Note
Notes: Coventry Machinists' Company
Coventry, England, 1878
Steel, rubber,leather, wood
According to tradition, this bicycle with its 46-inch-high large wheel was the first bicycle ridden in Portsmouth. Its original owner and eventual donor, Charles A. Hazlett (1847=1920), was a prominent member of the New Hampshire Wheelmen, a group of aficionados who enjoyed this new mode of transportation in the 1870s.
Bicycles of this type are often called "penny farthing" today, because the contrast between their two wheels evokes the size relationship between two English coins: the large penny and the much smaller farthing. Its designer was probably James Starley (1830-1881), a British inventor generally known as the father of the bicycle.
Acquired in the 1920s, this impressive bicycle represents the Portsmouth Historical Society's first century of collecting, preserving, and interpreting the city's history, art, and culture.
Status Date: 1999-04-18