Andrew Ritchie (Brompton founder)

Andrew Ritchie
Born	1947
Occupation	Inventor, businessman

Andrew Ritchie MBE (born circa 1947) is the inventor of the Brompton folding bicycle, and has guided the Brompton Bicycle company to become the largest bicycle manufacturer in the UK.

In 1995 he received the Queen's Award for Export and in 2009 the Prince Philip Designers Prize. In the Queen's Birthday Honours of 21 April 2010, the company was awarded two Queen's Awards for Enterprise – in the Innovation and International Trade categories. [1] Brompton has now produced well over 100,000 bicycles and in 2008 achieved 25,000 units for export to markets such as the Netherlands, America, Germany, Japan and Scandinavia. A Cambridge engineering graduate, Ritchie was working as a landscape gardener in London when, in 1976, he conceived the idea for a folding bike, which he subsequently named after the 'Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary', otherwise known as the Brompton Oratory. His design won the 'Best Product' award against an international field at the Cyclex exhibition in April 1987. After devoting his life to the development and manufacture of the bike, he began to step back from the day-to-day running of the company in 2005, reduced his shareholding, and now acts as Technical Director.

After graduating in Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 1968, Ritchie worked as a computer programmer for Elliott Automation which subsequently became part of Marconi. He then spent 5 years as a self-employed landscape gardener. In the mid-1970s his father, a stockbroker, introduced him to Bill Ingram and the Bickerton bike, which in turn triggered his own ideas for a folding bicycle. Ritchie persuaded 10 friends to invest £100 each so that he could build a prototype which was completed one year later.

...
Wikipedia