THE WAR OF THE WHEELS:
WITH SOME CURIOSITIES, REGAL AND OTHERWISE

“IN my journey to London,” wrote an indignant correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine, early in 1747, “I travell’d from Harborough to Northampton, and well was it that I was in a light Berlin, and six good horses, or I might have overlaid in that turnpike road. But for fear of life and limb, I walk’d several miles on foot, met 20 waggons tearing their goods to pieces, and the drivers cursing and swearing for being robb’d on the highway by a turnpike, screen’d under an Act of Parliament.” These turnpikes, or toll-gates, had been but lately established in England for the preservation of the roads. That they did very much immediate good, however, may be doubted. A few years afterwards an English traveller was grumbling at the superiority of the French roads over our own. “Nothing piques me more,” he wrote in an amusingly satirical passage, “than that a trumpery despotic Government, like France, should have enchanting roads from the capital to each remote part.” He seems to have taken trouble to find out the cause for so lamentable a difference, and for this purpose consulted “the most solemn looking waggoner on the road.”

“This prov’d to be Jack Whipcord of Blandford. Jack’s answer was ‘That roads had but one object, namely, waggon-driving. That he requir’d but five feet wedth in a line [which he resolved never to quit], and all the rest might go to the d—— l. That the gentry ought to stay at home and be d—— and not run gossiping up and down the country. But, added Jack, we will soon cure them, for my brethren since the late act have made a vow to run our wheels in the coach quarter. We tack on a sixth or seventh horse at pleasure. What a plague would they send us to the galleys for this, as papishes do in beyond-sea countries.’”

The Act to which Jack referred had been passed in 1745. It followed upon the fact that while coaches, generally speaking, were in process of becoming lighter, carts and waggons were becoming much heavier. And so it had been proposed that no waggon should be drawn by more than four horses, no matter whether these were “in length, pairs or sideways,” and no cart should have more than three. Every horse above these numbers could be forfeited together “with all geers, bridles, halters, harness and accoutrements.” There were to be collectors of tolls, and gentlemen’s private carriages and purely agricultural waggons were to be exempt. Also certain roads, presumably those but lately laid down according to the best ideas of the time, were to be treated as outside the scope of the Act. And if the wheels of these heavy waggons and carts possessed “wheels bound with streaks or tire of the breadth of eight inches at least when worn and not set on with rose-headed nails,” they might likewise be exempt.

This Bill gave rise to a curious wordy warfare, which was carried on for some years, and may be said to have interested people in the general questions of wheeled traffic right on until the time when McAdam’s schemes altogether altered general opinion. This war, of course, hardly touched private carriages, but was waged in so many quarters and with such various weapons that it deserves some mention in any account of carriages.

It was immediately “objected by multitudes” that the Bill of 1745 would “greatly enhance the price of carriage of goods,” but its apologists argued that even if it did, better-designed carriages and carts would be built, so that the roads would improve, and the price of cartage ultimately go down. “It is urged,” they said, “that light carts or waggons may be used, and the horses draw double, as in the rabbet waggons of Norfolk, which improves the road and contributes to expedition.”

At an early stage in this war two factions arose. On the one hand you had coachbuilders and others filling the newspapers and publishing tracts, some very serious, some extraordinarily mathematical, others merely facetious, to prove that the roads could be preserved only by using very broad wheels—some, indeed, advocated rollers, which, as we shall see, were actually tried—and on the other hand you had people filling more columns, and very dull columns some of them were, to show that a low broad wheel was the one thing which no really satisfactory vehicle could possibly possess. These were the apologists for the lighter waggons with large but slender wheels. Decrease your weight, said they, and never mind about the wheels; it is the great weight that ruins the roads. How can you decrease the weight, asked the broad-wheel faction, without increasing the cost of carriage? Increase the cost of carriage for a while, was the reply, and see what happens to the roads.

For a time, however, the broad-wheel faction held the advantage, and when further legislation was made in 1754, it was entirely in their favour.

