerous innovations to the high wheel bicycle including adjustable ball bearings that increased efficiency and speed; to such an extent that those racing on Rudge machines were often handicapped 20 or 30 yards behind other racers. Rudge died in 1880 and the company was sold to George Woodcock of Coventry who continued to produce the popular brand.

Velocipedes and high wheel cycles were usually repaired by their owners, or local blacksmiths, though not all were happy to be asked, as Charles Reade discovered in 1881 when his tricycle required repair: ‘My first idea on reaching Garve was to find the blacksmith about whom I had heard so much, and I made straight for his shop in order to catch him before he left work. I rode up to the shop door, feeling how very dependent I had become on this important class of mechanics, especially now that they were so few and far between. I stepped inside, and asked the "gude mon" if he would do a job for me. "Yes," was his laconic reply, but directly he sighted my tricycle, with its network of wires and complicated fittings, his jaw fell, and he muttered, "I know nought about them things.” "There is nothing difficult. I will explain what has to be done," said I. After looking at it gloomily for a moment longer, he said, decidedly, "No, I won't have anything to do with it." Lend me your tools, then, and I'll work at it myself," exclaimed I, in a huff.’[3]

As more and more people purchased safety bicycles, many lacked the skill or inclination to repair their machines, and so from around 1890 adverts began to appear offering repairs, and others seeking skilled bicycle mechanics. George Robertson in Peterhead advertised: ‘Having again added more special tools and labour-saving appliances, parties can depend on getting repairs done at strictly low prices. Almost every part is kept in stock and the work done by a skilled mechanic, so that customers can get repairs well and quickly done. The tampering of unqualified hands, without the necessary appliances, is often accompanied with annoying results. Repairer, by appointment, to the Cyclists Touring Club.’ The Buckie Cycle Depot proudly announced that Mr A. C. Dint, of Greenock had arrived and thus ‘all kinds of repair could thus be skilfully executed at moderate rates.’[4] As motor-cycles and cars began to appear, many cycle mechanics also took on the repair of motorised vehicles.

Possibly Scotland’s longest-ever working cycle mechanic announced in 1950 that he would close his cycle shop in Montrose but would continue to provide repairs at his workshop adjacent to the shop. By this time George Robertson had been repairing cycles for almost 55 years. A few years earlier he was asked what he thought of the cycle repair business now. ‘Robertson remarked sorrowfully, “It is a scuttering job these days. Put a present day cycle mechanic in the workshop of my young day,” said Robertson firmly, "and he wouldn’t know what to do."’[5] He then listed all the tasks he had been required to do when he served his apprenticeship with Andrew Milne, cycle agent, in Montrose before 1900. Robertson worked in various other places before opening his cycle business in Montrose in 1913. He recounted that two bicycles he sold soon after he opened were both still in use in the town.

Neither the velocipede nor the high wheel bicycle appear to have been used much for work purposes, although in May 1869 it was reported that an Inverness bellhanger rode a velocipede to Nairn where he had been commissioned to repair a bell ‘carrying his tools with him.’[6] However, the safety bicycle began to be used by both tradesmen and workers for commuting: ‘Those workers who use bicycles to travel to and from work gain considerably in time, leaving later in the morning and arriving home earlier than those who travel on foot. The majority of men on bicycles observed about during the working hours are engaged on business of some kind.’[7] The article also highlighted one example of the bicycle changing the nature of a job: ‘We have watched with considerable interest the progress of a lamplighter who has pressed the machine into service and who, although encumbered by the awkward Implement by means of which he exercises his calling, manages not only to get expeditiously from lamp to lamp, but, by holding on to the lamppost with one hand, succeeds in lighting the lamp with the other without dismounting.’ The lamplighters had to carry long poles to reach the high gas lamps and those on bicycles must have looked a bit like medieval knights with their long lances.

