Science Saturday Owen Finlay Maclaren- Baby Buggy Builder.

For the next eccentric Essex man in Science Saturday Charlie Keeble has a wonderful story to tell about Spitfires and baby buggies. There is an engineering connection between a famous war fighter plane and the fold up collapsible pram.

Owen Finlay Maclaren was born in Saffron Walden in May1906. He attended Marlborough College and then completed his schooling in Falkirk, Scotland. His family had Scottish roots as descendants of the Highland based Clan Maclaren from Argyll. They can be traced back to the era of the Scottish Wars of Independence and they fought for Robert the Bruce in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. 

Maclaren trained to become a pilot while studying to become an engineer at Cambridge University and qualified in 1928. He then went onto work for the aeronautical industry as an aircraft designer. He did this at a company called the Maclaren Undercarriage Company Ltd. I haven’t been able to find much information on this company itself but I do believe it was set up by Owen Finlay Maclaren himself. 

In 1937 Maclaren developed new aircraft undercarriages that could cope with crosswinds upon landing. These undercarriages can be set to a steering angle away from straight ahead, so that an aircraft could be landed safely as it touched down on the runway. This feature allowed planes to land in rough weather conditions at airports reducing crashesand saving lives travelling on aircraft so they made it safely to their destination. 

One of Maclaren’s biggest achievements is designing the undercarriage for the Spitfire, Britain’s most famous warplane. The undercarriage that he designed for the plane was revolutionary in that it could help the aircraft manoeuvre on the ground. It allowed the Spitfire to be steered so that it could be transported around the airfields for repairs and storage. Maclaren also designed the undercarriage of the Spitfire in such a way that it could retract into the fuselage and fold itself neatly. Allowing the plane to climb into the air quickly and efficiently. 

Later in 1944 he retired from aeroplane design and formed the Andrews Maclaren aircraft company that manufactured aircraft components. After the war he developed anti-skid brakes for Dunlop’s aircraft division that were also used in cars as anti-lock braking systems. These reduced stopping distances in the braking process and eliminated tyre bursts due to skids on the runways and roads. 

Owen Finlay Maclaren had developed a reputation for making aircraft land without crashing and improved flying safety. But his greatest invention would become a product that every mother wanted and what every baby needs. His daughter Janetcame to visit him at home in the UK sometime in 1962-4. She had married a Pam Am pilot called George and they had a child called Anne. When Janet visited her father Owen she told stories about how she struggled with the conventional pushchair that she and many other mothers pushed around with their children in them. Especially as they took up precious space on public transport and including the planes that George flew across the world. 

After watching Janet and George struggle with ferrying Anne around in the pushchair he had an eureka moment. The technology he used to develop undercarriages for the Spitfire had the ability to retract and fold into the fuselage. He reckoned if the pram had such a structure like that then the baby buggy could be folded, and then stored into a car or aeroplane to take the child from place to place. 

Using his knowledge of lightweight collapsible structures he set about building a new type of baby buggy that could transport infants with ease. In aircraft design aluminium rods had been widely used to build the undercarriages and other components. Now Maclaren knew these were light enough to be used in an infant transport. He based the framework’s structure on triangles for their strength, resilience and flexibility, a trick used widely in airplane production.However he used a combination of square and round aluminium rods in the design of the baby buggy. He alsochoose the double wheels which was a feature of landing gear for their manoeuvrability in the design of the collapsible baby buggy.

Maclaren developed a prototype in 1964, and then applied for a patent for his invention in July 1965. He then began setting up a company to sell his invention that became known as the Maclaren Company. His first buggy the Maclaren B-01 went on sale in 1967, with a thousand units manufactured that year. The buggy became a hugely recognised design icon and ten years later over 600 thousand buggies were made. It’s commercial success became the blueprint for baby buggies everywhere and other companies made their own licensed designs. 

There is also another invention in folding collapsible gadgets that Owen Finlay Maclaren made that are worth mentioning. In 1961 he invented the gadabout folding chair that is commonly used by campers and festival goers. He also designed in 1970 a version of the baby buggy for disabled children called the ‘Buggy Major’, which had a frame that used square tubes instead of the usual round tubes used on other buggies. Today the modern version of the baby buggy using the collapsible frame that Maclaren invented is sold in over 50 countries under the Maclaren name and the company is based in Long Bucky, West Northamptonshire. 

Owen Finlay Maclaren passed away in April 1978, just three months before he was awarded the MBE by Queen Elizabeth 2nd. Today his story is largely unheard of and I think he is the unsung hero of infant growth and childcare. Because of him mothers are able to take their babies onto recreational walks with cheaper and more mobile transport devices that have liberated them from housebound settings. Every parent and baby should remember him for liberating them from the nursery to the streets and out into the public parks.