wow look at that wheelchair, must have been the latest for the day, hand propelled.
I don't think it was what we would think of as a wheelchair - I think I've seen photos of that sort of conveyance before and it was an alternative to a bicycle.
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I do remember an old chap in Marshside who had a wheelchair like that - I was always scared of him because he had no legs and my brother told me that that was what happened to people who were really naughty
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If he had no legs then a hand-cranked 4 wheel velocipede would be the ideal vehicle for giving him some independence.
I have been trying to find a similar example online, but can't find the exact one, even though I know I have seen a photo of this machine before. Velocipedes came in all shapes and sizes and could have 1, 2, 3 or 4 wheels. The motorised ones eventually became the motor car.
Given that the photo was taken in 1935 I feel certain that the device is a wheel chair. Norman Mosscrop Cycles of Bispham Rd. had a disabled customer who would come from Formby in a similar chair also hand driven although I think his had just one set of cranks mounted centrally. He had forearms like Popeye. BTW anybody remember Mosscrop's old mechanic Jim Cadwell? He was a pigeon fancier and lived in Old Park Lane. He had worked at a bike shop in town (Seel & Ball?) for decades.
My experience of wheelchairs (many pre WW2) is that none of them had 4 wheels like that. The indoor ones had 2 big wheels at the side with a little one at the back and the outdoor ones had the little wheel at the front, ie Bath chairs which had one single operating lever at the front for steering. Most velocipedes were operated by foot pedals, but there were others which had hand pedals and various lever arrangements, as well as steam powered ones. I see no reason why a velocipede shouldn't have been in use in the 1930's - after all, there is a man still to be seen pedalling around Southport every summer on a penny farthing bicycle.
By the way - those early indoor wooden ones weighed a ton when occupied by a heavy adult and I had to regularly push one up a ramp at the Promenade Hospital to get to the X-Ray department. I was only 16 and very slightly built in those days and sometimes I could feel my feet slipping backwards as I struggled to push the thing up the ramp. If I'd fallen I'd have been crushed. They were difficult to steer as well.
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