Scottish engineer Robert William Thomson (c.1822-1873) dropped out of school at the age of 14, but soon managed to teach himself astronomy, chemistry and electrophysics. By the age of 17, he had his own workshop. And at the age of 23, he patented the “air wheel” – now known simply as a tire. The tires consisted of a hollow belt of Indian rubber that could be inflated with “an air cushion between the vehicle and the ground, railway or track on which it runs”. The idea was to provide people traveling over uneven terrain with a smoother ride. Unfortunately for Thomson, in 1845 there were no cars to use the tires, nor were there any bicycles. His invention only had practical application in a few steam carriages and also in traditional horse-drawn carriages. Thomson, however, managed to get some journalists to see him demonstrate the advantages of the air wheel in Regent’s Park, London. He had two carriages, one with the old wheels and the other with tires. Many observers thought that the tires would make the carriage difficult to move because they were soft. But Thomson proved them wrong and also showed that his tires produced much less noise than traditional solid wheels. One set of tires traveled 1,200 miles (1,931 km) without showing any signs of deterioration.

The sad thing is that Thomson's invention coincided with a period of shortage of the fine rubber needed to make tires. At the time, the frustrated young inventor – who never made a fortune from his idea – turned his attention to the more popular solid rubber tires. It took John Boyd Dunlop 50 years to rediscover the idea and create a worldwide tire brand.