HISTORY OF ROLLERSKATING

Everybody that visits this site has one thing in common – skating. Those of us who have been skating a while have fond, misty-eyed memories of our skating over the years. Some people will yak forever about the merits of their beloved Bauer Turbos, or maybe their Roces, or Trezeta. Most people in the UK community will bend the ear of anybody careless enough to allow them to extol the finer points of the Sims Streetsnakes wheels. But, folks, in the days of yore before any of these products were even thought of, somebody, somewhere had to start it all. So, courtesy of your friends at Rollergroove we bring you the (un)official concise history of roller-skating, or more to the point:

Everything you wanted to know about the history of roller-skating, but were afraid to ask!

Scene One, Act One: In the beginning…

The name of the original inventor of roller-skates is long since forgotten, however the first recorded use of his invention was in a London stage performance in 1743.
Yes, Rollergroovers- skating began right here in 18th Century England, over 260 years ago. So we really are OLD SKOOL!!!
 
As much as I’d like to bang the drum of the British Empire, when it comes to recorded history, those bloody Europeans take the credit again. The first skate inventor on record is Jean-Joseph Merlin. A Belgian (although he was based in London) and believe it or not, a violinist; who in 1760 demonstrated an inline roller-skate with metal wheels which he wore to a masquerade party. Attempting to make a grand entrance to the party, playing the violin and skating at the same time, he promptly lost control and crashed into a mirrored wall. His invention was never patented however. In 1818 the premier of the German ballet Der Maler oder die Wintervergn Ugungen (The Artist or Winter Pleasures) featured
roller-skating. The first roller-skate to receive a patent was an inline design by M. Petibledin, patented in France, in 1819. The skate consisted of a wooden sole, fitted with up to four rollers made of copper, wood or ivory arranged in a straight line. This wooden sole was then attached to a boot. Yes, once again, a British invention is adopted by foreigners and improved upon until we lose all credit. Some things never change. Don’t get me started… Anyway, digressing tangents aside, it’s time to move on to our cousins in the colonies. Tea party anyone…?

New York, New York, so good they skated it twice…

The first quad-skate on record, as opposed to the earlier in-line designs, was designed by James Leonard Plimpton in New York City in 1863. The skate used a pivoting rubber cushion, and allowed the skater to skate a curve just by leaning to one side. It was such a success that the first public skating rink was opened in 1866, barely three years later, in Newport, Rhode Island with the support of Plimpton. From here on, the quad-skate became the de facto design for more than a century.

Part III – Rolling, rolling, rolling…

In 1876 in Birmingham, England, William Bown patented a design for the wheels of roller skates. I say again, ROLLER SKATES. I’m stating this twice, as it’s one of the most important inventions in transport history. Why? Well, stop interrupting me with questions, read on and you’ll find out! The design was to keep the two bearing surfaces of an axle, fixed and moving, apart. He suggested doing this by means of a felt ring placed inside a circular box around the axle whose lubricating oil would slowly run under the two bearing surfaces at each side. A hole or lid would be provided so that the felt could be regularly
re-moistened. In September 1877 the (then) 27 year old Birmingham toolmaker, Joseph Henry Hughes drew up a patent, improving on Bown’s ideas, for a ball bearing race for bicycle and carriage wheels which includes all the elements of an adjustable system.
Bown persuaded Hughes to sell the patent rights to him and to come work for him. They worked together on bearing patents for the next decade. The work of these two men cannot be underestimated. Not only did they further the cause of roller-skaters, their work led not only to modern day roller-skates and skateboard wheels, but also to the use of the bearing race in velocipedes (the precursor of bicycles), motorcycles and automobiles. See? No skates, no bikes and no cars!
So, skaters make history. Are we cool or what? Anyway, on with the story…

Roller-skating was becoming ever more popular and so people would have differing ideas on skate design. The toe-stop was first patented in 1876 and is still used today on most quad skates. By the 1880’s roller-skating was into its first boom and America was mass-producing roller-skates. Micajah C. Henley of Richmond, Indiana produced thousands of skates every week during peak sales. Henley skates were the first skate with adjustable tension via a screw, the ancestor of the kingbolt/kingpin mechanism on modern quad skates. In 1884 Levant M. Richardson received a patent for the use of steel ball bearings in skate wheels so as to reduce friction. In 1898, Richardson started the Richardson Ball Bearing and Skate Company, which provided skates to Professional skate racers of the time including Harley Davidson (no relation!). Wind up your flux capacitor while we take a quick trip to the late 20th century..

In 1979 ice-hockey-playing brothers Scott and Brennan Olson came across a pair of 1960’s Chicago Roller Skate Company inline skates in a shop and realized the potential for off-ice hockey training. They redesigned the skates using urethane wheels and ice-hockey boots. A few years later and they launched their own company, Rollerblade Inc. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, popularity of their skates became so great that other companies started to manufacture similar products and inline skates rapidly overtook sales of quad skates at the time. ‘Rollerblading’ became synonymous with inline skating, although it is a misuse of their company trademark. At this point you could say roller-skating had turned full-circle as the popularity of skating had returned to its in-line origins.

The story does not end there.

In the UK (the home of Rollergroove) roller-skating enjoyed a boom from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. It was a glorious decade of roller-utopia which is what inspired this very website. Roller-skating in the UK took a somewhat ignominious nose-dive at the end of the 20th century. BUT WE’RE BACK!!! Spearheaded mostly by a contingent of London-based roller-skaters, roller-skating is currently on an upward rise in popularity. Riding the wave of awareness brought about by, among other things, Roller Disco @ Canvas, Quad skaters of Hyde Park and the massive in-line skate community of London (read: Serpentine massive!). Further a field, the likes of the MK, WGC and Derby crews and others are each contributing to the roller-revival. Roller-skating is once again becoming fashionable! The bright young things of this glorious land have shaken off the monotonous drudgery of bouncing up and down on the spot on a Saturday night. I believe the phrase is ‘clubbing’ and have adopted an activity of social interaction that breeds a sense of community and belonging. Where people are free, birds sing and diseases are cured... ok well maybe it’s not quite like that, but you get my point. As a skater you are a part of a legacy and you too may very well be a part of history in the making. Who said history is bunk?*

The Rollergroove Team

*Actually, it was Henry Ford (May 25, 1916)