1097

MECREDY ( Richard J

Currency:EUR Category:Antiques / Books & Manuscripts Start Price:10.00 EUR Estimated At:300.00 - 500.00 EUR
MECREDY ( Richard J

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Auction Date:2012 Oct 20 @ 11:00 (UTC+1)
Location:38 Molesworth Street, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
MECREDY ( Richard J. P, ), ed. The "Irish Cyclist" Third Annual Tour 1888. Through the north [of Ireland] on a ten-in-hand. A moving cycle camp. Dublin : "Irish Cyclist and Athlete" Office, 49 Middle Abbey Street. (1888)FIRST EDITION, with 8 text line illustrations and 42 actual photographs taken during the tour mounted on 21 leaves and with 29-pages of text in double columns, small folio, original blind-stamped and gilt lettered brown cloth, gilt, all edges gilt : the leaves containing the photos slightly wrinkled, but otherwise, a bright, fresh and attractive copy with the contemporary signature of J. W. Murphy on the title-page Not found in WorldCat, COPAC or on-line in D, Dt or L. Not in McVeagh. An account intended for inclusion in the columns of The Irish Cylist and Athlete, whose editor, M. J. Mecredy here provides a preface. The riders on the "Singer's Ten-in-Hand" are identified in the text as Smith (photographer), Mecredy (organiser), Barry, Hayes, Harbison, Alec Mecredy - "The Energetic", W.Woods of Dundrum, Tuke, Nunns, J. White - "The Goat" - photographer and cook. On the journey of some 400 miles (Dublin/Belfast/Londonderry/ Enniskillen/Cavan,/Kilmessan/Dublin) they were accompanied by a party of some thiry or forty cyclists on a variety of machines - but the "Ten-dam" was the only machine to complete the journey. The party included some Scottish riders and it was planned that the following year's tour would be to Scotland. Mecredy (1861–1924), cyclist and journalist, native of Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, son of James Mecredy, a Church of Ireland clergyman then in the parish of Inveran, Spiddal, Co. Galway. Educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, he graduated from TCD (1884) and was an Irish champion tricycle racer while still at university. He taught briefly after taking his degree but entered the office of his solicitor uncle Thomas Tighe Mecredy in Merrion Square, Dublin, as an articled clerk in 1884. The following year he opposed the formation of the GAA, as he felt that Irish athletes should not be bound to its rules, and helped to form the Irish Amateur Athletics Association as an alternative. His interest in cycling and his growing reputation as a cycle racer led to his becoming Dublin correspondent of the Tralee publisher J. G. Hodgins's Irish Cyclist and Athlete in September 1885. Hodgins appointed him editor in November the same year. Mecredy bought the paper from Hodgins with his brother Alexander in 1886 and moved its office to Dublin. Having convinced the RDS to construct a cycle track at Ballsbridge (1885), he travelled to Alexandra Park, London, to win the twenty-five-mile English tricycle championship (1886) and the five-mile English championship (1887). An early advocate of the John Boyd Dunlop pneumatic tyre, he became a director of the Pneumatic Tyre Company on its formation by Harvey du Cros in 1889. He had his greatest success at the National Cyclists' Union meeting in London in 1890. On a Humber bicycle with Dunlop tyres, he won all four available English championships, at distances of one, five, twenty-five, and fifty miles. He ended the season undefeated, and had won seven Irish cycling titles by his retirement in 1892. He began to popularise cycling with books such as The art and pastime of cycling (1890), co-written with G. Gerald Stoney (qv) and A. J. Wilson, and his highly popular Road book of Ireland (1892). He resigned from the board of du Cros's company when it was taken over by E. T. Hooley in 1896, and founded Motor News after being introduced to motoring by S. F. Edge in Dublin in 1900, long before the motor car became popular in Ireland. Through R. J. Mecredy & Co., he published The Daimler car (1901) and De Dion Bouton cars and how to drive them (1901), a book so enthusiastic that the French manufacturer adopted it as an official handbook. He took part in the motor tour to Killaloe in 1900 and in the Irish Automobile Club Tour of 1901. A prime mover in the foundation of the Irish Automobile Club in 1901, he was its first secretary. He secured the 1903 Gordon Bennett race for Ireland. Joining his business rival Sir James Percy to trade as Mecredy, Percy & Co., he transformed the Irish Cyclist and Athlete into the Irish Cyclist and Motor Cyclist in 1913 to reflect his market's changing tastes. An enthusiast of motor touring, he persuaded a consortium of investors, including the Thomas Cook company and the Great Southern & Western Railway, to improve the road between Glengariff and Killarney to promote tourism (Irish DNB).TRAVEL; IRELAND; TRANSPORT; CYCLING; PHOTOGRAPHY; ; ; ; ; ; ;