“It is enacted that after next Michaelmas, no wheel carriage of burthen (except it be drawn by oxen only, or if by horses with less than five, if a four-wheeled carriage, with less than four) shall travel any turnpike road, unless the fellies of the wheels shall be nine inches from side to side under a penalty of £5, or the forfeiture of one of the horses, with all his accoutrements, to the sole use of the person who shall seize them.”

So soon as such proposals had become law, it was asked with some pertinence: where were these huge wheels to come from? What of the heavy expenses that would fall on the farmers? The parrot cry, “Your wheels will cost you more,” was hinted at, if not expressed in so modern a way. Arguments were put forward to show that the correct height for wheels was anything between two and eight feet, and the correct breadth from three to eighteen inches. And the disputes became tinged with personalities. But the net result seems to have been that most people fought shy of the very wide wheels, and were content to use less horses.

The war dragged on, and particular inventions to cope with the difficulty began to appear. A new tire was widely advertised. An enthusiastic inventor occupied two or three pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine with details of his particular waggon, which had the front and back wheels of very different sizes, but what exactly its advantages might be were not very clear to any one but himself. Then on the 14th of April, 1764, one Daniel Bourn of Leominster produced a waggon on small rollers. Though it was unsuccessful, it led the way to further experiments, and as will be seen from the contemporary account immediately below, contained at any rate one novel feature which was subsequently widely adopted not only in waggons and carts, but also in four-wheeled carriages of every description.

“Mr. Bourn’s new machine for travelling the roads was tried against a common broad-wheeled waggon, but did not answer, the common waggon going as well with four horses, as the new one with eight. The weight carried was five ton besides the carriage. The wheels of this waggon are 14 inches; the fore wheels go within the hind wheels, and are so shallow as to turn under the bed of the waggon. The Leominster stage waggon has these wheels.”

The experiment took place “abreast between the new road just by Pancras to within a small distance of Bog-house Bar.” Apparently the only advantage which the new waggon possessed was its ability to turn in a narrow road, but although Mr. Bourn not only continued to build such waggons, but also answered his opponents in two tracts, we hear little more of him. Such “rolling-carts,” however, were also made by one James Sharpe, of Leadenhall Street. Sharpe was a pushful man. He believed in his system, and apparently made those in authority see its advantages. His rollers, you learn, were cylinders of cast iron, two feet in diameter and sixteen inches broad. An iron spindle was inserted through the centre of each. Several of Sharpe’s waggons were on the roads, but although every facility was given them, they never really took the popular fancy. And indeed, they must have been uncouth monsters rattling along the roads something after the fashion of the steam-roller of ten years ago. Just about this time, too, the light-cart faction showed that it was not in the least moribund. It indited learned and highly technical articles which the newspapers found space to print with some regularity. A typical reply to such articles was inserted in the Public Advertiser early in 1767:—

“There are people, I may say,” runs this most impolite retort, “a depraved Number, who write long letters upon this Subject in an ignorant Manner. Their Errors confirm Mankind of a sensible Turn what Measures ought to be taken for the Benefit of the trading Part of this Nation. The illiterate Scribblers he [the last correspondent] means to lash are those that insist upon the Necessity of Horses going at length instead of being placed abreast. The Power that draft Horses have in being placed abreast is so well known, that ’tis amazing any body is absurd enough to advance a Doctrine to the contrary. Then again, these deluded Idiots propagate, that the Loads drawn by eight Horses, having the Wheels placed nine Inches within nine, are destructive to the Roads, and that the Weight had better be divided into several narrow wheeled Carriages. Being thus destitute of Judgment upon the Subject, they do not reflect that the more Horses and Carriages the more the Expence increases, consequently that the internal Trade of this Kingdom would advance in this Article 100 per Cent. One Waggon with eight Horses in Pairs, drawing eight Ton upon the new Plan, don’t do near the Mischief that the same Weight would in two Waggons with narrow Wheels. Besides, four Horses at length cannot draw four Ton Weight. A late trifling Writer upon the Subject says, the Appearance of a broad Wheel Waggon was terrific. I think he may be pronounced a Cockney without Ceremony—a Cit that carries his Wife and Children four Miles out of Town in a Tim-Whisky, and, being most likely an aukward Driver, suffers the Squalls of his Horn-making Spouse to alarm his Dove-like Pusillanimity.”

