1892 New Rapid No 4 Safety (Cross frame)

1892 New Rapid No 4 Safety (Cross frame)

28″ wheels

(original hubs with Westwood rims and pneumatic tyres)

I don’t have a catalogue illustration or advertisement that shows this model, but the report below describes it accurately. The report appeared in the book ‘Cycles of the Season 1892’ by H.H Griffin. This machine has open steering, denoting an earlier model than 1892. As you can see further down the page, they had already introduced a safety bicycle with a diamond frame, so obviously the company was selling old stock as a budget option. Though customers in London might have preferred to ride the latest models, and pay for that privilege, there was also a market for cheaper bicycles in other parts of the country.

The original specification for the ‘New Rapid No 4’ in 1892 was cushion tyres. This example is an older restoration, and though its hubs are original they have been built into Westwood rims with 28″ pneumatic tyres. It is missing its pedal rubbers, but is otherwise ready to ride.

ST. GEORGE’S ENGINEERING CO

This firm was previously known as Newton, Wilson & Co who were sewing machine manufacturers. James Starley and Josiah Turner worked there in 1859 before they both moved in May 1861 to Coventry to set up the European Sewing Machine Co and later the Coventry Sewing Machine Co …which subsequently became the Coventry Machinists’ Co.

As St George’s Foundry Co, the company built and sold ordinaries. The name was changed to St George’s Engineering Co in 1885. and machines were exported to the USA for sale through their agents Samuel T. Clark of Baltimore, USA.

The New Rapid Ordinary was a well-publicized model, and the company won a gold medal at the 1885 International Inventions Exhibition in London for the New Rapid tangent wheel. In the mid-1880s the firm produced the Rapid Hill Gear, using spur gears, operated by a lever, to gear up and down. Presumably this influenced the company’s choice of new name when it changed to New Rapid Cycle Co around 1893.

The first New Rapid Safety was introduced in 1886. The model featured here superseded their first pattern safety, presumably being introduced in 1888 as it appears in Clark of Baltimore’s catalogue of that date.

New Rapid Cycle Co were in financial difficulties by 1898. By 1907, Armstrong Triplex gears were being made at the St. George’s Engineering factory. New Hudson Cycle Manufacturing Co were major customers for the Armstrong Triplex gears, and it is believed that they took over the New Rapid Cycle Co in 1915.