Melksham Times Past

A column about days gone by in Melksham by local historian Lisa Ellis

Bicycles built for Melksham

The penny farthing is a bicycle with a very large front wheel.

This was a very difficult contraption to ride and it was quickly overtaken by cycles with two wheels the same size, connected by a chain. These ‘safety cycles’ were very similar to what is ridden now.

The original Rover Company, a British car manufacturer that began as a bicycle manufacturer in 1885, was famous for its innovative “Rover Safety Bicycle,” which set the standard for modern bicycles (rear-wheel drive, two similar-sized wheels, and a diamond frame).

But like the penny farthing, it took some practice to learn to ride it.

On the 19th of July 1889, Eustace Francis Hinder had only been riding his Rover “Universe No. 2” safety bicycle for three or four weeks when he lost control and ran into a cart driven by James Escott, a dealer from Bowerhill, who was moving at walking pace. Hinder was thrown off his seat onto the ground.

Hinder, the son of well-known auctioneer, Cornelius Hinder, was 31 and had been a partner in business with his father. He took over the business after his father died three years earlier. Hinder lived with his widowed mother near the canal bridge at 38 Spa Road and was heading toward town to attend a meeting of the Committee of Sports.

The bridge over the canal on Spa Road was lowered in the 1920s, several years after the canal was disused. Considering the large hump that is there now, you can imagine the pitch of the road before it was lowered! Hinder enjoyed the ride as he cycled from his home, down the incline toward town.

On this July day, he sailed down the hill, with both his feet resting on the bar in front. The sudden appearance of this almost stationary cart panicked him and he put one foot on the treadle to stop, but this caused him to swerve into the side of the cart instead.

Hinder sustained a massive head injury and died three hours later.

This reminds me of a bicycle maker who lived just on the other side of the bridge at Coburg Place, at about the location where Hinders met the cart two decades later.

John Fournier was born in France in 1850 and moved to Melksham as a single man to clerk for an attorney, firstly living with his cousin Caroline Bluett, an annuitant. Around this same time, the 1870s, Fournier bicycles in France were popular. Whether John Fournier is related to the Henri Fournier of Grenoble in France, bicycle manufacturers, is unclear, or if he just capitalised on the name and his French background.

But, after he moved to Melksham, Fournier soon partnered with Francis William Cope to form Fournier and Cope, where he was a mechanical engineer. Fournier patented a number of safety devices for bicycles (and somewhere in the recesses of my memory I am thinking he patented one of the first, if not the first, bicycle braking mechanism). They worked out of Union Ironworks and also patented parts for sewing machines.

Things seemed to be working well for him. In August 1877, he married Annie Laurie Wilton, whose father, Edward Avery Wilton, had been a miller living on The Island, Bath Road, where Cooper Tires recently did business.

However, her father died at the age of 38, leaving his widow, Cordelia (Dore) Wilton, to raise their two daughters. Cordelia went into the retail wine business and had a shop on Bank Street.

In other words, it sounds as though John Fournier married well, or at least above average.

Except…

John Fournier went bankrupt in December 1878 and the business partnership dissolved in July 1879.

In the 1881 census it’s noted that he is an unemployed bicycle agent – presumably he’s been trying to sell off his stock.

John and Annie Laurie moved to Portishead. In the 18 years they were married, they had nine children, three of whom died as infants. At first, he tried his hand at photography and then started referring to himself as an artist. His death came at the age of 45, having suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and kidneys for five years. Annie Laurie moved back to Melksham for a short time but then moved back to Somerset. Upon the death of her husband in 1895, Annie Laurie was left with six children, four of whom were under the age of five.

Bicycle manufacturing and sales in Melksham didn’t end there. Many residents today will have bought from Cleverley in the Market Place and Venton on Union Street.

Pictured: Advert for a penny farthing – photo courtesy Melksham Memories