Kirkpatrick Macmillan

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

This is a disputed invention. Macmillan's life is documented, but his machine is not: there are no written records from the time, no patent and no surviving original. The story was collected about 50 years later, after his death, by a relative with a clear aim. Historians who have examined the evidence regard much of it as myth, though some think he may have experimented with treadle-driven machines.

The blacksmith of Keir

established Kirkpatrick Macmillan was born in the parish of Keir, near Thornhill in Dumfriesshire, in 1812, and worked as a blacksmith at the family smithy at Courthill, Keir Mill. In 1865 he lost his wife, a baby and his ten-year-old son. He died at Keir on 26 January 1878, aged 65, and was largely forgotten until his claim was promoted after his death.

The machine

traditional According to the story, Macmillan built a wooden two-wheeler with iron-rimmed wooden wheels: a steerable front wheel and a larger rear wheel, driven by treadles linked to the rear wheel by connecting rods. The rider pushed the treadles back and forth, so his feet never touched the ground. That would have made it a true self-propelled bicycle, unlike Karl Drais's running machine of 1817, which the rider pushed along with his feet.

The ride to Glasgow

traditional The story says Macmillan rode to Glasgow in 1842 and was fined five shillings for knocking down a pedestrian in the Gorbals, making him the first person fined for a cycling offence.

established The only evidence is a Glasgow newspaper report of a "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" who knocked over a pedestrian. It does not name the rider. Johnston later identified him as Macmillan. The historian Alastair Dodds doubted that a newspaper of the time would have called a blacksmith a "gentleman".

How the story was made

established The Macmillan claim was assembled in the 1890s by James Johnston, a corn trader, tricyclist and relative of Macmillan. In The Gallovidian in 1899 he wrote that his aim was "to prove that to my native country of Dumfries belongs the honour of being the birthplace of the invention of the bicycle." At Johnston's request, the Kilmarnock joiner Thomas McCall built a "Macmillan" machine for the 1896 Stanley Show; it is now in Dumfries Museum. Sceptics argue that its design is a composite of two velocipedes McCall himself had built in 1869.

Dalzell and McCall

established For more than 50 years the inventor of the treadle bicycle was generally thought to be Gavin Dalzell of Lesmahagow, who built one around 1845–1846; his machine survives in a Glasgow museum. The claim that Dalzell copied Macmillan's design comes from Johnston's campaign.

What historians say

established Several cycling historians have examined the claim critically. In 1990 Nicholas Oddy concluded that the bicycle did not develop until after 1860 and that the evidence for Macmillan is so thin that the popular account is largely myth, though he thinks Macmillan probably experimented with treadle tricycles, as many people did. In 2024 he returned to the subject, arguing that later defences of the story had been one-sided. David V. Herlihy writes that there is "no contemporary documentary evidence that a pedal-crank design was applied to a 2-wheeled vehicle" at that time.

shared Some sources state that around 1840 Macmillan was living in Glasgow and working at the Vulcan Foundry rather than at Courthill. This is repeated but hard to confirm.

Remembering Macmillan

established Despite the doubts, Macmillan is widely commemorated. A plaque on the Courthill smithy, unveiled in 1939 for the supposed centenary, reads "He builded better than he knew." A popular story also holds that his niece Mary Marchbank secretly rode the machine and became the first woman cyclist, but its origin is unknown.

• Karl Drais's running machine of 1817 had no pedals; riders pushed it with their feet.
• Macmillan's machine was said to be driven by treadles and rods, not rotating pedals.
• No original Macmillan machine survives.
• The machine in Dumfries Museum was built by Thomas McCall in 1896.
• The 1842 newspaper report does not name the rider.
• For 50 years Gavin Dalzell was thought to be the inventor.
• The Courthill plaque reads "He builded better than he knew."
• The story of his niece as the first woman cyclist has no known source.

• Do not state that Macmillan invented the bicycle as fact.
• Do not present 1839 as a documented date.
• Do not say the 1842 newspaper report names Macmillan.
• Do not describe the Dumfries Museum machine as Macmillan's original.
• Do not call Mary Marchbank the first woman cyclist as fact.