.
Although he never stopped believing in the potential of his invention, he quickly lost faith in his own abilities as an engineer and salesman. Having lost a great deal of his fortune trying to sell wheels to other locations, he moved into a string of cheap hotels, where his depression spiralled. He died alone and bankrupt on Nov 21, 1896 in Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital, aged 37. His ashes were held at a Pittsburgh crematorium, but nobody ever came to collect them. His wife had left him a few months before his death, and they had no children. 

In the last months of his life, the Ferris Wheel began to enjoy a renaissance, at least in Europe, thanks to an Englishmen Cecil Booth and Walter Bassett. Between them, they provided a replica Ferris Wheel for Earl’s Court, which stood from 1895 to 1906 (joined in 1904 by Sir Hiram Maxim’s original Flying Machines ride).

Here the ride, renamed “The Big Wheel” was immensely popular; so much so in fact, that it even provided the inspiration for a music-hall song, called “I’ve Got The Five Pound Note”, this being the compensation given to anyone stuck on the wheel during a breakdown. This gave the wheel an unwarranted reputation for unreliability, which worked to the owners’ advantage, as many willingly boarded the ride in the hope of being stranded and receiving this grand sum.

1896 was to prove a busy year for Booth and Bassett. They were first called upon to build a wheel for the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, never a town to miss out on a new way of entertaining its visitors. “The Great Wheel”, as it was known, was not very profitable, partly because the sea air made maintenance more costly than previous wheels, but also because it was dwarfed by the nearby Blackpool Tower, which made the wheel appear less grandiose to visitors.

When construction finished in Blackpool, Booth and Bassett moved on to Vienna’s Prater, to build the “Reisenrad” wheel to act as a focal point of the celebrations of Emperor Franz Josef I’s golden jubilee. The Reisenrad opened in 1897, and remains in operation to this day, having never lost its status as one of the defining icons of the Austrian capital.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the same year saw Illinois-born engineer William Sullivan opened the first fully-portable wheel in Jacksonville, Florida. Sullivan’s firm, the Eli Bridge Company, still makes Ferris Wheels for theme parks and showmen to this day.

If there was a certain irony in Blackpool hosting a replica Ferris Wheel in the shadow of a replica Eiffel Tower, then there was more to come as the French decided to commission a replica Ferris Wheel for the Paris Exposition of 1900. They were given a copy of Ferris’s plans, and rebuilt it to the tiniest detail, where it proved to be a roaring success all over again.

While these replicas were drawing the crowds, the original Ferris Wheel suffered a more ignominious fate. Seized by the Chicago Sheriff’s Office soon after Ferris’s bankruptcy, it was dismantled and transported to New Orleans, where it would feature at 1904’s Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Compared to Chicago, however, ticket sales were low, and the Wheel was destroyed in 1906.

Since Ferris’s death, his invention has managed to maintain its appeal, and few major theme parks today are without a wheel of some description. The great exception to this, of course, has been the UK parks, most of which are blighted with restrictions on how high their rides are allowed to be. Most are unable to build above tree height, which often renders the idea pointless, as it would mean that the views from the top of the wheel would be severely restricted.

Although many showmen continued to travel Eli type wheels, it seemed that the UK was destined to remain the one country not to fall in love with the larger Ferris Wheel, but then something quite bizarre happened that would turn Britain into debatably the Ferris Wheel capital of the world – the British Airways London Eye.

In 1993 husband and wife architect team David Marks and Julia Barfield decided to enter a competition to design a new landmark for London, and came up with the idea to build the world’s biggest Ferris Wheel on the south bank of the Thames. They didn’t win the competition; in fact nobody did, as the judges deemed that none of the ideas were good enough to carry out. Nevertheless, the couple believed in the idea, and began campaigning to make it a reality.

In retrospect, it is difficult to imagine a more outlandish scheme than to build a gleaming white 443ft modernistic wheel amongst such historic buildings as the Houses of Parliament and St Paul’s Cathedral, or how they ever even hoped to win support for the idea.

Somehow, though, win it they did, albeit with a proviso from Lambeth council that they reserve the right to order its removal after five years if it failed to win the public’s affection. That deadline passed at the end of 2004, by which time it had become so popular as to become one of the most recognisable landmarks not only of London, but of Britain. Continues...