For Disability History Month this month, we take a look at the history and evolution of the wheelchair. The Disabled Living Foundation was founded in 1969 by Lady Pix Hamilton, at the same time that Lord Morris of Manchester was putting forward his Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill which was steered to Royal Assent in 1970. In the fifty years since its launch, the DLF has worked to improve the lives of disabled adults and children, and their families and carers. Now known as Living Made Easy, our website database lists hundreds of wheelchairs and wheelchair equipment, and currently we have the largest database of assistive technology in Europe.
According to The World Health Organization (WHO) there are more than 65 million wheelchair users worldwide. The WHO consider wheelchairs to be a basic human right for people with limited mobility. But it hasn’t always been this way. In fact, historically, wheelchairs were a luxury of the world’s wealthiest individuals and only recently have they been more globally accessible.
The first wheelchair
There is evidence that some form of wheelchair-type furniture was used as early as the sixth century AD in Ancient Greece and China, from stone inscriptions found from this time. However, the earliest and best-documented example of a wheelchair came in 1595 when an artist produced a sketch of King Philip of Spain. In the sketch King Philip, who suffered from severe gout, is sat upon an elaborate chair, complete with arm and leg rests, lavish upholstery, and four small wheels that enabled him to be pushed around by a servant.
The first self-propelling chair emerged in 1665 in Nuremberg, Germany, and was invented by 22-year-old Stephen Farfler. Farfler was a clock-maker and was paraplegic after breaking his back as a child. Using his mechanical expertise, Farfler mounted a chair onto a 3-wheeled chassis and attached handles on both sides of the front wheel, in order to be able to self-propel. However, the chair is thought to resemble a hand bike more than a wheelchair, and some say that it is a forerunner to the tricycles and bicycles that we know today.
It was over 100 years later that the next major development of the wheelchair was seen. In the late 18th century, a type of wheelchair that was pulled along from the front, called a rickshaw, was widely used in Asia and many western countries. It was about this time that designs for wheelchairs were also being invented in Bath, England.
Bath was a very important and renowned Spa town, where people travelled from all over England and Europe, to bathe and drink the natural mineral water that flowed into the Roman baths. The water was thought to have healing properties, and it was often recommended that people who were sick or disabled should make use of the baths and the physicians who were based there. In 1783, to meet the demand of visitors with disabilities who had difficulty getting to the baths, John Dawson invented the Bath Chair. The Bath Chair was a wicker seat, fixed onto two wheels which were joined by an axel underneath the seat, with a smaller wheel at the front. The person sat in the chair could steer the wheelchair themselves, with a handle that was fixed to the front wheel, but the chair did still need to be pushed by someone else. Nevertheless, Bath Chairs outsold all other chair designs for 40 years, as they were nimbler and more comfortable than other models. Queen Victoria even had a Bath Chair made for her in 1893 during her later years.
An image of a Rickshaw.
Comfortability for the user became the driving factor in the later wheelchair models of the 19th Century. Many improvements were also made to promote independence and manoeuvrability. In 1869 a wheelchair was developed that had large wheels at the back and could be self-propelled. However, apart from cost, one of the main issues that stopped wheelchairs being widely accessible, was down to the difficulty in storing and transporting them.
In 1932 American engineer Harry Jennings invented the ‘X-frame’ folding wheelchair for his friend Herbet Everest, who had become paraplegic in an accident and needed a wheelchair which could be easily transported in a car. In 1933 the two friends founded the Everest & Jennings company which outsold all other wheelchair designs for decades.
Wheelchairs today
Today, wheelchairs are the most commonly used assistive devices for disabled people, whether that be the use of a self-propelling chair or a powered chair. It’s clear that the evolution of the wheelchair runs parallel with the evolution of technology. You only have to look back to see that from the 2010s modifications to wheelchairs have seen Bluetooth and other smart technologies included. Some modifications even allow manual wheelchairs to be driven through an app.
Wheelchairs are now designed by taking into account what they enable the user to do, and how they enable the user to be independent and participate in all aspects of life. The development of all-terrain wheelchairs allows users to participate in activities they otherwise would find very difficult to do.
I spoke with Josh who is the founder of Able Move, a company that manufacture and sell a range of products for wheelchair users, such as transfer slings and wheelchair covers. Josh is a wheelchair user himself and we spoke about how the first ever wheelchair he had in 1998 can’t even compare to the sophisticated wheelchairs of today. Josh has experienced firsthand the positive changes made to wheelchairs in recent years to enable disabled people’s lives to become more accessible. In 2024, in partnership with SMA UK, Josh and Able Move plan to hike mount Snowdon using all-terrain wheelchairs. They plan to raise enough money to purchase and donate at least one all-terrain wheelchair to someone who would not normally have the funds to purchase one. Josh mentioned with the evolution of all-terrain wheelchairs, it is evident now that the only thing really stopping disabled people from accessing the countryside, is man-made barriers such as stiles. However, there are accessible routes mapped out by Miles Without Stiles.
The wheelchairs of today are typically made from lighter materials such as titanium and aluminium, making them extremely portable and agile. Sports wheelchairs are another example of how technological advancements have been made to enable the user’s own personal ambitions. It is thought that not too far into the future, wheelchairs will be able to be controlled by neurological impulses from the brain.
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An image of a sports wheelchair, used for playing tennis.
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