It is the little things we take for granted in motor cars now. Picking just one example, heaters, we have Margaret Wilcox to thank for that…..
Early doors, driving the new-fangled motor car, was very much open-air and at times very cold experience. But even when fully enclosed body work & glass arrived making the practice of driving a car more enjoyable, a heater was not an option.
This was odd. Because many years previously, on the 28th November 1893 Margaret Wilcox patented a solution; the world’s first in-car heating system. We’ll never actually know for sure, but perhaps because the inventor was a woman, the invention was largely overlooked. Until that is nearly four chilly decades later when, in 1929, the far-sighted Henry Ford offered the Model A as the first ever car to offer in-car heating.
Next time you climb behind the wheel and twiddle your modern ‘climate control’, give a small nod to Margaret.
