MacMillan-type Bicycle

This bicycle was likely built in around 1873 by an unknown manufacturer likely from Scotland to a design developed by Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1839.

The bicycle is of a velocipede design with a curved wooden bar connecting the steering column and metal forks for the small 32-inch diameter front steering wheel and the larger 42.5 diameter rear driving wheel. A direct treadle and crank drive links to the rear wheel via connecting rods. The rear wheel also has a wooden plunger brake mounted to it, which is controlled by a cord tightened by rotating the handlebar, as well as an iron mud guard cover.

The saddle on this example was re-made by Brooks in 1961 and is mounted on a spring which is bolted to the frame.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a Scottish blacksmith from Dumfriesshire, developed one of the earliest examples of a working crank driven bicycle in the world in 1839. Inspired to make a form of hobbyhorse which did not require being pushed along by foot, he developed a machine which used reciprocating treadles and cranks connected to the rear wheel to create an early form of shaft driven bicycle.

Whilst his invention places Kirkpatrick Macmillan among the top contenders for having invented the 'bicycle', Kirkpatrick never patented his idea and did not attempt to produce and sell it.

Instead his novel ideas, including that of front wheel steering via a handlebar and column, were copied and spread by fellow Scotsman Thomas McCall in the late 1850s. This led to the creation of dozens imitation models of almost mechanically identical design in the mid-19th century. Many of these copies, potentially including this example, were produced by Thomas McCall.

Kirkpatrick Macmillan's achievement went mostly unnoticed throughout the rest of the 19th century with the introduction of Michaux’s velocipede in 1860 and the Ariel ordinary in 1870. However, Macmillan's rear-wheel drive design foreshadowed the eventual development and dominance of the modern safety bicycle in the 1880s which characteristically used rear wheel chain drive.