Roller skates Roller skates Roller skates are shoes, or bindings that fit onto shoes, that are worn to enable the wearer to roll along on wheels. The first roller skate was effectively an ice skate with wheels replacing the blade. Later the "quad" style of roller skate became more popular consisting of four wheels arranged in the same configuration as a typical car. While the first reported use of roller skates was on a London stage in 1743, the first patented roller skate was introduced in 1760 by Belgian inventor John Joseph Merlin. His roller skate wasn't much more than an ice
James Cox (inventor) James Cox (inventor) Cox's career as a jeweler began as early as 1751, and his automatons were designed by artists like Joseph Nollekens and Johann Zoffany. In the 1760s John Joseph Merlin became his apprentice. Though he proclaimed himself a goldsmith, he employed a number of jewelers and manufacturers who may have done much of the work; that he was never a member of the goldsmith's guild further substantiates the claim that he subcontracted his work. Cox specialized in intricate clockwork curios encrusted with gold, silver, and jewels, referred to as "sing-songs." His primary market was the Far East, especially