In 1956 production of a commercial motorized wheelchair began in America.
The Ernest and Jenning's machine was extremely simple.
There were only two speeds, high and low, and the user had to stop the machine to switch between the two.
The wheelchair was controlled by a joystick, which had to be pressed against one of four on-off levers to give direction.
This lead to an extremely jerky movement.
To its users it was marvelous.
It was also given credit by many as being the first motorized wheelchair to be produced.
It wasn't.
Some years earlier Canadian inventors had decided to build a motorized wheelchair for invalided world war two veterans.
Although the brainchild of George Klein, this was widely heralded (well, by the Canadians at least) as being the world's first collaborative rehabilitative engineering project.
The project not only involved the efforts of different engineers but of the potential users, who described their problems, challenges and needs to the engineers.
The Canadians now claim that this collaborative project lead to the invention of the world's first motorized wheelchair.
It wasn't.
During the middle of the first world war, British engineers added motors to a wheelchair.
While there seems to be little information about this wheelchair, it is clear that it went into production.
Unfortunately.
it was too expensive and heavy for most users.
It still wasn't the first motorized wheelchair, though.
A motorized wheelchair could have been invented a couple of years earlier, when drawings were found by an inventor and entrepreneur who had received over 300 patents in his life time.
The inventor was George Westinghouse.
Unfortunately, he has just died.
It still wouldn't have been the first motorized wheelchair, though.
What was probably the first world chair was a converted tricycle.
A 1 ¾ horse power engine was added to the tricycle, which belonged to an invalid.
Al least, that is the earliest one we could find.
So, if you know of any earlier ones, please let us know!