From the Victorian era, right up until the 1960s, mothers struggled with huge and heavy baby carriages. These days, however, a stroller is the item at the top of every new parent's baby list. Not only do parents appreciate the practicalities of having a stroller that they can fold up and carry under one arm, they also want to distance themselves from the unstylish and cumbersome older styles of baby buggy.
Unexpectedly; the inventor of the collapsible stroller was Owen Maclaren (1907-1978), a retired test pilot who had previously designed landing gear and protective seals for Spitfire aircraft. His departure into strollers may seem odd, but building a practical stroller required knowledge of strong, lightweight structures, and Maclaren's aeronautics experience had given him exactly that.
At around 6 ½ pounds (3 kg), Maclaren's first model cost about $10 (£7) and weighed less than the child it was intended to seat—his granddaughter. It had an aluminum frame and could be collapsed with one hand, an important design feature for a parent trying to keep control of a toddler while doing so. After patenting his design in 1965, Maclaren began manufacturing the strollers from his home in Northamptonshire, England. By 1976 he was selling more than a half a million of the strollers a year, with a large proportion of these going overseas.
Maclaren was awarded the rank of Member of the British Empire (MBE) for his achievements in both aeronautical engineering and transportation design, which, of course, included the beloved stroller.
