The Wheelchair – An Introduction

The wheelchair is a mobility device that is moved either by the handles or by turning the wheels. Today there are many options and many different types of wheelchairs such as manual wheel chairs, powered chairs, and mobility scooters. Wheelchairs are used by people who find it difficult or cannot walk about by themselves. The idea being that the person can simply sit in the chair and be moved along on the wheels.

The History of the Wheel Chair

The first image that is documented of furniture on wheels was found on a Greek vase in 530 B.C. The picture was of a child's bed on a set of four wheels, giving the image of attaching wheels to furniture. They then found evidence of a chariot on spoked wheels in China in 1300 B.C, but in 525 A.D they found an engraving of a representation of a wheelchair, this is the earliest impression they have found of a wheel chair to date.

Wheel chairs were originally referred to as ‘invalids chairs' and in 1554 one of the first wheel chairs was made for Phillip II of Spain. Later on in 1655 a disabled watchmaker called Stephen Farfler built himself a three-wheeled chair to help himself get about on. In 1881 the ‘push rim' was invented which meant no more dirty hands for wheelchair users, they could use the push rim to move the wheels and not get covered in mud. From here wheelchairs have developed more and more over the years including easy use, more options, lightweight options, adjustable seats and so on.

From wheel chairs came the invention of powered chairs and mobility scooters, which takes the basic concept of the wheelchair but instead of it being self propelling the chair is moved forward by electricity and power. The first motorized wheelchair was invented in 1916, but due to the cost of them manual wheel chairs were still the more popular choice. The powered chairs were also very heavy and so were hard to move about. In 1933 Harry Jennings invented a lightweight steel powered wheelchair. He invented this because his friend was caught in a mining accident that broke his back and he had to use a heavy and non-folding wheelchair as that was all that was available. Jennings was a mechanical engineer and after hearing his friend complain so much about the wheel chair set to work on inventing a lightweight and folding wheelchair. After he had invented the chair the two friends saw the potential in the business and set up the mass-manufacturer international company Ernest and Jennings.