Stephan Farffler


Stephan Farffler, sometimes spelled Stephan Farfler, was a German watchmaker of the seventeenth century whose invention of a manumotive carriage in 1655 is widely considered to have been the first self-propelled wheelchair. The three-wheeled device is also believed to have been a precursor to the modern-day tricycle and bicycle.
Farffler, who was either a paraplegic or an amputee, also created a device for turning an hourglass at regular intervals and added chimes to the clocktower of Altdorf bei Nürnberg.