Such a man, the article goes on to say, would surely be frightened if he saw a three-master sailing the seas, and he and his kind had better keep quiet upon a subject of which they appeared so entirely and pitiably ignorant.

The contest began to embrace wider issues than the mere wheels of waggons. It took in the whole question of wheeled carriages. It even went so far as to include a denunciation of the general policy of the Government, whose legislation, or lack of it, on this vexed question was, so the light-cart faction maintained, leading directly to an increase in the price of provisions. Nothing, apparently, was right. If waggons were constructed on principles which were as bad as they could be, so were the Stage-coaches, which also were using the public roads, though some of the controversialists seemed to forget the fact.

“We are desired,” runs a paragraph in the newspapers of this time, “to inform the Masters of Stage-Coaches, Machines, &c., that their present Method of hanging their Carriages high with a low Fore-Wheel, and the body of the Coach hung forwards with the Stems of the Box leaning likewise forwards, is all upon a ridiculous wrong Principle,—the Effect of the Stupidity of Coachmen and Wheelwrights; that if they pursue the following Regulations, they will find the same Advantage that the Nobility and Gentry have already done by adopting this Plan: Let the fore Wheels be three Feet, six, eight, or ten Inches high, the Stems of the Box upright, and admit as little Weight forward as possible upon the low Wheel; the Body of the Coach to hang low for the Convenience of Passengers, as no Benefit arises from its Hanging high to the Horses, their Advantage laying intirely upon the Height of the Fore-Wheels.”

This in its turn was argued. Then came a proposal to tax private carriages according to the number of horses used, and see whether such revenue would not counterbalance in some way the increase in the prices of provisions, which, of course, was following on this eternal wrangle of the waggons. Also there was more legislation. Some of the new regulations read curiously. “No tree or bush is to be allowed to grow or stand within fifteen feet of the center of the highway, on forfeiture of 10s. by the owner.” Cartways were to be at least twenty feet wide, and horse causeways three feet wide. No waggon with more than four horses might have wheels less than nine inches in width, and some one on horseback or on foot had to go in front of it. More criticism filled the newspapers, and more inventions appeared.

Meetings were held. One advertisement which appeared in 1767 has an agreeable air of mystery about it.

“All persons working Shod-wheel’d Carts, Waggons, Drays, &c. of all Breadths, are desired to meet at the Sun Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard, on Friday next, at four o’clock in the Afternoon. Enquire for No. 1.”

And more pamphlets appeared, but the roads failed to improve.

Then in 1770 another Act was passed giving privileges to the roller-carts which were denied to the ordinary waggons. “All carriages,” it ordered, “moving upon rollers the breadth of fifteen inches, are allowed to be drawn with any number of horses, or other cattle.” And, as a further inducement, such carts were to be toll-free for a year. Mr. Sharpe, of Leadenhall Street, prospered, and wrote to the papers to say so. The rollers, he maintained, were light and strong, and there was considerably less friction when they were used. And he challenged the world to disprove his statement. Whereupon an anonymous writer belonging to the rival faction—possibly Joseph Jacob, a coachbuilder who had already written against the system—entered the field, and ventured to suggest that cast iron was exceedingly brittle and not very light. Mr. Sharpe speedily replied. “The principle,” he said, and his point is of interest, “upon which rolling carriages are adopted is simply this, That, by the use of them the roads may be made smooth and hard, and by that means, become part of the mechanism: for thus the rollers are made to answer all the purposes of light wheels.” The anonymous writer appears to have felt the point of this argument, and was forced to retort, quite unworthily, that in any case Mr. Sharpe’s rollers were not his own ideas. “No,” replied Sharpe, “they were Mr. Daniel Bourn’s idea—a very sensible man and good mechanic, and who was also the first contriver of nine-inch broad wheels, who so long as ten or eleven years ago built a waggon on rollers at Leominster where he then lived, and brought it to the Society of Arts and Sciences in the Strand, by whom upon trial it was rejected.” The anonymous writer left it at that, but the controversy raged fiercely. It became so highly technical and apparently so interminable that somebody suggested we should all use flying machines and leave the wretched roads to look after themselves.

