Surviving bicycles and my memory of elderly riders from my youth suggest that there was a divergence in sizing between the two types of everyday cycles available in pre-WW2 days. Cycles, both ladies' and gentlemen's, with 28" wheels tended to have larger frames often up to 26". The more modern roadsters with 26" wheels always seemed to be smaller and so often 22" that you could almost call that a standard size. The 'potboy' at my local pub in the late fifties was in his late seventies at least and had an immensely tall bike which he punted off down the road with one foot on the extended nut on the rear axle. He could just reach the critical speed at which he could assume his seat and go home. If that seems a touch off-list for CR, let me tell you that we all considered the whole enterprise to be wonderfully sporting. (And the mild and bitter was one and ten a pint!) Stuart Tallack in West Sussex.
"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" (Joseph Heller)