Humber cycles

From that time he built a substantial business in manufacturing tricycles and bicycles while continuously improving their design and construction.

Though Thomas Humber retired from the cycle business in 1892 and went on to other things, his brand name remained a high-valued trademark for more than ninety years.

Thomas Humber (1841–1910)[1] founded a bicycle manufacturing business at Nottingham which moved about 1878 to Beeston, Nottinghamshire.

[1] Thomas Humber, at that time by trade a Nottingham blacksmith, had built himself a velocipede based on a picture in a letter about the Paris-developed machine that was published in the English Mechanic magazine in late 1868.

It took him 2 months to make each velocipede, he was concerned to develop improvements: solid rubber tyres, ball-bearings, while maintaining quality and reliability.

Thomas Humber developed and patented the safety bicycle (1884) with a diamond-shaped frame and wheels of similar size.

[1] The cycle industry was consolidating and Humber and Lambert soon sold the business to speculators: William and Joseph Horton, Edward Alfred Hicks and Christopher Norris Baker, who added a number of other substantial cycle manufacturers[note 1] and then floated the new combine on the stock exchange.

[1] A period of strong overseas expansion began in 1894[4] followed by an administrative separation of manufacturing from wholesaling and retailing.