We may leave the war of the wheels here. The roller-carts were discarded soon afterwards, and M’Adam and his successors rendered for ever such wars unnecessary. But it must not be wholly neglected, and is a tiny chapter by itself in the history of locomotion.

We come to the curiosities.

To this period belongs the present State Coach of Great Britain—that famous “glass-coach” which Londoners had an opportunity of seeing at King George’s Coronation. Who built it is not known. Sir William Chambers, “an amateur,” as Thrupp is careful to point out, designed it in 1761 for George III. “There is come forth,” wrote Walpole to Horace Mann, “a new State Coach which has cost £8000. It is a beautiful object, though crowded with improprieties. Its supports are Tritons, not very well adapted to land carriage, and formed of palm trees, which are as little aquatic as Tritons are terrestrial. The crowd to see it on the opening of Parliament was greater than at the Coronation, and much more damage done.”

The ornamentation of the coach, indeed, is a mass of contradictions, but Sir William Chambers did no more than follow tradition. For over a century the principal State Coaches had had Tritons and other queerly inept figures, and Tritons there were in the new coach for King George. Gorgeousness was aimed at, and gorgeousness obtained. There is a detailed contemporary description of this coach which may be given with an account of the expenditure, not quite £8000 as Walpole writes, which it entailed.

“The carriage is composed of four Tritons, who support the body by cables fastened to the roots of their fins: The two placed on the front of the carriage, bear the driver on their shoulders, and are represented in the action of sounding shells to announce the approach of the monarch of the sea; and those on the back part, carry the imperial fasces, topt with tridents instead of the ancient axes. The driver’s footboard is a large scollop shell, supported by a bunch of reeds, and other marine plants. The pole represents a bundle of lances, and the wheels are imitated from those of the ancient triumphal chariots. The body of the coach is composed of eight palm-trees, which, branching out at the top, sustain the roof. The four angular trees are loaded with trophies, allusive to the victories obtained by Britain during the course of the present glorious war. On the center of the roof stand three boys, representing the Genii of England, Scotland, and Ireland, supporting on their heads the Imperial Crown, and holding in their hands the scepter, the sword of state, and ensigns of knighthood. Their bodies are adorned with festoons of laurel, which fall from thence towards the four corners of the roof. The intervals between the palm-trees which form the body of the coach, are filled in the upper parts with plates of glass, and below with pannels adorned with paintings. On the front pannel is represented BRITANNIA seated on a throne, holding in her hand, a staff of liberty, attended by Religion, Justice, Wisdom, Valour, Fortitude, and Victory, presenting her with a garland of laurels. On the back pannel, Neptune issuing from his palace, drawn by sea-horses, and attended by the Winds, the Rivers, Tritons, Naids, &c., bringing the tribute of the world to the British shore. On one of the doors are represented Mars, Minerva, and Mercury, supporting the Imperial Crown of Britain; and on the other, Industry and Ingenuity, giving a cornucopia to the Genius of England. The other four pannels represent the liberal Arts and Sciences protected; History burning the implements of war. The inside of the coach is lined with Crimson Velvet richly embroidered with gold. All the wood work is triple gilt, and all the paintings highly varnished. The harness is of Crimson Velvet, adorned with buckles and other embelishments of silver gilt; and the saddle-cloths are of Blue Velvet, embroidered and fringed with gold.”

The account was as follows:—

Hardly less resplendent was the Lord Mayor’s coach which had been built at a cost of over a thousand pounds in 1757, and still performs its duties at stated and regular intervals. It was in 1711 that a Lord Mayor of London had ridden for the last time on horseback in his State procession, this distinction falling to Sir Gilbert Heathcote. Since that date he has been driven in his coach. The 1757 coach was not at first the property of the corporation, but had been built by subscription amongst the aldermen, to whom it belonged until 1778, when the corporation bought it. In that year it had been repaired and repainted—the panels possibly by Cipriani, the heraldic devices by Catton, one of the original members of the Royal Academy and “coach-painter to George III.” The Lord Mayor’s coach, like many other State coaches of this date, is full of allegorical devices of ornamentation, very plutocratic, very rich, very gorgeous, and incidentally rather more comfortable to drive in than that in which the British Sovereign drives to his Coronation.

