William Fitzwater Wray

William Fitzwater Wray (b. Hitchin, England, circa 1870, d. London, England, 16 December 1938) was one of the most widely read cycling journalists at the end of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th. He wrote in national newspapers in Britain and in cycling journals under the byline Kuklos. Through his writing ran the conviction that "on every real bicycle there is the unseen pennant of progress, the standard of democracy, (and) the banner of freedom." He also gave magic lantern shows, predecessor of slide shows, which were in demand in the 1920s and 1930s and to which cyclists rode "prodigious distances."

William Fitzwater Wray was the third son of the Rev Samuel Wray, a Methodist minister in Sacton, west of Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. His mother was Ann Fitzwater, of Laleham, Middlesex. He was educated at church boarding schools: the Kingswood School in Bath and Woodhouse Grove on the edge of Bradford. He did not share his father’s religious belief, however, writing in 1896: "While still at boarding-school I revolted from the orthodox Christianity (sub-section Dissent) into which I was born and brought up... So I have never been since (to Church), except to temples not made with hands".

He hired his first bicycle, a safety bicycle with solid tyres, when he was 17 in 1887 His first ride was from Bradford to Otley and back. At his father’s insistence he then set out to tour England, an experience his father thought useful before his son started work. Wray bought a solid-tyred penny-farthing - the large-wheeled bicycle that the safety had replaced – and set out on that with no luggage and little money, sleeping rough when he had to or staying with friends and relatives. He rode between 700 and 800 miles. The experience guided the rest of his life.

His father died while William was having what would now be called a gap year and he started work as a lithographic artist, then a photo etcher and pen draughtsmen in Bradford and began writing the first of his cycling columns for the Bradford Observer. He joined the Yorkshire Road Club.

In 1907 he married Emily Gertrude Fisher, known as Klossie, and together they toured all Britain and continental Europe.

He left Bradford in his 20s to work for the Daily News, a national newspaper in London that was absorbed by the News Chronicle. He wrote there for 25 years before joining the Daily Herald, where he wrote weekly until a few days before his death. He often mentioned Bradford and the Yorkshire Dales. From 1894, he began using the byline Kuklos (Greek word for a wheel, or circle but also used for a circle of poems) and by the following year earned enough to live as a writer. While in London, he joined the North Road Cycling Club, one of the country’s oldest.

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