Raleigh Bicycles history

In 1888 Bowden invested £2,000 in the business, buying out Ellis's share and becoming a half owner of the business.

The company was incorporated as a limited company in January 1889, when local businessmen were invited to invest.

Annual revenues more than doubled for the next three years; in the fiscal year ended August 1892, the firm had sales of £45,633 and a net profit of £7,072.

He bought out the shares of Woodhead and Angois by 1894.

A new factory opened in Lenton a few miles away from the original site in 1896.

Raleigh accumulated large debts and the existing Raleigh Cycle Company was reorganized around another business, the Gazelle Cycle Company, in 1899.

If taking a walk in somebody else’s shoes is your preference, visit the Pope House Museum, a home built in 1901 by Doctor Manassa Thomas Pope.

Another low-priced brand, Robin Hood Cycles, was acquired in 1906.

Frank Bowden acquired Raleigh outright in 1907.

Houses were built between the Civil War and 1914.

He died in 1921, and his son Sir Harold Bowden took over as managing director.

The firm grew to 2,500 employees by 1926, when Harold Bowden introduced a profit-sharing plan at the Raleigh Cycle Company, as it was then known.

1932: Humber Cycles is acquired.

1938: Budget "Gazelle" brand is relaunched.

Raleigh's bicycle sales slipped to about 130,000 in 1942.

Raleigh-Durham International Airport began regular civilian commercial flights, provided by Capital Airlines, in 1947.

The first suburb in Raleigh was developed in 1949 near Cameron Village, the Southeast’s first shopping center.

A second, £1.25 million factory was built in 1952, according to The Emergence of the British Bicycle Industry.

1957: BSA's bike business is acquired.

Three years later, in 1960, Raleigh merged with British Bicycle Corporation, a division of Tube Investments (TI). These transactions involving the company's closest rivals brought Raleigh complete dominance of the British bicycle industry, producing 80 percent of the cycles made in Britain.

The second-oldest women's college in North Carolina, behind Salem College in Winston-Salem, Peace College was acquired by the First Presbyterian Church of Raleigh in 1962 after its former owner, the Synod of North Carolina, was forced to close its doors.

As the Hartford Whalers, the team qualified for the playoffs—though with a losing regular-season record—in its first year in the NHL. The Whalers did not make the playoffs again until the 1985–86 season, and they finished last in their division in four of the five seasons between playoff berths.

Among the natural disasters Raleigh has endured, Hurricane Fran, a Category 3 storm, hit the city in 1996. (Altogether, it inflicted $3 billion in damage to the eastern seaboard and killed 26 persons).

Additionally, the financial difficulties of playing in a relatively small market began to take a toll on the Whalers’ bottom line and—after an attempt to build a new arena in Hartford failed—the team was relocated to Raleigh in 1997 and renamed the Carolina Hurricanes.

A group of New York investors including Thayer Capital and Perseus Partners bought the company in 1998 just as the mountain bike craze was winding down.

On September 28, 2001, a management group led by Alan Finden-Crofts acquired Derby Cycle Corporation in a deal worth about $73 million, including more than $50 million in assumed debt.