Coming to lesser matters, we have mention of a carriage which performed a remarkable feat in 1750.

“On Wednesday 29,” runs a notice of this, “at seven in the morning was decided at Newmarket a remarkable wager for 1000 guineas, laid by Theobald Taaff, Esq., against the E. of March and Lord Eglington, who were to provide a four-wheel carriage with a man in it to be drawn by four horses 19 miles in an hour; which was performed in 53 minutes and 27 seconds. The pole was small but lapp’d with fine wire; the perch had a plate underneath, two cords went on each side from the back carriage to the fore carriage, fastened to springs: the harness was of thin leather covered with silk; the seat, for the man to sit on, was of leather straps and covered with velvet; the axles of the wheel were brass, and had tins of oil to drop slowly for an hour. The breechens for the horses were whale-bone; the bars were small wood, straightened with steel-springs, as were most parts of the carriage, but all so light that a man could carry the whole with the harness.” Then followed the names of each of the four horses—all had riders—and “lord March’s groom sat in the carriage. Two or three other carriages had been made before, but disapproved; and several horses killed in trials—to the expence of 6 or 700l.”

Now such a carriage—there is a print of it by Bodger—was, of course, little more than a freak. It was a mere skeleton, fragile and entirely useless as a mode of conveyance over the ordinary roads. But the knowledge of those nineteen miles covered easily within the hour must have set people thinking. Such a speed was almost incredible to those accustomed to five or six miles an hour. The carriage itself was the work of Mr. J. Wright, a coachmaker in Longacre, already becoming the home of his brother tradesmen, and it was doubtless exhibited in London. It showed what could be done, and must have opened out agreeable vistas. Twenty miles an hour was something to aim for, and with the war with France concluded, people were able and willing to give rather more attention to the peaceful arts. Amongst other things they showed a desire for strange vehicles. I have mentioned the rolling-carts; there were far queerer carriages, as we shall see, used by the gentry.

The next curiosity I may speak of was seen in the streets of London during the following year.

“An odd machine, like an English waggon, drawn by 10 horses, after the Danish manner, belonging to Baron Rosencrantz, the new Danish envoy, came to his house in Cleveland Row, St. James’s, from Harwich; a coachman drove it and a postilion rode upon the 4th horse.”

It suggests rather a primitive type of coach, possibly innocent of springs. What the Baron suffered during his journey through East Anglia must be left to the imagination.

Eight years later, on August 30th, 1758, another strange carriage was seen.

“This day a remarkable carriage set out from Aldersgate-street for Birmingham, from which it arrived on Thursday last full of passengers and baggage, without using coomb, or any oily, unctuous, or other liquid matter whatever, to the wheels or axles, its construction being such as to render all such helps useless. The inventor has caused to be engraved on the boxes of the wheels, these words, Friction Annihilated, and is very positive that the carriage will continue to go as long and as easy, if not longer and easier, without greasing, than any of the ordinary stage-carriages will do with it: This invention, if really answerable in practice, is perhaps the must useful improvement in mechanicks that this century has produced.”

One would like to know who was the inventor of this coach, which, however, did not prosper—I doubt if it performed another journey—for it dropped out of history as suddenly as it had appeared. It would seem that the inventor was a Birmingham man. Possibly he was helped in his scheme by a very extraordinary character who lived and flourished in that town at this time—John Baskerville, successively footman, schoolmaster, graver, japanner, typefounder, and printer—a man whose beautifully printed books have hardly been excelled to this day. Baskerville had made a fortune japanning bread-baskets and the like, and now drove about the country wonderfully dressed in a coach apparently of his own design—he was a man who had to do everything for himself, and being of somewhat eccentric disposition, never did anything like anybody else—and his coach, like his house and his printing and his religious opinions, was like nothing in the world. He had a considerable idea of his own importance, and his coach was a reflection of his character. With its wonderful arms—the real Baskerville arms, to which the printer had no right whatever—it was standing until quite recently in an old barn in a field at Manton. It was thus described fifty years ago:—

“The body hangs by double straps, from the coachman’s seat under the carriage, to which they are fastened, to the frame behind.... It could be either closed or open, and when open the leather top was rolled back upon crossed straps hung from the coachman’s seat, and hooks secured to the front part of the body. The whole framework of the carriage has been elaborately carved and gilt, and the panels painted with what appears to be a brownish green, with flowers and vases, rock and shell-work, among which were numerous figures of boys and emblems. In the centre panel on each side were the arms, on the side panel the crest....”

