featuring independent rear suspension, mid-engine and back-to-back seating for two adults. Four years later the Wolseley Gasoline Carriage is built featuring a steering wheel instead of a tiller. Austin manages the new Wolseley company for a short time before resigning to form his own concern, the Austin Motor Company, in 1905. Wolseley later becomes a successful car and engine maker selling upmarket cars, and even opens a lavish showroom, Wolseley House, in Piccadilly London (next to the Ritz Hotel, now housing a restaurant called The Wolseley). The company is later merged in other motor car companies. 1896: The first radiograph used to assist in surgery is taken in Birmingham by the British pioneer of medical X-rays, Major John Hall-Edwards thus kick-starting a whole new field of medical science. 1896: A new building is built in Corporation Street to house James Henry Cook's vegetarian restaurant, one of the first in England. In 1898, 'The Pitman Vegetarian Hotel', named after the famous vegetarian Sir Isaac Pitman, opens on the same site, and the proprietors subsequently open a long-running health food store. 1896: The first 'public' trial in Birmingham of a "horseless carriage" or motor car takes place at Cannon Hill Park. 1897: John Benjamin Stone founds the National Photographic Record Association, of which he becomes president. The National Portrait Gallery holds 62 of his portraits and many photographs of people and places in and around Westminster. His career culminates in 1911 with his appointment as official photographer to the coronation of King George V. Stone travels widely in pursuit of his hobby, taking 26,000 photographs, and writing books as he travels. He publishes works and invaluable records of the folk customs and traditions of the British Isles, which later influence photographers of note, such as Tony Ray-Jones. 1897: The Reynolds Tube Company patents the process for making butted bicycle tubes, which are thicker at the ends than in the middle, this allows frame builders to create frames that are both strong and lightweight. Reynolds continues to develop lightweight bicycle frames into the 20th century picking up many awards for wins in races such as the Tour de France, the company still makes lightweight frames in the city today. 20th century Bicycles have been manufactured in the Midlands (mainly Birmingham and Coventry) since the mid 19th century. By 1900 Birmingham has the largest number of bicycle makers and component manufacturers in Britain. Several