Pedal Bicycle

Introduction — the modest blacksmith and a contested claim

Kirkpatrick Macmillan never sought fame. He never filed a patent, never wrote his memoirs, never sat for a photograph beside the machine that may have changed the world. He was a village blacksmith in a quiet corner of Dumfriesshire, and what he is supposed to have built around 1839 — a wooden, iron-tyred two-wheeler driven by his feet from the rear hub — has had to be reconstructed by historians from family recollection, late-Victorian campaigning, and a single Glasgow newspaper report of a five-shilling fine.

The result is one of the most enduring and most carefully qualified stories in transport history. Macmillan is traditionally credited with building one of the world's first pedal-driven bicycles, more than two decades before the French 'boneshaker' set the world rolling. Sceptical cycling historians point out, fairly, that the evidence is thin. The honest verdict — and the one this article takes — was put best by Alastair Dodds, the longtime transport curator of National Museums Scotland: it is almost certain that the inventor was Scots, even if it cannot be proven the man was Macmillan himself.

The State of Bicycles Before Macmillan

Before pedal power, the most advanced two-wheeled machine in the world was the draisine, or Laufmaschine, patented in 1817 by the German nobleman Baron Karl von Drais. It had two wheels in line, a steerable front wheel, and a saddle — the recognisable skeleton of a bicycle — but no pedals. The rider sat astride the frame and propelled it by pushing against the ground with their feet, like a child on a balance bike.

The draisine was a clever idea, and briefly fashionable in the parks of Regency London, but it was exhausting on the open road and useless on a hill. It depended entirely on the rider's leg power transferred through the soles of the shoes. The search for a better way to power a two-wheeled machine — to lift the feet off the ground and turn human effort into smooth rotation — would consume inventors across Europe for the next two decades. When Kirkpatrick Macmillan turned his blacksmith's mind to the problem at Courthill Smithy at the end of the 1830s, it was this missing piece he set out to provide.

The Invention — The Pedal Bicycle

What Macmillan is said to have built, around the end of 1839, looked nothing like a modern bicycle and nothing like the French boneshaker that followed. The frame and wheels were wood, the tyres iron-rimmed, the saddle a leather pad slung between two wagon-style wheels. The rider's feet did not turn pedals on the front wheel as on a Michaux velocipede. Instead, two treadles near the front of the machine were pushed alternately forward and pulled back — a reciprocating, push-pull motion much like the action of a sewing-machine or an early steam engine.

Long iron connecting rods carried that reciprocating motion back to crank arms on the rear-wheel hub, turning the rear wheel directly. There were no chains and no rotary cranks. The whole machine was around 57 inches long, weighed roughly 55 pounds, and was steered, recognisably, by a wooden handlebar above the front wheel. If the dating is right — and that is the contested part — it is the first known two-wheeler in which the rider's feet never touched the ground, and the first known bicycle driven from the rear hub. Both of these are principles modern cycling still relies on today, even though the reciprocating linkage itself was a dead end superseded a generation later by the rotary crank and the chain.

The Famous Ride

In June 1842 — the story goes — Macmillan rode his pedal cycle the roughly 68 to 70 miles from his home in Dumfriesshire to Glasgow, taking two days and astonishing every village he passed. The journey reportedly ended in the Gorbals, where a crowd gathered to watch the strange machine and a small child was knocked over. The rider was fined five shillings at the Gorbals Public Bar court — a sum traditionally celebrated as the first cycling traffic offence in history.

The contemporary record is real: the Glasgow Argus of 9 June 1842 reported the fine of a 'gentleman from Dumfries-shire bestride a velocipede of ingenious design.' The identification of that gentleman with Macmillan, however, rests on family tradition rather than on the newspaper report itself, which did not name him. As with so much of the Macmillan story, the documentary evidence comes close but does not quite close the loop. What it certainly demonstrates is that a Dumfriesshire man on a pedal-driven two-wheeler was riding the public roads of southern Scotland in 1842 — and that, in itself, would be a remarkable thing.

The Historical Controversy

It is right to be honest about how disputed this story is. No original Macmillan machine survives. No patent was filed. No drawing or letter in Macmillan's own hand describes the bicycle. The case for his priority rests overwhelmingly on a campaign mounted in the 1890s — more than half a century after the fact — by his nephew-by-marriage James Johnston, a Glasgow draper and cycling enthusiast determined to claim a Scottish first in the years when the bicycle was conquering the world.