None of the panels were identical, but all had been decorated by his workmen. “The pattern-cart of his trade,” Hutton, the Birmingham historian, calls this curiosity, which was once familiar to every village in the Midlands, and his daughter, Catherine Hutton, could remember the printer, “in his gold-laced waistcoat, and his painted chariot, each panel a picture, fresh from his own manufactory of japanned tea-boards.”

A most extraordinary conveyance appeared in London in 1771—this being “Mr. Moore’s new-invented Coal-carriage,” the wheels of which were no less than fifteen feet high.42 A great concourse of people followed it through the streets, and no doubt applauded its ability to draw two caldrons and two sacks of coal, using only two horses abreast, “with more ease and expedition than the common carts do one caldron with three horses at length.” Unfortunately I have not been able to discover a print of this monstrous vehicle, which, like so many of the other mid-century freaks, disappeared almost at once.

To this period also belongs that wondrous phaeton, which in a few years threatened to become so lofty as to suggest to some ingenious artist the possibility of applying to it some pantograph arrangement whereby its seat could be raised or lowered at will. This print, called The New Fashioned Phaeton—Sic itur ad Astra, was published in 1776, a curious mezzotint showing a lady of fashion stepping out of a first-floor window into the seat of a phaeton which has been raised to the required height. The phaetons, indeed, seem to have been built high since their invention, and the importance of this feature must not be overlooked, when one remembers that almost every carriage, both English and foreign, was hung enormously high in the last years of the century, nine or ten steps being sometimes necessary to get inside.

Exactly when or where the phaeton was first made I cannot determine, but, like the landau, which has generally, though incorrectly, been considered to have been first built in 1757, it is mentioned so early as 1747 in the poem quoted at the end of the last chapter. That it was already popular with the fashionable people is shown by Tom Warton’s poem, The Phaeton and the One Horse Chair, which was first published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for December, 1759. This is worth quoting in its entirety:—

From this poem it is possible to understand that this new-fangled carriage was used rather as a toy than anything else. That it was dangerous clearly appears, and it was this very danger which must have contributed not a little to its popularity. It was driven at a very great rate, and with a recklessness that excited the anger of the commoner folk—unless, as was often the case, it excited their admiration instead. The phaeton was the most sporting carriage you could have. It lent itself to the idea of racing, and there was always the chance that an accident might be fatal—an allurement in itself. And so in a very few years there was hardly a fashionable young gentleman in London who did not possess one of these carriages and drive about, insolently staring down from his enormously high seat on to the heads of the crowds below.

Experiments, too, were being made with them. The position of the body was gradually brought forward until it was directly over the front axle. In 1766 “the Hon. Sir Francis Blake Delavel, Knight of the Bath,” was experimenting with a “new-invented phaeton the other side of Westminster Bridge, where he put his horses in a full gallop, and in a moment, by pulling a string, the horses galloped off and left him in the carriage, which stood still.” Sir Francis was apparently working at some contrivance to be used in case the horses chose to run away—a common occurrence, no doubt, and apt to be far more dangerous to the driver than would be the case with other carriages, for the body of these early phaetons was slung high above the undercarriage by the most delicate supports, which bent and creaked and were obviously unfitted to bear any great strain. The body itself must have resembled that of the curious chaises which were still to be seen at this time in France and Italy—just a small chair varnished and sometimes painted, fixed to four thin and often carved and curled posts, which as often as not rose merely from the shafts, there being no springs of any kind. The shafts were very long, and the common practice seems to have been to drive two horses tandem, with, no doubt, a postilion on the leader. The phaeton was probably slimmer than these equally curious vehicles, and much higher, and their ability to turn corners with ease may be deduced from the lines just quoted.

