BICYCLING

[8]pp., 16mo (10.5 x 8 cm). Stitched into card wraps. In very good condition. An attractive production, wtih the light-blue card covers printed in dark blue ink, with the club's device, featuring a lion on top of a wheel, embossed and printed in red. A list of names of the 'Executive' is inside the front cover. With the sixteen 'Rules' on the first two pages, and the other headings: 'Racing Fixtures', 'Executive Meetings', 'General Meetings'; the fourth page carries general notes.

A native of Derby, Scott is a notable figure in the history of the development of the bicycle. In 1878, together with George Henry Phillott, he seems to have received the first practicable patent (No. 860 of 1878) for an epicyclic change-speed gear for cycles. All items clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. The typewritten draft, in blue ink, with a few manuscript corrections, covers two folio pages.

Four manuscript leaves ranging from 16mo to 4to, with covering typewritten letter, the whole held together by a pin. Somewhat discoloured, but in good condition overall. The letter, in purple ink on Lintine & Co.'s florid black-and-white letterhead, is dated 1 January 1903 and addressed to Messrs Challoner & Shaw, Solicitors, Leek. No more than a note, it requests a list of the creditors to Birch's estate. With the cyclostyled signature of 'David F. Lintine'. The other, manuscript, papers are all clearly from the Challoner archive.