1899 C. Hayward THE ONWARD Gents Cushion Safety

1899 C. Hayward THE ONWARD Gents Cushion Safety

24.5″ Frame

28″ Wheels with 1 3/8″ cushion tyres

Fixed wheel with inch pitch chain

Original shop receipt

c1895 Coombs Brothers ‘Comet’ oil-powered lamp

Discovering a 125-year-old ‘barn find’ bicycle in excellent preserved condition is something most vintage bicycle enthusiasts dream of. This week I found this wonderful Victorian example, complete with its original shop receipt from 25 March, 1899.

It was built by Charles Hayward of Ashford, Kent, whose shop advertised “Cycles of Every Description Made to Order” and is in very good original unrestored condition.

Cushion tyres were popular around 1893. They replaced solid tyres for a while until pneumatic tyres became the industry standard. Does that mean that the ‘Onward’ was a secondhand bicycle when it was sold in 1899 for £8 10/-?

It seems not. Its pedal cranks are a design that was popular in 1897/1898. Its certainly old-fashioned for the end of the 1890s, but using out-of-date components was common practice in the cycle trade to keep the price down, especially for cycle shops in provincial towns around the country.

Compare its sale price to those of various well-known manufacturers: a new Humber would have cost over £20, an Ariel around £18, while a Rudge-Whitworth or New Hudson was 10 guineas. Personally, I would have thought an extra £1 10/- spent on a new lightweight Rudge-Whitworth with freewheel and pneumatics would have been better value for money. However, £1 10/- in 1899 is the equivalent of around £240 in 2024, so no doubt it was a considerable saving, and I’m sure that £8 10/- was a bargain price for a quality-built machine such as the Onward, even with older components. And at least you won’t get punctures.

CHARLES HAYWARD

32, New St, Ashford, Kent

Charles Hayward was a talented engineer who started in business by building agricultural machinery, and moved into cycle building in his spare time at 1 Christchurch Road, Ashford.

In 1889 he left his job and set up as a cycle maker at 32 New Street, Ashford. This became known as the Onward Cycle Works. He was an enthusiastic motoring pioneer and started selling cars, his premises subsequently becoming Haywards Garage.

The photo above, from August, 1912, shows the New Inn on the extreme right, which was at 26-30 New St, Ashford. So the garage next door must be Haywards at No 32.

The photo below shows the New Inn in 1896. The ‘Eiffel Safety Bicycle’ in the photograph below was built by Humber for promotional purposes and did a tour of the South Coast; as you can see, from Hastings and Winchelsea it passed through Ashford, then on to Hythe, and ended its tour in Folkestone. As it has stopped outside No 32 New Street for this photograph, I assume that, though we can’t see it, Charles Hayward’s cycle shop is there.