Arthur King 1862-1939

Arthur King was born in Gloucester, the son of Daniel King, a blacksmith from Leicester and his wife Agnes, Nee Watkins, from Ripley. Sometime in the late 1870s, the family moved back to Ripley where Arthur, at 18 in 1881, was employed as an engine fitter, almost certainly at Butterley. In an advert of 1895 he claimed to have 16 years’ experience in making and repairing cycles, which suggests he started at the age of 16 whilst working at Butterley.

Arthur set up in business from the family home in Greenhillocks as a cycle maker and repairer. His father died in 1888 and his mother Agnes moved in with him. He married Harriet Fretwell in All Saints Church in 1891.

In 1893 he moved to Chapel Street “next door to the Nottingham Joint Stock Bank.”. By 1900 he had built up a thriving business making and selling the “King” bicycle, “swift, easy, graceful and strong.” Initially he also sold colliers’ tools and repaired all kinds of small machinery: sewing machines, wringers, lawn mowers and so on. He also advertised “electric bells, telephones, speaking tubes and all kinds of electrical apparatus fixed or supplied”: he seemed to be able to turn his hand to most things.

He was a clever advertiser, frequently changing his ads and offering easy terms, including a “club”, and promoting new features each season.

In the mid 1890s he also sold incandescent gas lighting for the home, (his shop was the first in the town to be lit by such gas lights) and in 1899 was an agent for the Edison graphophone, “by which you may record and reproduce your own music”. It promised “Endless Amusement for Winter Evenings.” In 1903 he was advertising not only Edison Bell phonographs and Columbia records, but also a service for shaving and putting new tunes on old wax discs at nine pence each or four shillings for six.

By 1903 he had changed the name of his shop to “The King Cycle and Motor Works” and was selling The King 2 horsepower Motor Bicycle for £40. He was also an agent for the Sunbeam motor car, and it was his car, a Sunbeam Mabley, that was first seen in the town around 1902. It may not have been the first to pass through the town, but it was almost certainly the first to be owned by a resident.

It was an odd vehicle, registration R108, with four wheels arranged in a diamond shape, the motor driving the front single wheel. The two passengers sat back to back facing sideways (to see the view) and the driver sat at the back, steering by means of a long metal rod. It sold at £130, though whether Arthur sold any is doubtful, and the agency didn’t last long.

In his obituary, the Ripley and Heanor News reported that the first journey in the car, a visit to the annual garden party at Butterley Hall, caused a sensation, with “crowds of people lining the streets.”

He continued with his original specialism of making and repairing bikes, advertising in 1903 that “over 30 prizes have been won on The King cycles this season” : clearly cycle racing was becoming very popular. Later he was also an agent for Humber and Coventry Imperial Cycles.

He himself was a keen cyclist, and a member of a Penny-Farthing club.

In October 1908 a fire destroyed part of his workshop: the newspaper estimated that the loss was likely to be at least £100, and not covered by insurance. Nevertheless, by the following year he was again advertising his “large stock” with “prompt delivery” and “special cash prices”.

He seems to have stopped trading sometime during the First World War, and by 1922 his shop had been taken over by another firm. He died in 1939 aged 77. He retired, first to Brook Lane, then Manvers Street and finally to Steam Mill Lane.