One of the earliest occupations to benefit from the bicycle was the postal service. The first instance of one being used by a postman in Scotland was reported in March 1870: ‘Captain Colquhoun (later captain of the Edinburgh Bicycle Club) has inaugurated a new postal conveyance which may soon become common. The foot post who delivers the letters from Crieff to Strowan, etc., has a considerable stretch of ground to go over, especially as it has to be overtaken twice a day. Captain Colquhoun had presented Mr Armstrong with a velocipede whereby he can do his work more easily and more satisfactorily, because more quickly, to the public. It will be surprising if the velocipede idea is not generally taken advantage of by other country posts.’[8] By 1901 the bicycle was an essential part of the post office. ‘Such are the strides cycling has made in the official departments of the country that a cycle mechanic is now attached to the permanent staff of the Dundee Post Office. His duties consist in repairing and generally attending to the cycles used by the postal authorities in Forfar, Fife, Perth, and Kinross counties. The Post Office generally has proved itself much alive to the utility of the cycle for prompt delivery of letters and telegraph messages, and has set a good example to other departments in which the cycle offers equally good facilities.’[9]

As there were two postal deliveries a day the postman who delivered to the few houses situated on the five miles from Cobbinshaw to Tarbrax in Lanarkshire often had to travel 20 miles in a day. Like other rural postman of the day he was supplied with a bicycle although in his letter of complaint to the local newspaper in 1915 a local resident Mr Illingworth pointed out: ‘The roads are probably among the worst in Scotland and his bicycle is of little use to him, especially during the winter.’ However, this was merely an aside as the subject of the complaint related to the problems caused by postmen having gone off to fight in the war. ‘For the past three weeks there has been no postman, and the delivery of the mails has been entrusted to the Post clerk, a young girl physically unfit for the arduous duties. The result of this is that the mails have been delivered by anybody who could he persuaded to assist the worried and over-worked postmistress. During the past week I have had my letters delivered by small girls of about ten years of age. It can hardly be expected that a young girl should undertake work which would tax the strength and endurance of a strong, able-bodied young titan.’[10]

Before the telephone and radio, urgent news was sent by telegram and these were delivered by boys who had left school to become apprentices for the post office. The apprentices were treated similarly to army recruits, having to wear uniforms and take part in physical exercise.  In 1897 the government announced that the telegram boys would be issued bicycles but the Huntly Gazette was ambivalent about the news: ‘The statement in the House of Commons last week that arrangements had been made to supply telegraph messengers with bicycles is a proof of the progress of the wheel. Yet I confess I read the announcement with mixed feelings. A bicycle in the hands of an ambitious boy amidst the traffic of a town is likely to prove an instrument of torture to pedestrians, and possibly a source of danger to the rider. Twenty or thirty boys sweeping through the streets clad in the authority of a government uniform are capable of creating a tremendous sensation - and a demand for medical aid.’[11] In Aberdeen by 1905 there were 100 telegraph boys sharing 42 bicycles and in that year they delivered over 650,000 messages. At a post office prize giving event that same year awards were given for ‘drill and punctuality’ and to the best cycle messenger. At the prize-giving ceremony the local postal service chairman addressed them: ‘I recognise that you are all extremely eager to deliver your messages but I worry that some of you occasionally exceed the road speed permitted by the local bye-laws, and counsel you to all to take a little more time than occasionally you do, especially at corners where traffic is congested.’[12] When telegram charges were reduced in 1897 the bicycle took the credit: ‘It is probable that we have to thank the introduction of the cycle messenger for this latest reform, so even the anti-cyclist must admit that the bicycle is not altogether the most useless invention of modern time.’[13]

Of course the delivery of a telegram was a feared event during the First World War as an advert seeking women to volunteer for the Red Cross Hospital Service indicated: ‘The tinkle of the telegraph boy’s bell is heard as he rounds the corner on his bicycle. Almost instantly the street comes to life as if by the touch of a magic hand. Each doorway contains a woman, here a mother with the bairns clinging about her skirts, there a young wife with trembling lip, again it is an aged dame whose hand clutching her stick turns white with the pressure of emotion. "Is it to my door he is coming?” each one asks herself. "Is it my men this time?" At last he stops, not with a joyful whistle as was his way in the peaceful days before Europe was plunged in bloodshed to satisfy the arch Hun's craving, but with that respect that even the very young feel before the shadow of coming sorrow. A pale and trembling woman, scarcely more than a girl, tears open the brown envelope which she knows must contain the message of fate. "Thank God!" she cries, “not dead but only wounded" "Oh Thank God ! "[14]

