I picked up this wheel this morning, it has a WD 1944 3.25 x 19 tyre, under the dust it is painted green, is it bike related or maybe a trailer wheel of some sort ?
I expect a lot of sidecar hubs and airborne handcart hubs were made by the same company but there may be a way of telling what this wheel was used for.
I had a pair of airborne hand cart wheels a couple of years ago and they had bicycle style cup and cone bearings with loose balls.
But I suspect that most sidecar wheels had gone over to taper roller bearings in the late 30s.
So Gary are there any inner bearing parts left in your hub?
As late as the mid 1970's similar 19" wheels and hubs with ball and cone bearings were being built and supplied to hospitals. Presumably for patient transfer trolleys/stretchers.
Presumably the big wheels eased the trolley and patient's passage at hospitals which still had unconnected or not smoothly connected multiple buildings.
As apprentices, we learned to make spokes, build, true wheels and fit tyres by making up hundreds of these. The hubs had a screw on cap with spanner hex, and came completely assembled with stub axle, no idea how the plain parallel shaft was mounted to trolley, possibly clamped or welded.
Thankyou for all your replies, close up of the hub below, I've got a feeling I have another one of these wheels somewhere in the shed, I'll look it out.