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Tessie Reynolds

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Tessie Reynolds
1800s photo of a woman on a man's bicycle
Born20 August 1876[1]
Newport, Isle of Wight, England[2][3]
Died13 July 1954(1954-07-13) (aged 77)
Barnet, Hertfordshire, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationTraffic safety officer
Known forLondon–Brighton cycle ride
Spouse(s)
Montague Salisbury Main
​
​
(m. 1908)​

Teresa "Tessie" Reynolds (20 August 1876 – 13 July 1954) was an English cyclist who in 1893 set a record for cycling from Brighton to London and back in 8 hours 30 minutes. She was aged sixteen at the time and dressed in "rational" clothing: pantaloons, a shirt and coat. The outfit, which was likely made for her by her sister, led to significant publicity and her ride came to be regarded as a milestone for women's rights. The record was broken in 1894 and Reynolds went on to be a London traffic safety officer.

Biography[]

"Every wheelman who has managed to retain a belief in the innate modesty and sense of becomingness in the opposite sex, will hear with real pain, not unmixed with disgust, of what we will call a lamentable incident that took place on the Brighton road early last Sunday"

— Cycling magazine's description of the feat[4]

Tessie Reynolds was born on the Isle of Wight and grew up in Brighton,[5] the eldest of 11 children.[6] Her father, Robert James Reynolds, was a gymnastic instructor and cycle agent,[3] who encouraged sports among his children.[6] He was a member of National Cycling Union and Secretary of a cycling club, as well as umpire for professional races.[6] Her mother, Charlotte, ran a boarding house in Kemptown, which specifically catered for cyclists[6] and which Reynolds helped at.[7] In September 1893, when Reynolds was sixteen years old,[8] she rode a man's bike from Brighton to London[note 1][9][6] and back in a day.[10][5] In fact, she took just 8 hours 30 minutes to cycle the 120 miles (190 km), thereby setting a record.[11][8] Her father acted as the time keeper for the ride.[6]

Women's clothes at the time included long dresses and tight corsets, impractical for cycling;[8] so Reynolds instead wore a "rational" outfit of pantaloons "cropped and cinched below the knee", with a shirt and long coat.[10][12][5] It is likely that the outfit was made specifically for Reynolds by her sister, Ada, who was a dress maker.[6] The outfit caused outrage,[6] with suggestions that it was inappropriately masculine and that she was cycling in her knickerbockers. The publicity traveled as far as America,[6] and the outfit was promoted by proponents of Victorian dress reform,[8] as Reynolds clearly intended.[6] She was active in promoting dress reform five years prior to the foundation of the local cycling dress reform club and continued to wear the outfit regularly.[6]

Cycling magazine wrote a scathing report on the "scantiness" of the outfit, complaining of loss of modesty and calling the feat a "lamentable incident".[5] Similarly, the Yorkshire Evening Post pointed out that cycling was not a pleasant sight for a man, but that a woman's "abnormal hips" made it worse.[4] The publicity, despite being negative, helped improve women's rights[8] with the suffragette movement in particular noting it was a big milestone.[10] Further, it helped show that women need not be tied to the street that they grew up in and had a means to travel.[9] Another effect of the publicity was that Reynolds received love letters, including a marriage proposal from a stranger who was apparently significantly older than her.[6] Reynolds and her family took advantage of the celebrity status, with Reynolds promoting a number of female bicycles over the following years, always in rational cycling attire.[6]

The record stood for a year before it was beaten by 42 minutes in September 1894 by E. White from Dover Road Club.[13] Reynold's ride led her to be noted as a key 19th-century cyclist.[14] She was denied the possibility of starting a Brighton branch of the national when she was 18, supposedly due to her age and "lack of experience", but more likely due to association with her rational outfit.[6]

In 1908, Reynolds married Montague Salisbury Main[15] and moved to Barnet, Hertfordshire (now North London), having three children who all died in childhood.[6] There she became a road safety officer, a role rarely performed by women in London during the 1930s and 1940s.[7] By 1948, her husband also died and she focused her work on accident prevention. Reynolds died in 1954, aged 77, with local papers covering her death.[6]

Notes[]

  1. ^ The half way point has been reported as both London Bridge and Hyde Park Corner

References[]

  1. ^ Mrs. Teresa Main, wife of Montague S. Main, in Barnet, Hertfordshire; 1939 England and Wales Register
  2. ^ 1911 England Census
  3. ^ a b 1901 England Census
  4. ^ a b "'Womanly Cycling' – Part Two". 15 February 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  5. ^ a b c d Wilson, Elizabeth; Taylor, Lou (1989). Through the looking glass: a history of dress from 1860 to the present day (Illustrated ed.). BBC Books. p. 57. ISBN 9780563214410. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Barlow, Morgan E. (2013). "Tessie Reynolds – A 'Rational' Activist". Proceedings of the International Cycling History Conference. 23: 213–217.
  7. ^ a b "Fashion and Dress History student wins Young Scholars' Prize". University of Brighton. 15 August 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  8. ^ a b c d e Zanetti, Olly (5 September 2010). Radical Bikes Revolutionary Change. Huck Magazine. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  9. ^ a b Hamilton, Ray (2013). The Joy of Cycling: For Those Who Love to Ride. Summersdale Publishers LTD. ISBN 9780857659927. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  10. ^ a b c Penn, Robert (2010). It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness On Two Wheels. Penguin UK. ISBN 9780141930893. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  11. ^ Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill (2011). Historical Dictionary of Cycling (Illustrated ed.). Scarecrow Press. p. xix. ISBN 9780810871755. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  12. ^ Patterson, Victoria (2013). The Peerless Four: A Novel. Counterpoint. p. 203. ISBN 9781619021778. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  13. ^ "A Lady makes a record". Freeman's Journal. 20 September 1894. p. 7. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  14. ^ Horton, Dave; Rosen, Paul; Cox, Peter, eds. (2012). Cycling and Society (Revised ed.). Ashgate Publishing Ltd. p. 49. ISBN 9781409487364. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  15. ^ London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932
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