John Kemp Starley
British businessman (1854-1901)
John Kemp Starley (24 December 1855 – 29 October 1901) was an English inventor and industrialist who is widely considered the inventor of the modern safety bicycle, and also originator of the tradename Rover.
Early life
Born on 24 December 1855 Starley lived on Church Hill, Walthamstow, London, England. He was the son of a gardener, John Starley, and Mary Ann (née Coppen). In 1872, he moved to Coventry to work with his uncle James Starley, an inventor. He worked with his uncle and William Hillman for several years, building Ariel cycles.
Career
In 1877, he started a new business Starley & Sutton Co with William Sutton, a local cycling enthusiast. They set about developing bicycles that were safer and easier to use than the prevailing penny-farthing or "ordinary" bicycles. They started by manufacturing tricycles, and by 1883 their products were being branded as "Rover".
In 1885, Starley made history when he produced the Rover Safety Bicycle. The Rover was a rear-wheel-drive, chain-driven cycle with two similar-sized wheels, making it more stable than the previous high wheeler designs.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Kemp Starley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.