Dunlop, John Boyd (1840-1921)

Scottish inventor who founded the rubber company that bears his name. In 1887, to help his child win a tricycle race, he bound an inflated rubber hose to the wheels. The same year he developed commercially practical pneumatic tyres, first patented by Robert William Thomson (1822-1873) 1846 for bicycles and cars. Thomson's invention had gone practically unnoticed, whereas Dunlop's arrived at a crucial time in the development of transport, and with the rubber industry well established. Dunlop was in Dreghorn, Ayrshire, and studied veterinary medicine at Edinburgh University before setting up a practice in Ireland near Belfast, in 1867. He then founded his own company for the mass production of tyres. In 1896, after trading for only about five years, Dunlop sold both his patent and his business for £3 million. Dunlop's first simple design consisted of a rubber inner tube, covered by a jacket of linen tape with an outer tread also of rubber. The inner tube was inflated using a football pump and the tyre was attached by flaps in the jacket which were rubber-cemented to the wheel. Later, he incorporated a wire through the edge of the tyre which secured it to the rim of the wheel.