An exploration of the emergence and development of bicycling and automobility in modern Britain, with a focus on SF Edge and his network of entrepreneurs.
Author(s): Craig Horner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 225
City: London
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Finding the open road
Entrepreneurs
Historiography and sources
Layout of the book
Chapter 2: Resistance to change
Late-Victorian Britain and the motor industry
Horse traction
Resistance
Accommodation
Clubs
Class in cycling and motoring
Conclusions
Chapter 3: Entrepreneurs
Cycling background
Graft and learning
The celebrity of the cycling ‘crack’
Background in business and sales
Entrepreneurial women
Political inclination
Concluding remarks
Chapter 4: Trials
The Thousand Mile Trial: Providing information for press and consumer
Sustaining interest in trials
The local clubs and public trials
Customer experience
The Motor’s Trial, 1903
Conclusions
Chapter 5: The ‘old brigade’ and the new ‘steady and careful artisan’
Diversity and standardization
Trading up
The Motor
Running costs
Strategies for buying
The rise of the consumer
Women
Conclusions
Chapter 6: Tourists
‘Real’ tourists
The ‘consumer’s’ tour
Encroachment, blight and the working classes
Speed trapping
Conclusions
Chapter 7: Futures
New possibilities beyond motoring
Futures: for whom?
The light car for 100 pounds
‘New motoring’
Imagining the road network
The persistence of the horse
Conclusions
Chapter 8: Conclusion
Bibliography
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Appendix: Biography
Index
