Cycling 6 January, 1943

The first Victorian bike show and the BBC found wanting

This issue carried the fascinating story of the birth of cycle shows. Nowadays housed in vast exhibition halls, the first one, called the Stanley Show, was held at the Athenaeum on Camden Road, London – not to be confused with the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall.

It was organized by the Stanley Bicycle Club, which was founded on 1 May 1876, when 11 men got together with the objective “to encourage the pursuit of the then-novel pastime of bicycling”.

They took their name from the famous explorer HM Stanley, who himself had taken his name from a Mr. Stanley of New Orleans who had funded many of his trips.