"Mikael Pedersen, Inventor
1855-1929 - Re-interred 1995, The Last Journey"

Famous Bicycle Inventor laid to rest
This report by 'CG' appeared in the November 1995
magazine of the Anglo-Danish Society

In1893 Mikael Pedersen, a Dane, patented his new Dursley Pedersen. Made in Dursley, Gloucestershire, all the tubes were in duplicate, converging to points at their upper ends. The construction was light yet the triangulation was exceedingly strong. Pedersen also patented
a three-speed hub gear in 1902.

On a sunny hillside in Gloucestershire on September 21 1995 a small box, covered by the Dannebrog, was the focus of attention for 200 people from Denmark and England who had assembled to honour a Danish engineering genius, Mikael Pedersen. The Anglo-Danish Society, represented by Inge Mitchell, had provided the flag; the Danish Embassy was represented by Mr Jacob Benthien, press and cultural attache’.

Born at Fløng, near Roskilde, in 1855, Pedersen invented the remarkable Dursley-Pedersen bicycle. It had a cantilever design, strong, but light in weight, and with a hammock seat instead of a leather saddle. No company in Denmark would accept his design, so he came to England and RA Lister’s in Dursley, Gloucestershire, gave him a workshop where he produced about 30,000 of his machines between 1894 and 1914. World War I interrupted his work, and after the war he failed to get his cycling inventions further developed in England. He returned to Denmark, dying in poverty in 1929.

Since then, cycling enthusiasts have campaigned for a worthy memorial to his genius. Thanks to Mr Finn Wodschow, who tracked down Pedersen’s remains in a pauper’s grave at Bispebjerg, Copenhagen, we assembled around a small hole in the town cemetery at Dursley for a re-burial. Mr Wodschow, with a permit from the Danish authorities, arranged for the bones of the inventor to be exhumed and placed in a vintage port wine box - appropriate for an eccentric who appreciated good wine - and for it to be transported to the place where Pedersen gained fame.

The gravestone, given by a Bristol firm of monumental masons, bears a laser-cut picture of Mikael Pedersen riding one of his cycles. It states: "Mikael Pedersen, Inventor 1855-1929 - Re-interred 1995, The Last Journey."

This report by 'CG' appeared in the November 1995 magazine
of the Anglo-Danish  Society

1902 DursleyPedersen

 
Inge Mitchell, Anglo-Danish Society