John Boyd Dunlop 1840 - 1921

Dunlop the reputed inventor of the pneumatic tyre was born in 1840 to a farming family in Dreghorn. Dreghorn was a mining village situated in North Ayrshire, it lies just a few miles east of the royal burgh of Irvine. Contrary to popular belief, Dunlop did not invent the pneumatic tyre, it was actually invented by Robert William Thomson, another Scot.


The pneumatic tyre idea had been experimented with and patented by Thompson some 40 years before (though Dunlop was unaware of this). But Dunlop is credited with the invention of the first commercially viable pneumatic tyre. He was a veterinary surgeon by profession and had worked as a vet in Edinburgh for some years before moving to Belfast where he first tested his air-filled rubber tyre on his son's tricycle. Its invention was to improve the comfort for cyclists and later for that of motorists.


Within ten years of Dunlop patenting the pneumatic tyre, it had almost entirely replaced the solid tyres and were being manufactured for motor cars by Michelin. Dunlop didn't make a great deal of money from the invention as he had sold the patent. The Dunlop Rubber Company he founded still exists today. Dunlop died in Dublin in 1921.