Numerous reports appear in newspapers of cyclists riding to fetch the fire brigade or conveying urgent news. In June 1902 when the news broke that the Boer War in South African was at an end ‘messengers on bicycles cycled into the country districts, spreading the news like wildfire.’ During the First World War people were especially anxious to read the latest news and in 1914 ‘the arrival of the Sunday edition of the Evening Express was eagerly awaited by a large crowd, and the supply, large as it was, was speedily bought up. The papers arrived at New Deer by cycle messenger about 1.30 p.m. The readers expressed their pleasure at having the latest news so early in the day, and also at the large amount of war news contained therein.’[15]

In 1889 the Aberdeen press reported: ‘Helen Stewart, a servant who stole clothing from a farm near Peterhead was captured by the Peterhead policeman by means of a bicycle.’[16] It was perhaps this account that led two years later to the city’s police department accepting ‘a novel suggestion of utilising the bicycle by appointing six men on bicycles to patrol the outer boundaries of the city. The idea is an excellent one, for, whether running down an escaping thief, conveying an alarm of fire, or expediting assistance in case of an accident, a speedy cyclist has the advantage over either a horseman or a messenger dispatched by cab.’[17] Yet the spread of police use of bicycles in Scotland took time. It was not until 1898 that, ‘a bicycle has been added to the equipment of the Alloa Burgh Police Force.’ By 1911 however there were large numbers of policemen riding bicycles, including 107 in Aberdeen. Although the police had to deal with thefts of bicycles this was not a common crime and mostly bicycles were left unlocked. Thus, in 1911 William Gordon, who was being transported to prison in Aberdeen and managed to escape from the prison van, was able to steal one and cycle away. In Inverurie he popped into the local cycle shop for a repair to his stolen bike and cycled off without paying. By chance a police constable was cycling in the other direction and Gordon, thinking he might be arrested, suddenly jammed his foot among the spokes of the surprised policeman’s bicycle wheel as they passed, bringing both bikes crashing down. However, Gordon managed to escape on foot, although he was arrested some days later.[18]

From 1903 the speed limits for motorised vehicles were 10mph in built up areas and 20 mph elsewhere, and as more motor cars and motorcycles appeared on the road the police switched their resources away from catching speeding cyclists to catching speeding cars. In 1905 the Automobile Association was formed and employed a large number of bicycle patrolmen. One of their roles was to cycle about the country looking for police speed traps and then position themselves so they could wave handkerchiefs as a warning to oncoming cars. Understandably, this annoyed the waiting police and in 1910 a court ruled that it was illegal for a patrolman to signal to a speeding driver to slow down. So the AA briefed its cyclists not to salute those passing cars displaying an AA badge as was the usual practice if a speed trap was nearby, thereby giving a coded message to the driver. The AA Handbook stated that ‘It cannot be too strongly emphasised that when a patrol fails to salute, the member should stop and ask the reason why, as it is certain that the patrol has something of importance to communicate.’ In its first few years the AA began erecting road signs at junctions giving directions to nearby places but there were complaints. Sir Archibald Edmonstone in Stirling was one: ‘I cannot regard these enormous yellow discs as necessary when the information they give can be found on any road map. It is a great pity to see our beautiful district disfigured in this way.’[19]  Another compared the yellow signs to advertisements for ice cream. Yet to cyclists they were helpful as the rider could take the correct road without stopping to check the map.

Many adverts appeared for bicycle messengers for shops. The advert from Stevensons Oatcake Bakery in Aberdeen stated: ‘None but good cyclist need apply. Age from 15 up.’[20] One young lad seen in Perth in 1916 was clearly inventive as he managed to carry the carcass of a sheep on his bicycle. ‘The forepart of the animal was nicely balanced ahead of the handlebars, and the back legs found accommodation on either side of the crossbar. Possibly the boy had had experience in this unique means of transit for he scorned dismounting, instead mounting the pavement with a slight bump and riding up to the butcher’s door.’[21] However, what could be carried on a bicycle had its limits whereas tricycles could accommodate more and had the advantage of remaining upright when not in use. An early example from the 1860s was reported in the Hamilton Advertiser: ‘The colporteur (a travelling salesman of religious books and tracts) in the Moffat district has, we are told, for many years used a tricycle, which, in addition to himself, carries a great quantity of books.’[22]

