John Boyd Dunlop

John Boyd Dunlop was born on February 5, 1840, on a farm in Dreghorn, North Ayrshire, Scotland. Graduating as a veterinary surgeon from the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College in Edinburgh, Dunlop established one of Ireland's largest and most successful veterinary practices in Belfast.

In 1887, observing his young son Johnny suffering severe headaches and discomfort while riding a tricycle over Belfast’s rough cobblestone streets on solid rubber wheels, Dunlop set out to invent a cushioned wheel. He inflated a thin sheet rubber garden tube with a football pump, wrapped it around a wooden wheel disc, and protected it with glued canvas. Road trials demonstrated that the pneumatic tyre provided dramatically smoother riding, absorbed shocks, and offered far greater speed and energy efficiency than solid rubber.

Dunlop was granted a patent in December 1888. When racing cyclist Willie Hume won all four cycling events at Queen's College Sports in Belfast in 1889 on Dunlop's pneumatic tyres, demand skyrocketed globally. Alongside industrialist William Harvey du Cros, he founded the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company (later Dunlop Rubber). Dunlop passed away in Dublin on October 23, 1921, having gifted the modern world the smooth pneumatic wheels that carry virtually every car, airplane, and bicycle on Earth.