A phaeton built for a lady is shown in a print published in 1776, called Phaetona; or Modern Female Taste. Here the carriage has a very small body, hung very high on large wheels, the undercarriage being abnormally long in consequence. The two horses which draw it are very undersized—another peculiarity possibly demanded by contemporary fashion.

Two years later the scandalous Town and Country Magazine published a short and probably true tale called The Rival Phaetons, which shows to what lengths, or, rather, what heights the Bucks of the time would go.

“Lord M——,” it runs, “emulous of shining in the most elevated sphere, first drove a phaeton seven feet from the ground: Sir John L[ade] immediately made an addition of a supernumerary travelling case to his, and raised it six inches higher. Lord M—— applied immediately to his coachmaker in Liquor-pond-street for two travelling cases, with which he speedily drove about the streets for the entertainment of the public. Sir John L[ade] was stung to the quick; and Lord M—— ’s round hat was now a mere pigmy to his. His Lordship, happy at rival inventions, immediately added two more horses to his triumphal car, and drove four for expedition, from Grosvenor Square to Gray’s-inn-lane. ‘Now, my Lad,’ said he, ‘I have you;’ but how vain are the boastings of mankind? The knight appeared the very next day with a phaeton and six in Holborn. ‘Zounds,’ said his lordship, ‘this is too much! what shall I do?—how can I match my four with two more? No credit at my banker’s—in arrears with my horse-dealer—I am at my wit’s end. John, I shall not take an airing in Smithfield to-day; I’ll give my horses some rest—they were hard worked over the stones yesterday.’ Here the contest now lies—its importance must be obvious to every beholder—his lordship has not slept these three nights, and it is imagined he will at length be obliged to take the hint from Colman’s prologue to the Suicide, and preposterous as it may appear, add a fifth wheel to his phaeton. Sir John is greatly elated, and may literally be said to be in very high spirits upon his temporary triumph.”

Writing to Mann in June, 1755, Walpole, after regretting the absence of social news in England, mentions the latest Paris fashion. “All the news from France,” he says, “is that a new madness reigns there, as strong as that of Pantins was. This is la fureur des cabriolets, AnglicÈ, one-horse chairs, a mode introduced by Mr. [Josiah] Child; they not only universally go in them, but wear them; that is, everything is to be en cabriolet; the men paint them on their waistcoats and have them embroidered for clocks to their stockings; and the women, who have gone all the winter without anything on their heads, are now muffled up in great caps [calash hoods] with round sides, in the form of, and scarce less than the wheels of chaises.”

“The cabriolet head-dress,” says Wright,43 “was soon improved into post-chaises, chairs-and-chairmen, and even broad-waggons.” So we have A Modern Morning, published in 1757:—

In which structures Caelia sallies forth.

These cabriolets rivalled the phaetons as fashionable carriages, and indeed as the new gigs came to resemble them in every point save the number of the wheels. There is a print by Colley, dated 1781, showing one of these new gigs. The small chair, very high, holding two people, is supported by long curved supports, which in themselves of course acted as springs of a kind. Two horses are being driven tandem, with a postilion driving the leader. Another print, by Bunbury, called Sir Gregory Gigg, shows a young man driving a pair of horses abreast. He is seated in a still smaller, and slightly lower, chair. This was a curricle rather than a cabriolet, and it was such a carriage which the braggart sportsman, John Thorpe, describes to Catharine in Northanger Abbey: “Curricle-hung, you see, seat, trunk, sword-case, splashing board, lamps, silver-moulding, all, you see, complete; the ironwork as good as new, or better. He [the first owner] asked fifty guineas; I closed with him, threw the money down, and the carriage was mine.” The shape of these curricles is well seen in Bunbury’s drawing.

A glance at the newspaper advertisements of the day will afford an insight into the various carriages in use. So, for instance, in 1767 we have:—

An exceeding good Post chariot, the Box to take off.

A neet genteel Single Horse Chaise, painted green, and hung upon Steel Springs.

An exceeding fine black gelding that goes well in an Italian Chair, with a Tail.

A very neat fashionable Chaise.