In Scotland’s rural areas and islands the role of the district nurse was significant as she functioned as midwife, school nurse, carer for the elderly and, at times, assistant to the local doctor when there were disease epidemics. While a pony and trap had been provided for many in the past, the safety bicycle was a far more cost-effective option to enable a nurse to cover a large area: ‘District Nurse wanted for parish of Strath, Isle of Skye; certified maternity; salary £80 and bicycle; knowledge of Gaelic preferred.’[23]

By the early 1900s, although large numbers of people rode bicycles, relatively few from wealthier backgrounds and among the professional class did. Even in the days when the tricycle and bicycle had been fashionable among some upper-class women the majority of such women continued to travel by horse-drawn carriage. So too did most upper-class and professional men. Few Edinburgh lawyers, Glaswegian merchants and other Scottish worthies would have regarded a bicycle as a form of transport reflecting their standing in society. In the early 1900s a parish was considering the appointment of a new minister and as his preaching was all that was to be desired the decision was presumed a foregone conclusion. However, one of the congregation visited the moderator to challenge the appointment: ‘I object to him,’ said the opposer. ‘He rides a bicycle.’ ‘Is that all?’, asked the moderator. ‘All? Is it not enough. It is tempting of Providence, it is a degrading of the ministry, it is making a mockery of a sacred office.’ retorted the irate man. ‘Would you rather see him ride a donkey?’ timidly asked the moderator. ‘A donkey? Certainly not, certainly not.’[24] The moderator’s biblical reference clearly lost on the complainant.

The appeal of the bicycle also waned among young well-to-do men once the high wheel bicycle gave way to the safety and opened up cycling to all sections of society. It was motor-cycles and motor cars that became the desirable form of transport for the wealthy. Being an early driver of a motor car offered the same sense of being part of an elite that the high wheel bicycle had, in spite of early cars being – in Rudyard Kipling’s words – ‘a catalogue of agonies, shames, delays, rages, chills, parboilings, road-walkings, water-drawings, burns and starvations'. In 1904 there were just 23,000 cars on Britain's roads but by 1910, over 100,000.

Of course there were some individuals from wealthier backgrounds who continued to ride bicycles. William Ramsay who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his discovery of argon, helium, neon, krypton and xenon, collectively known as the 'noble gases', grew up in Glasgow and was a keen cyclist. He had a number of cycling holidays when young and in the late 1880s, when living in London, wrote: ‘I go to town on a bicycle! Right along the Bayswater Road to Oxford, and to Gower Street. This morning I was at College in eighteen minutes from the house.’[25] When Ramsay decided to give a bicycle to his cousins as a present he wrote to their elderly mother in advance: ‘You will receive a “parcel”, it may be to-day it may be to-morrow, which you will not think pretty, and which you will not find useful. You mustn't give it away; that would be to slight the giver, but you may lend it freely. One of its advantages is that though there isn't much of it, the little there is will go a long way. You can blow her up when she displeases you. She is always tired and yet never unwilling to go. Though she is entirely without grit, she has a good deal of backbone; though unmarried, still she has two hubs. I hope you may never have to put a spoke in her wheel.’[26] One who distrusted the motor car and continued to cycle was the 10th Duke of Argyll. He was born in 1872 and it was said of him: ‘He entered reluctantly into the twentieth century, grumbling and grunting the while. A crotchety old man, he despised every modern invention, hated telephones and would not travel in a motor car if the journey could be done by bicycle.’[27]

Many scientists, ornithologists, mountaineers and others with interests that required them to reach remote areas inaccessible by train or motor used bicycles. Harry Inglis cycled around Scotland when researching his book, The Ancient Bridges in Scotland for which he photographed every bridge in the country. He later used the knowledge he had built up while cycling the country’s roads to compile The Contour Road-Book of Scotland that provided contour maps, gradients and full descriptions of roads throughout Scotland; a bible for cyclists at the time. Through this extensive knowledge of Scottish geography and history he became vice-president of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

In the 1880s two Edinburgh architects, David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, also travelled the length and breadth of Scotland. They left work in late afternoon on Friday with their bicycles, loaded with weekend bags and drawing boards, and at Waverley Station were met by their daughters who gave them provisions for their journey. They then boarded with their bicycles to travel to whatever station was the starting point for that weekend’s research. Their travels were undertaken to collect information about the country's architectural heritage, and their sketches and records were collected in an eight-part series documenting the country’s castles and churches from the 12th to the 18th centuries; material that influenced Scottish architects of the time such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

