He won seven world championships, set up one of Britain's largest cycle-parts companies, and ran a roller skating rink and ballroom.

However, reports in the cycling press refer to him as Leon Lewis Meredith, and friends called him Jack.

He became interested in cycling in 1901 and made his first long ride from London to Brighton, 80 km on badly surfaced roads.

On the way, he met riders from Paddington Cycling Club, neighbours in the region of London where he lived, and agreed to ride with them provided they didn't go too fast.

He rode his first race in the Finchley Harriers meeting on the track at Kensal Green in north London, winning the one-mile handicap.

Meredith worked for his uncle, William Boyer, a builder with a wharf on the canal in Praed Street, Paddington.

[3] Meredith won his first world championship at Crystal Palace in London in 1904, beating the nine starters – four British – in the 100 km motor-paced event.

He got back to his feet, blood running, shouted for another bike and another pacer, and finished the race 7m 19s faster than the world amateur record.

He won seven motor world motor-paced championships, in London in 1904, Antwerp in 1905, Paris in 1907, Leipzig in 1908, Copenhagen in 1909, Rome in 1911 and Berlin in 1913.

The world track champion, Bill Bailey, said of him: He was one of the most versatile riders I ever saw, winning races from a quarter-mile to six hours.

Usually, when thinking of motor-paced riders, we regard them as specialists who, once they have adopted the little front wheel,[5] reversed forks and big gears are somehow never able to show good form in normal competition.

The Rover bicycle on which he rode was put on display in the Gamages department store in central London.

He began importing more cycling parts and buying Bastide bicycles from France and hubs from BSA.

The firm outlasted Meredith's death but foundered at the end of the 1960s in a national decline of the cycle trade and in the face of rising imports.

Her father, Charles, was a member of parliament for Willesden, an alderman of Middlesex County Council, and a magistrate.

Meredith died six days before his 48th birthday while on a skiing holiday in Davos, Switzerland, of a heart attack.