A very good second-hand Phaeton Chaise, that goes either with one horse or two, with Shafts, Poles, and Harness suitable, Steel Springs, and Iron Axletrees. Also a good second-hand Landau, which alters occasionally into a Phaeton, steel springs and Iron Axletrees to the Carriage.

The landau, by the way, was a recent invention (though made, as we have seen, before 1757) which may be dismissed with the observation that it was a coach made to open when required.

And put up for auction together on one occasion were:—

So run these advertisements, with scraps of information interspersed and little puffs of the advertiser on every other line. What the windsor chair was I have not been able to discover; but it is to be noticed both that Italian chairs (or chaises) were apparently popular, and that the English-built carriages were being constructed on rather a loftier scale. The curious reason for this will appear in the next chapter.

Meanwhile I may conclude by drawing attention to two other advertisements of a curious nature.

The first of these deals with a hackney coachman who had refused to carry a fare. The second, which I do not think has been reprinted since it originally appeared in 1767, shows the dangers to which travellers were still liable.

From the time when the dramatist Congreve had been appointed a Commissioner for Licensing Hackney Coaches (1695) there had been frequent legislation with regard to these hackney coaches. At this time there were stringent regulations, some of which are still in force, with regard to the taking up of passengers. It was the refusal of a coachman to drive a gentleman who had hailed him that led to the following pitiful notice:—

“Whereas I William Ford, late driver of an hackney coach, No. 694, did refuse to carry a gentleman, and did also grosly abuse him; for this I was fined thirty shillings by the Commissioners. I then most wickedly and falsely swore an assault against, and had the same gentleman carried before Sir John Fielding, who discharged the warrant. For this false imprisonment, I had a prosecution commenced against me, and though I made frequent application for pardon, I could not obtain it until the expence amounted to a sum which has almost ruined me, and which I have paid. I therefore voluntarily [?] insert this as a caution to other hackney coachmen, who well know that it is from the hope of forgiveness, which they too often meet, that they venture so daringly to abuse and insult their fare.

“William X Ford
“His mark.”

It was this same Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate, who inserted, some little time afterwards, the following warning to travellers and others:—

“To the Stage Coachmen, Carriers, Book-keepers,

To the“Tradesmen in general, and others.

To“Public Office, Bow Street, September 24, 1767.

“A most necessary caution at this season of the year.

“The remainder of that Gang of unhappy wretches, who live in Idleness and subsist on Plunder, and who make it their particular Business, from this Time to the End of Winter to cut off Trunks from behind Post Chaises, to steal Goods out of Waggons, from the Baskets of Stage-Coaches, Boots of Hackney Coaches, and out of Carts which carry Goods to and from Inns, &c. (though but few in Number) having already begun to wait in the Dusk of the Evenings, at the different Avenues leading to Town, and at several Inns, &c., for the above Purposes; ’tis hoped that an Attention to the following Observation, may be the Means of preserving much Property, which when once lost by these Means, is difficult to recover, or the Offenders to be detected.

“1. Those who cannot conveniently fasten their Luggage before them in Post Chaises, should take care to secure it behind with a small Chain instead of a Rope or Strip, and to place the Padlock that fastens it out of Sight or Reach; and those who have Servants to attend them, should direct them to keep close to the Carriage as they come to London, for these Plunderers extend themselves for fifteen Miles out of Town to the very Inns themselves in London, and are ready in an amazing Manner to take Advantage of the least Neglect.

“2. As it is common for Persons on their Arrival in Town to take a Hackney Coach when they come on the Stones, in the Boot of which they generally deposit their Luggage, they should be cautious never to send the Coachman from his Box, to make an Enquiry, &c. for if he be absent a Minute his Fare will be in great danger of losing his Property, by some of the above Offenders, who attend at the Inns at the Entrance of the Town, in order to follow Hackney Coaches to the Places where they set down or stop, to watch an Opportunity to plunder.

“3. Nothing can secure the Goods in Waggons, or the Baskets of Stage Coaches, but the Care of the Drivers, who should have them watched both on and off the Stones, and the Proprietors of the several Road Waggons should have a Man at least on Purpose to guard them five or ten Miles out of Town, a step which is absolutely necessary.

“J. Fielding.”

Also, of course, there were the highwaymen.