John Walter Gregory, Professor of Geology at Glasgow University, was keen to see the geology of the great Corrieyairack so decided to cycle the old road from Loch Uanagan near Fort Augustus to the upper Spey River near Laggan Bridge that ran through the Pass of Corrieyairack. This road, built in 1735 by General Wade, reaches a height of 2519 feet and is the highest in Britain. Although in his fifties and not having had any serious exercise in recent months, in May 1915 Gregory took the train from Glasgow to Spean Bridge, arriving at 9pm. No doubt he was one of the few to get off and certainly the only one with a bicycle. In the late evening light he set off to cycle the 37 km to Loch Laggan. The old road was so disused that on parts he had to push or carry his bicycle. He encountered boulders lying on the track, broken bridges that required him to ford swollen streams and snow drifts covering the road. When, eventually, he arrived at Loch Laggan he discovered the hotel was closed so had to cycle a further 16 km on Wade's old road to Dalwhinnie. Although he arrived very late, to his relief he found the Loch Ericht hotel open and it provided a welcome bed for the night.[28] One can only imagine what Gregory’s view was of the 1735 Highland chiefs who had objected to the building of bridges over the streams of the road as they contended that these ‘would render the ordinary people effeminate and less fit to pass the waters in other places where there are no bridges’.[29]

Scott Moncrieff Penney, an Edinburgh advocate and editor of the 1903 edition of the Handbook for Travellers in Scotland, was a keen ornithologist and his bicycle enabled him to seek out rare birds. In 1901 he wrote of cycling in Skye: ‘As I returned in the gloaming from Armadale Castle to Broadford by the haunted Black Lochs I heard a distinct sharp cry behind me, which caused me to turn round suddenly. There were strange lights in the lochs, and huge black objects visible in their calm depths. No wonder no one would, not so long ago, willingly pass this uncanny spot after dark! But the prosaic days of bicycles do not harmonise well with ghosts and fairies. I fear the cry was from my tired and unoiled iron steed. The lights were the reflections of the heather burning on the moors above, and the black monsters were the shadows of the rocks.’[30] Penney also became one of Scotland’s leading mountaineers and the bicycle enabled him and fellow climbers to travel to ascents. A fellow climber, H. G. S. Lawson wrote of travelling to meet Sir Hugh Thomas Munro who created the list of mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet that became termed ‘Munros’: ‘As that particular portion of Ross-shire in which the Fannich Hills are situated was unfamiliar to me, it was with pleasure that I found myself able to fall in with a proposal of H. T. Munro's that we should take a flying visit to those parts for some climbing. Neither of us had much time to spare, but with bicycles it is wonderful how accessible some of the remoter districts really are so long as you are not very particular about damaging your tyres.’[31] In 1889 Archibald ‘Archie’ Eneas Robertson who was studying divinity at Glasgow University climbed his first Munro and over the following years became the first mountaineer to climb all 282 Scottish Munros. Robertson wrote in the 1903 journal of the Scottish Mountaineering Club: ‘The difficulty of getting at the remoter hills and securing a suitable base of operations, was often a very serious one. In this connection I found my bicycle simply invaluable, and many of the more distant expeditions which would have involved a night out, or a long tedious and expensive hire, were brought by the aid of the wheel within the compass of a long day from some fixed point.’[32] As well as serving as a Church of Scotland minister, Robertson was president of the Scottish Mountaineering Club in the 1930s and in 1946 became the first president of the Scottish Rights of Way Society.

From the 1920s, many occupations that had used bicycles replaced them with motorised vehicles. Delivery boys on bicycles began to disappear and the bobby on the bike was replaced by the patrolman in the panda car. One of the few areas of employment where the bicycle remained in use into the 21st century was the postal service but it eventually ended its long relationship with the bicycle from 2010: ‘The Royal Mail has removed around 14,000 bikes since 2010 and the final 3,000 plus are to be phased out by the end of 2014.’[35]

The Glasgow Cycle Company that had started in 1906 became a major manufacturer by the 1920s, although large numbers of its Argyle bicycles were exported. During the Second World War cycle manufacturers, both large and small, were required to switch production to items required in the war but when the war ended demand for bicycles returned. However, by 1970 falling bicycle use  saw an end to most production and many bicycle shops also closed across Scotland.

NEXT SECTION  - YOUNG CYCLISTS