You might think the discussion of cycling in an era before cars were on the roads would be less judgmental – history shows us that is not the case

“The past is a foreign country: they cycle differently there”. Such an assumption is often close to the surface in any complaint about the activities of cyclists in present-day Britain. Take, for instance, Angela Epstein’s recent article in the Telegraph, which told us to:

Forget bucolic images of the village schoolboy poetically wheeling down country lanes. Or all those Call the Midwife-style dramas where baskets are a vital part of the kit and protest is launched with little more than a chirp of the bicycle bell. Today’s cycling fraternity are aggressive, unreconstructed and utterly immutable when it comes to criticism of their form of transport.

But was there really ever then a golden age when cyclists were immune from such hostility and criticism? After spending several years studying cycling in late 19th-century Britain, I think the picture is much more complicated. Certainly, I have never witnessed a scene in a period drama quite like that which Cycling (the predecessor of today’s Cycling Weekly) described in 1895:

We know a certain veteran clergyman, who arrived home the other day, perspiring, out of breath and exhausted, but elated with an unholy joy at having beaten the postman in a scratch tricycle race through the village.

Before researching this topic I didn’t imagine the animosity that can surround modern-day debates concerning cycling would have existed on comparable levels back then. After all, this was a period before motor vehicles could also be found on Britain’s roads. Moreover, the invention of the modern day safety bicycle in 1885 quickly came to represent, for millions of people, their first personal means of long-distance transportation. Surely this was a cause of universal pride and celebration?

As a matter of fact no. Indeed, criticisms such as Epstein’s seem to have been just as prevalent then as they are today. The activities of “scorchers”, a term given individuals who engaged in varying forms of fast-paced cycling, received huge amounts of attention in the national press. One letter to The Times in 1892 complained how on hill descents:

It is the practice of a number of them, spread out across the road, to rush down at headlong speed, more like a horde of Apaches or Sioux Indians, conches shrieking and bells going; and woe betide the luckless man or aught else coming in their way.

A bike as the ‘King of Scorchers’. Photograph: oldbike.eu

Unsurprisingly, such a representation in a national newspaper did not sit well with many cyclists. Issuing a rejoinder, Cycling stated:

We have all met the kind of garrulous cycle hater who would pen such spiteful words as these, and we will simply say ‘Booh!’ to it.

Such “garrulous cycle haters” could be found not only when the activities of scorchers were under discussion. As cycling quickly became a widely popular activity, the number of people who resented their presence on British roads also underwent a similar growth, mashing together arguments I am sure many of us today are familiar with. They don’t pay any road tax. Because they aren’t registered they break the law with impunity. They should all pass a test before being allowed on public highways.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Going at speed. Photograph: oldbike.eu

In 1896 Punch beautifully caricatured these various opinions in an article titled, “New Rules for Cyclists”. Under the heading, “What some people would like”, various points of view were expressed, such as:

Every cyclist to be presumed in all legal proceedings to be a reckless idiot, and on the wrong side of the road, unless he can bring conclusive evidence to the contrary.

and

Nobody to cycle without a license, issued by the Governor of Newgate, after a fortnight’s strict examination (on bread and water) in elementary mechanics, advanced hydrostatics and riding on the head down an inclined plane.

and

When a cyclist on any road sees, or has reason to believe that he might see if he chose to look, any horse, cart, carriage, gig or other vehicle, or any pedestrian approaching, he (or she) to instantly dismount, run the machine into the nearest ditch, and kneel in a humble and supplicating attitude till said horse, cart &c., has got at least a mile away.

Aside from the humour, these quotes do have a certain element of inevitability to them – it seems hard to picture any period in which some amount of tension did not exist between cyclists and other road users.

However, if you look back hard enough it is possible to spot at least some small causes for optimism, and some parallels to the recent opening of the first section of London’s Cycle Superhighways. In another list by Punch, of things “All cyclists would like”, it said:

Cyclists to be given a special track on all the roads, quite half the width of the thoroughfare, and well asphalted.

Will Manners is an MA by research student at the University of York. He blogs at The Victorian Cyclist