Alfred Angas Scott
| Alfred Angas Scott | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1875 Manningham, Bradford, United Kingdom |
| Died | 1923 |
| Resting place | Undercliffe Cemetery, Bradford |
| Residence | England, U.K. |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Motorcycle designer and manufacturer |
Alfred Angas Scott (1875-1923) was a British motorcycle designer, inventor and founder of the Scott Motorcycle Company. A prolific inventor, he took out over 50 patents between 1897 and 1920, mostly concerning two-stroke engines and road vehicles. Scott was a keen potholer and the second president of the Gritstone club. In July 1923 Scott travelled back to Bradford in his open Scott Sociable wearing wet potholing clothes and contracted pneumonia from which he died.
Born in Manningham, a mill town just north of Bradford in 1875, Alfred Scott's family moved to Scotland and he went to school at Melrose on the Scottish border near Selkirk. They later moved to Uttoxeter in Staffordshire where Alfred studied engineering and design at Abbotsholme School. He was a gifted engineer and inventor and trained in engineering at shipbuilders Douglas & Grant in Kirkcaldy and worked at W. Sisson & Co Ltd in Gloucester, where he learnt to design and develop marine engines. Much of Scott's early experimental work was on the development of two-stroke marine engines which he would test by running them for long periods at full power on a water brake. He formed a syndicate of boating enthusiasts with his brothers Herbert and Norman Scott and two others to finance the development of marine engine for motor boats. This included the invention of a pawl and ratchet starter was used which later became part of a patent application for a kickstarter on almost all motorcycles to follow.
Alfred Scott's first motorcycle was developed from his own 2 horsepower (1.5 kW) twin-cylinder engine design which he hand built and fitted to the steering head of a bicycle. These engines were used to power equipment such as lathes and light machinery and Scott had been involved in the manufacture of 'Premier' pedal cycles. He developed this prototype into a motorcycle and six were produced under contract by friends with a car company called Jowett in Bradford. Scott patented an early form of caliper brakes in 1897 (Patent GB 1626 of 1897), designed a fully triangulated frame, rotary induction valves, and used unit construction for his motorcycle engine.
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