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Bayliss-Wiley Co. Ltd. was a highly respected designer and manufacturer of bicycle components for nearly a full century, ahead of its time as inventor of the world’s first cassette hub in 1938 and bespoke supplier to British cycling and automotive companies alike. Its corporate lifecycle detoured through motorcar production, several changes of ownership and eventual absorption into Renold Chains Ltd. around 1959 before fading altogether a decade later.
Here is a chronological timeline of key corporate and technical events at Bayliss-Wiley, spanning from 1824 to 1969, based on the sources used for an accompanying Ebykr article on its history, “Bayliss-Wiley: Once Persistent Presence.”
19 events
1824
Company Founding
Perry & Co. is founded in Warwickshire to manufacture steel nibs for writing pens, the distant corporate ancestor of what would become Bayliss-Wiley.
late 1800s
Strategic Pivot
The founder’s son takes over Perry & Co. and diversifies into bicycle component manufacturing to ride the first great wave of cycling enthusiasm, the Bicycle Boom, though the firm catches only the tail end of it.
1874
Company Founding
Bayliss-Thomas, the bicycle company owned by James William Bayliss’ father, begins making bicycles.
1896
Corporate Leadership
Perry & Co. hires James William Bayliss away from his father’s firm Bayliss-Thomas and tasks him with turning around its bicycle components division within three years.
1898
Production Milestone
Perry & Co. must expand its premises as the bicycle components division grows, evidence of James Bayliss’ business acumen.
1907
Infrastructure Milestone
Perry & Co. buys an eleven-acre site in Birmingham, further evidence of the components division’s success under James Bayliss.
1910
Strategic Pivot
Perry & Co. decides to build automobiles, and Cecil Bayliss (presumably a relative of James) is assigned to design them, with car and bicycle-component production continuing side by side.
1918
Corporate Liquidation
Perry Motor Cars is dissolved. Its automobile tooling is sold to A. Harper Sons & Bean, while Cecil Bayliss and Arthur Edwar Wiley buy the tooling for bicycle components.
1919
Company Founding
Bayliss-Wiley is formed from the remains of the earlier Perry & Co. bicycle-component operation.
1921
Infrastructure Milestone
Bayliss-Wiley relocates to its Tyseley, Birmingham location, two years after its founding.
1926
Corporate Reorganization
Archival records indicate a merger between Bayliss-Wiley and the by-then defunct Perry & Co., though this appears doubtful given the documented sequence of prior events.
1938
Product Innovation
Bayliss-Wiley brings to market the world’s first cassette hub, then called a “unit hub,” a three-speed cluster running on a 1/8″ track chain, decades ahead of Suntour’s first attempt to popularize the format.
1939
Brand Storytelling
The Lewis Lightweights catalog prominently specs Bayliss-Wiley hubs and freewheels on its “Super Club” model, praising the imported “Free Wheel Hub” as the most expensive and lightest-running unit made, alongside a Bayliss-Wiley “Spindle Racing Hub” and drum brake hub as front options.
until 1953
Production Milestone
Bayliss-Wiley produces only a non-gear-clearance axle plus a range for roadster and carrier bikes, per restorer Steve Griffiths.
1953
Product Innovation
Responding to increasing use of gears by British riders, Bayliss-Wiley introduces two longer axles and a featherweight bottom bracket set, at 310 grams roughly 50 grams lighter than a conventional steel set, achieved mainly by making the axle hollow.
1953
Strategic Pivot
This same year marks, in hindsight, the beginning of the end for Bayliss-Wiley, as competition from Campagnolo componentry and the broader shift to derailleur gearing erode its position.
1953–1957
Manufacturing Shift
Production continues at Bayliss-Wiley through roughly 1957, with the unit hub sold apparently with little change through at least this year.
c. 1959
Acquisition
Bayliss-Wiley is purchased by Renold Chains Ltd., the company that had earlier designed the first effective bicycle chain, per National Archives of England records held at Manchester; Renold’s own official history omits the acquisition.
1969
Loss of an Icon
Bayliss-Wiley company activity ends, and cycle component manufacture ceases; Cecil Bayliss dies the same year, closing out a near-century of continuous, if convoluted, corporate life.
Join the Bayliss-Wiley Heritage Discussion!
From the world’s first cassette hub to a century of understated British engineering, Bayliss-Wiley parts still turn up on fine machines today. Share your finds and identification questions with the community.
https://www.ebykr.com/bayliss-wiley-once-persistent-presence/
http://www.velo-retro.com
http://www.classicrendezvous.com
https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/
https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_components/bottom-brackets-chater-lea-and-others/
http://www.bulgier.net/
http://www.jimlangley.net/ride/bicyclehistorywh.html
