Cats Eyes Road Inventor. Wednesday, 1 march 2017 glenda shaw shared the story of percy shaw, inventor of the reflecting road studs we call ‘cats’ eyes’, with hebden bridge local history society, and showed how he became a ‘yorkshire icon’. This is a story about a dark yorkshire road and a bright yorkshireman:
Enabling vehicles to travel in the dark, the fog and during the blackout of world war ii, whilst helping to save numerous lives on the uk's roads, the invention of the cat's eye is credited to percy shaw. Percy shaw was born at lee mount, halifax on 15th april 1890. Cat's eyes were invented by halifax man percy shaw 70 years ago, after he was inspired by the sight of his car headlamps reflected in the eyes of a cat.
In 2006 the halifax courier ran a competition to find calderdale s most famous son or daughter and he was the clear winner.
In 1934, he patented his invention (patents nos. Making his way home on foggy nights from his favourite queensbury pub percy had relied on the glint of headlight on tram tracks to guide the way. Get premium, high resolution news photos at getty images In the same year his road stud was in the top ten of the bbc culture show s top british design awards.