I know there are a lot of battery powered lights on the market, but you can’t beat the pedal powered dynamo for instant readiness and low maintenance.
A bottle dynamo or sidewall dynamo is a small electrical generator for bicycles employed to power a bicycle’s lights. Named after their resemblance to bottles, these generators operate using a roller placed on the sidewall of a bicycle tire. When the bicycle is in motion and the dynamo roller is engaged, electricity is generated as the tire spins the roller.
This dynamo made by Miller of Great Britain, installed on a neighbour’s cycle brought back memories of me using one that my grand father had on his Raleigh cycle.
A google search resulted in interesting information about the company. H Miller and Co was founded in 1869, in Birmingham. Henry Miller was a plumber from Lubeck in Germany. He emigrated to the UK and worked as a tin plate worker, initially making lamps for carriages, before moving into the bicycle lamp business
Two of the company’s early successes were the Bell Rock, an oil lamp, which was sold all over Europe in the 1890s, and the Cetolyte, an Actlyene Gas Lamp, which was the stand out product in 1899.
The company’s initial premises were in a lane that became known as Miller Street, in Aston, Birmingham. By the end of the 19th Century the firm also had a factory in Whitehouse Street. The business was moved to it’s Aston Brook Street site in 1919 and an additional factory was opened in Lanarkshire on the Newhouse Industrial Estate in 1949. In 1964 a factory was opened in India.
The company went public in 1898, but the Miller Family owned over 80% of the equity. In 1977 the business was sold to Dartmouth Investments, and subsequently dissolved in 1994.
A quick search of the attic and I found the ones my grand father used on his cycle – the bottle dynamo and the headlight.
Advert for the Miller dynamo lighting – year 1936.
