1890-1893 Guest & Barrow Girder Star
‘Model T’
19″ Frame
30″ Wheels with solid tyres
Snells’ patent ‘Big Ben’ bell
‘Universal No 1’ cycle lamp
With a bolt up frame, open steering, and chain adjustment at the bottom bracket via a threaded rod to the swing bracket, Guest & Barrow’s Girder Star avoided most cycle patents in force at the time, meaning that it could be produced more cheaply than most of its competitors. Though it may have been outdated in the early 1890s, it can now be considered a remarkable relic of the first generation of bicycles, and its unique design certainly created a mythology around it in the following 130 years.
Several years later, when Mikael Pedersen was looking for a cycle frame design for his hammock saddle, there’s no doubt he took some ideas from the Girder Star, though, of course, the Dursley Pedersen benefited greatly from the advances in tube technology as the Pedersen was an extremely lightweight machine compared to its predecessor.
There are very few surviving Girder Stars, and this one is in excellent road-going condition.
CHAIN ADJUSTMENT at the BOTTOM BRACKET
1893 GUEST & BARROW CATALOGUE EXTRACTS
SNELL’S PATENT BIG BEN BELL
Founded by Samuel Snell and John Smith Brown, Snell & Brown were Lamp Makers and Hardware Merchants, with retail shops in Great Eastern St, London EC1, and factories at 50 and 60, Skinner Lane, Birmingham.
They dissolved their partnership in 1889 by mutual consent, and Brown, with his brothers Albert and Ernest, established the famous company ‘Brown Brothers’ at 28 and 30, Great Eastern St.
Meanwhile, Samuel Snell went to the USA to set up his own cycle component retail company in Toledo. He manufactured lamps under his own name and exported to Europe, particularly France, and in the mid-1890s started building bicycles which he sold under the Snell name. His company was subsequently merged into the Consolidated Manufacturing Co. of Toledo, which in 1916 was sold to the Davis Sewing Machine Co (makers of Harley Davidson and Indian bicycles).
The oldest known recording of Big Ben’s chimes was captured on 16 July, 1890, on a wax cylinder by technicians working for the London Stereoscopic Company. The Big Ben bell had already been patented by Snell became a popular name for bicycle bells.
EARLY MORNING PHOTOSHOOT at BRIGHTON PIER
BELOW: The exit through the tunnel to Brighton Aquarium
