Tandem
Painting by G. D. Armour.

It is said, but I must confess failure to trace authority for the statement, that tandem driving was invented as a convenient and sporting method of taking the hunter to the meet. History has not handed down to fame the name of the man who first hit upon the idea of driving tandem; it was in vogue over a century ago, and at Cambridge ranked as a grave offence: witness the following edict dated 10th March 1807:—

‘We, the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Colleges, do hereby order and decree that if any person or persons in statu pupillari shall be found driving any tandem and shall be duly convicted thereof before the Vice-Chancellor, such person or persons so offending shall for the first offence be suspended from taking his degree for one whole year, or be rusticated, according to the circumstances of the case; and for the second offence be liable to such further punishment as it may appear to deserve, or be expelled the university.’

Extravagantly high gigs were much in favour among the ‘bloods’ of the day, and these were often used for tandem driving, a purpose for which they were by no means unsuitable, always provided the road was fairly level.

As a matter of course, when tandems became numerous and drivers clever in handling them, races against time came into fashion. Matches on the road, whether trotting in saddle or driving, were usually ‘against time’ for obvious reasons. On April 14th 1819 the famous whip, Mr. Buxton, backed himself to drive tandem without letting his horses break their trot, from Hounslow to Hare Hatch, distance twenty-four miles, in two hours. His horses, however, were not well matched, and ‘broke’ before they had gone six miles. As breaking involved the penalty of turning the equipage round and starting afresh, and breaks were frequent, Mr. Buxton occupied over an hour in going ten miles and gave up, forfeiting the hundred guineas he had staked on the task.

On 19th May 1824 a match was thus recorded in the Sporting Magazine:—

‘Captain Swann undertook a tandem match from Ilford, seven miles over a part of Epping Forest. He engaged to drive 12 miles at a trot and to back his wheels if he broke into a gallop. This happened only once in the seventh mile, which he nevertheless completed in 33 minutes. On his return the pacing of the horses was a picture. The match was won fairly with two minutes and six seconds to spare.’

A Mr. Houlston in the same year drove his tandem twelve miles on the Winchester Road in one minute thirty-nine seconds under the hour allowed. By this time tandem drivers had come to the reasonable conclusion that the turning penalty (proper enough in trotting matches, whether in shafts or saddle) was excessive for their sport, and ‘backing’ had been substituted therefor. Any one who has had occasion to turn a tandem on the road without assistance will admit that the abolition was wise.

Long journeys against time were sometimes undertaken. In 1824

‘Captain Bethel Ramsden undertook to drive tandem from Theale to London, 43 miles, in 3 hours and 40 minutes. The start took place at four o'clock in the morning, and in the first hour the captain did 12½ miles to between Twyford and Hare Hatch. He did in the next hour 12 miles and upwards, and got the horses' mouths cleaned at Slough. He had 5½ miles to do in the last forty minutes, and performed it easily with eleven minutes to spare.’

The cult of the trotting horse stood high in those days when so much travelling was done in the saddle: there are innumerable records of trotters doing their fifteen and sixteen miles on the road within the hour, sometimes under very heavy weights. Mr. Charles Herbert's horse, in 1791, trotted 17 miles in 58 minutes 40 seconds on the Highgate Road, starting from St. Giles' Church. The road is by no means a level one, and the only advantage the horse had was the hour selected—between six and seven in the morning, when the traffic was not heavy.

A famous whip of the 'thirties was Mr. Burke of Hereford—he was also an amateur pugilist of renown, but that does not concern us here. In June 1839 he made his thirty-fifth trotting match, whereby he undertook to drive tandem forty-five miles in three hours. The course was from the Staines end of Sinebury Common to the fifth milestone towards Hampton: he did it with four and a half minutes to spare. The horses used in this match were both extraordinary trotters: the wheeler, Tommy, had covered 20 miles in 1 hour 18 minutes two months earlier, and the leader, Gustavus, twenty-four years old, had done his 20 miles in 1 hour 14 minutes.

Though not a tandem performance in the strict sense of the term, Mr. Thanes' feat on 12th July 1819 is worth mention. He undertook 'to drive three horses in a gig, tandem fashion, eleven miles within the hour on the trot, and to turn if either horse broke.' Fortunately none of the three did break, and he did the eleven miles, on the road near Maidenhead, with three minutes to spare.

Tandem driving seems to have gone out of fashion to a certain extent about 1840, though some young men ‘still delighted in it.’ The re-establishment of the Tandem Club, soon after the close of the Crimean War, marked a revival which made itself felt at Cambridge; for on 22nd February 1866 the Senate passed another edict, this time forbidding livery-stable keepers to let out on hire tandems or four-in-hands to undergraduates. This was confirmed in 1870.