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TONY
BANKS, SPORTS MINISTER,
UNVEILED A PLAQUE COMMEMORATING
THE
EARLIEST “BICYCLE”
 On
July 2 1998 Tony Banks MP (right, with Councillor Alan Bradley of
Westminster City Council) unveiled a plaque on Acre House, 69-76
Long Acre in Covent Garden. The plaque commemorates the site of
the workshop where in 1819 Denis Johnson, a London coachbuilder,
made the first “Pedestrian Hobby-Horse” - a bicycle
without pedals. This machine was also known as the Walking Accelerator
and it was advertised as allowing riders to travel “eight
miles an hour”. Fashionable with Regency dandies, the Hobby-
Horse’s heyday was in the years 1819 to 1821.
 The
official proposers of the green plaque were Covent Garden Area Trust
and it was installed by Westminster City Council with financial
sponsorship by the national Veteran Cycle Club.
 Roger
Street, author of a book about Denis Johnson (Artesius Publications)
was dressed in Regency dandy costume and rode on an original Denis
Johnson Hobby-Horse. This interesting machine formerly belonged
to the first Earl of Durham and was lent by the National Cycle Museum
of Holland.
 Celebrating
with drinks later were Phil Liggett (left) well-known TV cycling
commentator and Frank Dickens, Evening Standard cartoonist and keen
bicyclist.
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