W. H. J. Grout

William Henry James Grout (1839 to 1915) was a London engineer and bicycle manufacturer who ran the Tension Bicycle Works in Watson Street, Stoke Newington. Born in Whitechapel, he was a tobacco pipe maker in 1861, and by 1871 he was recorded as an engineer working in partnership with Frank Joseph Noble. In 1871 the two patented improvements in bicycles and velocipedes, and Grout designed the Tension cycle, an ordinary bicycle whose hollow front forks reduced its weight. He advertised the Tension bicycle in 1874, citing a 600 mile journey made on one in nine days, and took out a further patent that year on bicycles and wheels. By 1881 he employed six men as a bicycle maker, and he was still listed as a cycle manufacturer at Watson Street in 1899.