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Wheelbarrow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A wheelbarrow is a small one-wheeled, hand-propelled vehicle, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles to the rear.
It is designed to distribute the weight of its load between the wheel and the operator so enabling the convenient carriage of heavier and bulkier loads than would be possible were the weight carried entirely by the operator. Their use is common in the construction industry and in gardening.
A two-wheel type is more stable, while the almost universal one-wheel type has better maneuverability in small spaces or on planks. The use of one wheel also permits greater control of the deposition of the load on emptying.
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The wheelbarrow seems to have been first invented in ancient Greece.[1] Two building material inventories for 408/407 and 407/406 B.C. from the temple of Eleusis show "1 body for a one-wheeler (hyperteria monokyklou)": Since dikyklos and tetrakyklos mean nothing but "two-wheeler" and "four-wheeler," and since the monokyklos body is sandwiched in the Eleusis inventory between a four-wheeler body and its four wheels, to interpret this as a one-wheeler seems to be the best explanation. However there is no other evidence for the use of wheelbarrows in ancient Greece.
Despite the development of wheeled carts from around 5,000 years ago, the invention of the wheelbarrow is usually traced to China, where there are a number of competing claims. Invented around the 3rd century AD, it is usually credited to Zhuge Liang, advisor to the Kingdom of Shu from 197 to 234, who had the wooden ox developed as a transport for military supplies. The design was with a large single central wheel around which a wooden box was constructed, but it was soon adapted to a design with two handles for pulling.
The wheelbarrow was found in Europe sometime between 1170 and 1250. Medieval wheelbarrows universally featured a wheel at or near the front (in contrast to their Chinese counterparts, which typically had a wheel in the center of the barrow).[2] Research on the early history of the wheelbarrow is made difficult by the marked absence of a common terminology. The English historian of science M.J.T. Lewis has identified in English and French sources four mentions of wheelbarrows between 1172 and 1222, three of them designated with a different term.[3] According to the medieval art historian Andrea Matthies, the first archival reference to a wheelbarrow in medieval Europe is dated 1222, specifing the purchase of several wheelbarrows for the English king's works at Dover.[4] The first depiction appears in an English manuscript, Matthew Paris's Vitae Offarum, completed in 1250.[5]
By the 13th century, the wheelbarrow proved useful in building construction, mining operations, and agriculture. However, going by surviving documents and illustrations the wheelbarrow remained a relative rarity until the 15th century.[6] It also seemed to be limited to England, France, and the Low Countries.[7]
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In the 1970s, British inventor James Dyson produced his ballbarrow, an injection moulded plastic barrow with a spherical wheel.
- ^ M. J. T. Lewis, p.470ff.
- ^ M. J. T. Lewis, pp.453-55
- ^ M. J. T. Lewis, p.463
- ^ Andrea L. Matthies, p.357
- ^ Andrea L. Ma The often held view that a wheelbarrow shows up in a stained-glass window at Chartres soon after 1200 is according to Lewis "a myth. There is none. The nearest approach is a handbarrow." (M.J.T. Lewis, p.463)
- ^ M. J. T. Lewis, p.456
- ^ Andrea L. Matthies, p.358
- Andrea L. Matthies, “The Medieval Wheelbarrow,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 32, No. 2, Part 1. (Apr., 1991), pp. 356-364
- M. J. T. Lewis, “The Origins of the Wheelbarrow,” Technology and Culture, Vol. 35, No. 3. (Jul., 1994), pp. 453-475
