High wheel Joseph DEVEY „Special Express, c.1883/84

Joseph Devey. In the era of high wheels, 350 manufacturers gradually emerged in the UK, several of which became famous, most ended up in oblivion, others also ended up, but they wrote that they could not be erased. Like Joseph Devey. He became known as "The Working’s Man Friend". The name was possible because the machine sold for 4 pounds and 10 shillings. For comparison - the largest manufacturer Coventry Machinists Co. offered his Gentleman’s for £ 16 in 1878, the racing model cost £ 20 to £ 25. Devey has made the high wheel accessible to a much wider clientele. He opened his company in 1876 and launched the Express, Special Express and Racing Express models, offered at prices well below the then standard. Joseph Devey was an otherwise excellent guy. He regularly attended church and wrote in the parish magazine, where he beat his sins with his contributions. Well, a godly man. In January 1887, he left his business to Joseph Horton of Birmingham for £ 10,000. It should be noted that the house where Devey lived was adjacent to the factory he had just sold. The new owner continued to manufacture bicycles to soon find that he was mysteriously regularly losing material from the warehouse. Horton and one of the officers locked himself in a factory at night, and you probably already know who they caught: Mr. Devey, sneaking out of his house through a wall in the factory warehouse. Then it went quickly - arrest, trial and imprisonment. This is what the parishioners have now read, true in non-church newspapers. In the factory purchase agreement, Devey undertook to Horton not to manufacture bicycles within a 200-mile radius, which he adhered to after his release from prison. After the deadline, he returned to Wolverhampton and returned to work. Not for long, the era of high bikes was over. Whether he began to fight against sins again could not be ascertained.