Thomas Humber was a English engineer and cycle manufacturer who developed and patented a safety bicycle (1884) with a diamond-shaped frame and wheels of similar size. It became a pattern for subsequent machines. Humber made many other improvements to bicycles. About 1868 he founded Humber Cycles, the bicycle manufacturing business at Beeston, Nottinghamshire later owned by Humber & Co Limited.
Ordinary by Humber, Marriott & Cooper
Humber Cycles Beeston 2008 insignia high on the left front wall
Thomas Humber and T.H.Lambert on a Humber Tandem Tricycle, circa 1885
Humber Safety Bicycle The Science Museum
A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being safer than the high wheelers they were replacing. Even though modern bicycles use a similar design, the term is rarely used today and is considered obsolete outside circles familiar with high wheelers.
1885 Rover safety bicycle in the London Science Museum
1887 advertisement for a safety bicycle, Wolverhampton, England
Early safety bicycle (c. 1879) in the Coventry Transport Museum
1884 McCammon safety bicycle