Who wrote and composed the famous song “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)” in 1892?

Harry Dacre was the pen-name of Frank Dean (1857-1922), a British songwriter best known for his composition, “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)”. He was born on the Isle of Man and moved to Manchester, and then to Preston, Lancashire around 1882.

When he decided on a career in songwriting, he adopted the pseudonyms Harry Dacre and Henry Decker. In the first two years of his songwriter career, he claimed to have sold 600+ songs. Because the pressure of constantly writing songs affected his health, he emigrated to Australia, where he remained for 4 years before returning to England and then leaving for America in 1891. He took with him an early version of the song “Daisey Bell”, and a bicycle on which he had to pay import duty.

Supposedly, his friend William Jerome (1865-1932), an American songwriter, told him that if he had brought a tandem, he would have had to pay double, inspiring Dacre to rewrite the words of his song to refer to a “bicycle built for two”. While in New York, he persuaded singer Katie Lawrence (1868-1913), an English music-hall singer to perform the song when she appeared in London in 1892. The song became popular in London music halls, and then exploded into a worldwide hit.