Wheelchair

This wheelchair has its wheels fitted with extra rings so that it can be driven by the passenger. It is constructed around a leather upholstered chair, with two large metal spoked wheels with smaller hand rims, a small directional wheel at rear and an adjustable foot board at the front. The maker is unknown, but it is likely to date from the late 19th century, when it would have been described as an 'invalid's self-propelled chair'.

By the late 1800s, wheelchairs and bath chairs were rapidly replacing sedan chairs as a mode of transport for people who found it difficult to move without assistance. They had the advantage that they needed only one person to move them, and were more compact and efficient. Unlike a typical bath chair, this chair offered a degree of independence to disabled people as they did not have to rely on being pushed from behind.

The use of leather rather than the cane or wood more typically used in self-propelled wheelchairs from the time suggests that it was designed for primarily indoor use.