Thomas Humber

Thomas Humber (1841 to 1910) was an English bicycle maker and the founder of the Humber cycle company. Born in Sheffield, he grew up in Hull and Nottingham and trained as a wheelwright and blacksmith before building his first bicycle in 1868, modelled on the Michaux velocipede he had read about. By the early 1870s he was producing the Spider bicycle, an early form of the Ordinary or penny-farthing, and in 1875 he formed a partnership with Thomas Rushforth Marriott that later became Humber, Marriott and Cooper and moved to a factory at Beeston near Nottingham in 1878. Grace's Guide records that his safety bicycle patented on 24 April 1884 was one of the first to use a diamond frame, a key step in the development of the bicycle, and that he also built tricycles, including the machine raced as the Humber-Cripper, and a tandem. When Humber and Co was formed in 1887 he acted as general manager, and he retired in 1892. He died at Kingston-upon-Thames in 1910.