In the late 1880s, one Frank Bowden, recently returned to England with his newly won fortune from the far east, recovered his health via cycling. It became a passion for him and he bought a small bicycle company located on Raleigh Street in Nottingham, UK. He took several recreational cycle tours in France, but for as much as he enjoyed it, decided the machine would need to be fitted with variable gearing "to help cope with gradients if cycling were to become a popular pastime and not simply the plaything of health and physical fitness addicts".

After years of trials with numerous inventions, in 1902 Mr. Bowden tested a three speed hub gear designed by a second generation Irish immigrant, William Reilly. The hub was everything Bowden had been looking for during the previous a decade and a half. This became the famous 'X' hub, in production from 1903 thru 1956.

Bowden got patent attorney James Archer to cheat the Irishman out of the intellectual property rights. He recruted well-known cycle journalist Henry Sturmey for name recognition and the power of endorsement and formed a company to manufacture the hubs for his own brand of bicycles and for sale to other OEMs and enthusiast after-market retrofits.