Cycling historians such as David V. Herlihy and Nicholas Oddy have argued that the surviving evidence is much weaker than the popular story suggests, and that real, demonstrably-Scottish treadle bicycles were actually built later in the 1840s by Gavin Dalzell of Lesmahagow and in 1869 by Thomas McCall of Kilmarnock — machines that may have been retrospectively confused with Macmillan's. There is no contemporary 1839 newspaper report, no surviving 1830s blueprint, and the famous 1842 Glasgow fine names no individual. The honest position is that the Macmillan claim is traditional and plausible, not proven. What is on much firmer ground is the broader claim — that the breakthrough from foot-propelled draisine to mechanically-driven bicycle happened in Scotland in the 1830s or 1840s, by Macmillan or by someone very like him.

Legacy

Whatever the precise truth of 1839, the pedal bicycle that emerged from this lineage became one of the most consequential machines humanity has ever built. Mile for mile, calorie for calorie, a person on a bicycle is the most energy-efficient traveller on Earth — more efficient than a horse, more efficient than a salmon, more efficient than any motor vehicle ever designed. The bicycle gave the late-Victorian world a personal range no commoner had ever known, and gave women in particular a freedom of movement and a practical case for rational dress that helped reshape Western society.

The Wright brothers ran a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, and built their first aeroplane out of bicycle tubing and bicycle wheels — modern aviation began as a branch of cycling engineering. By the 1890s, cycling was a mass craze; by the twentieth century, a mass sport; today, the global bicycle industry is worth around USD 84 billion and is the answer many cities are turning to for congestion, pollution and public health. A plaque on the wall of Courthill Smithy, mounted in 1896, reads simply: 'He builded better than he knew.' Whether or not Kirkpatrick Macmillan really built the very first bicycle, Scotland helped pioneer a machine that transformed the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Kirkpatrick Macmillan? Macmillan (1812–1878) was a blacksmith from Courthill Smithy near Penpont in Dumfriesshire, the fifth son of the smith Robert Macmillan. He is traditionally credited with building one of the world's first pedal-driven bicycles around 1839. He never patented the design and never sought fame for it, living and dying quietly as a village blacksmith.

Did Kirkpatrick Macmillan invent the bicycle? He is traditionally credited with building one of the world's first pedal-driven bicycles, but the evidence is contested. No original machine, patent or contemporary 1839 document survives, and much of the case rests on a late-Victorian campaign by his nephew-by-marriage James Johnston. The fair verdict, voiced by National Museums Scotland's transport curator, is that 'it is almost certain that the inventor was Scots' — even if it cannot be proven the man was Macmillan himself.

What was Macmillan's bicycle design? A wooden frame between two iron-tyred wooden wheels, the rider seated between them. Two treadles near the front were pushed and pulled alternately by the rider's feet; long iron connecting rods carried that reciprocating motion to crank arms on the rear-wheel hub, turning the rear wheel directly. There were no chains, no rotary cranks, and no pedals on the front wheel as on a later French boneshaker.

What is a reciprocating bicycle drive? A drive in which the rider's input motion goes back and forth in a straight line, rather than rotating. On Macmillan's machine one treadle was pushed forward while the other was pulled back, like rowing with the feet. Connecting rods converted that linear, push-pull motion into rotation at the rear wheel via short crank arms. It is the same in principle as the mechanism of an early steam engine or a treadle sewing machine.

Did Macmillan really ride to Glasgow? Family tradition says he rode the roughly 68–70 miles from Dumfriesshire to Glasgow in June 1842 in two days. The Glasgow Argus of 9 June 1842 reports a 'gentleman from Dumfries-shire' on a 'velocipede of ingenious design' being fined five shillings at the Gorbals after knocking down a child. The newspaper does not name him, so the identification with Macmillan is traditional rather than documentary — but the contemporary report of the ride itself is real.

Why is Macmillan's claim disputed? Because no original machine, drawing, patent or contemporary 1830s document in Macmillan's own hand survives, and the campaign for his priority was mounted by his relative James Johnston more than fifty years after the fact. Historians including David V. Herlihy and Nicholas Oddy argue that the demonstrably-Scottish treadle bicycles that survive were actually built later by Gavin Dalzell (1840s) and Thomas McCall (1869), and may have been retrospectively confused with Macmillan's machine.

How did the bicycle change society? Profoundly. It gave individuals — and especially women — an unprecedented personal range and independence; it helped force the reform of restrictive Victorian dress; it became the engineering laboratory in which the Wright brothers learned the disciplines that would carry them into flight; and it grew into a global industry worth around USD 84 billion. Today the bicycle is central to debates about urban congestion, air quality, public health and the climate.

Why is the bicycle considered so efficient? Because a person on a bicycle converts more of their food energy into forward motion per unit distance than any other mode of locomotion ever measured — human, animal or mechanical. The bicycle's combination of low rolling resistance, supported body weight, efficient rotary cranks and a near-frictionless chain or drive makes it, mile-for-mile and calorie-for-calorie, the most energy-efficient traveller on Earth.