1891 Marriott & Cooper Humber
Brake Patent Model
ex Science Museum
Harrington saddle support
22″ Frame
28″ Wheels
1 1/4″ rims with cushion tyres (solidified with age)
LENGTH: 68″
WIDTH: 24″
HEIGHT: 39″
I bought this odd contraption from The Science Museum. According to their records, 1968-570 was acquired in 1968 from the Surrey branch of the Cyclists’ Touring Club. They didn’t know what it was, but closer inspection reveals it to be a patent model for a rear brake. The frame appears to be that of a Marriott & Cooper Humber, which has been adapted at the open steering joint and bottom bracket, using wood. To register a patent it was only required to illustrate how the invention would function, so wood was easier to use. Once a patent was registered it could be shown to any interested parties, and they would then build their own prototype.
Nearly every part of a bicycle was covered by a patent, so when a company built a bicycle they needed to plan it carefully to calculate the cost in license duties, and to see what parts were not covered by a patent. For example, the open steering that you see on this bicycle was patent-free, which is why it was used by so many cycle companies even though the ‘ball head’ steering joint had already been invented. William Bown was the primary patent-holder for ball bearing cups and he charged a fee for their use.
Although rear brakes were already in use, few companies used them because they would have had to pay license duties to the patent holder. The front plunger brake was so common that I assume there was no patent applicable or that it was easy to make one that avoided other companies’ patents. The interesting thing about circumnavigating other companies’ patents was that once you had successfully done so you could register your own design as an ‘improvement’ with the possibility of receiving future patent fees yourself.
Humber advertised a bicycle in 1889 with a rear brake. Though M&C had the rights to use the Humber name and its PREVIOUS patents, Humber’s 1889 rear brake would have been a later invention. So if this machine is a M&C Humber, this could logically be M&C’s own brake patent model. None of this is certain, but it offers a valid reason for the existence of this bicycle, and why it was donated to The Science Museum.
The bicycle itself is not rideable as the parts around the bottom bracket have been loosely assembled. The seat post is upside down, but I’ve left it like this because this is how it arrived from The Science Museum. I just fitted a suitable saddle top.
REAR BRAKE DETAILS
MARRIOTT & COOPER
Humber, Marriott & Cooper was formed in 1877. Thomas Rushforth Marriott was Captain of the Nottingham and Notts Tricycle Club, and Fred Cooper was a noted professional rider. After Marriott and Cooper left to form their own company in 1885, by arrangement with Thomas Humber, the two firms shared the right to the use of the name ‘Humber’ and any of the patents of the previous firm.
However, shortly after the dissolution, Humber & Co. Ltd began advertising that they had the genuine ‘Humber’ and sought to register the name as their trade mark. Marriott & Cooper obtained a court ruling upholding their right to use the name and they also prevented the trade mark registration by Humber & Co.
Marriott & Cooper did extensive business in Australia, Belgium and Russia and was based initially at 65a Holborn Viaduct, London, subsequently moving to 9 Holborn Viaduct in 1889 and two years later to 1 Holborn Viaduct, and at Garfield Road, Coventry, where they remained until 1899. However, for many years the firm had no works of its own. They sold ‘Humber’ machines made by D. Rudge & Co. up to 1895 when they set up their own factory in Coventry. Montague Napier, later of motor car fame, was manager of this factory for about a year. The company made ‘Humber’ high-wheelers from 1885-89 and c.1892 a geared front-driver with a wheel of 40-46”. There was also the ‘Ripley’ tricycle and ‘Olympia’ tandem tricycle built for them by D. Rudge & Co. from 1887. When Walter Phillips, an old racing colleague of Fred Cooper, left D. Rudge & Co. and joined Humber & Co. Ltd in 1893 the Marriott & Cooper machines were built at the Humber & Co. factory.
Marriott & Cooper was purchased by Humber Extension Co. in 1898. Messrs Marriott and Cooper retired at that point but continued to advise for a while on a retainer. Marriott then went to France as a Humber representative.
[information from Ray Miller’s Encyclopaedia]
THE HARRINGTON SADDLE SUPPORT
John Harrington & Co started out as a manufacturer of ‘Arab’ ordinaries at Ryde, Isle of Wight, around 1878, with a shop in London, before moving to Coventry, where they introduced their ‘Arab’ tricycle in 1881. Among other cycle patents, their patent #3849 from 1879 for saddle springs and supports became their lasting legacy. The firm merged with W. Middlemore, saddlers, in May 1889.
