[2] English Pleasure Carriages. By William Bridges Adams. London, 1837.

[3] “They also possessed baggage-carts shaped like the chariots. One of these appears to have had a very high, six-spoked wheel and a curved roof box. In front of the box is a low seat, from underneath which projects a crooked drag-pole.” Stratton.

[4] A History of Egypt. J. H. Breasted. New York. 1909.

[5] Dictionary of the Bible. 1906. Edited by J. Hastings. Art. Chariot.

[6] “We account for this difference by supposing that in battle, when success depended in a great measure upon the stability of the chariot, special care was taken to provide a strong wheel, while a weaker one was considered good enough for a more peaceful employment, a four-spoked wheel in those days being much cheaper and lighter.” Stratton.

[7] The Assyrians also possessed curious litters. “Two eunuchs,” says Stratton, “are shown carrying a sort of arm-chair on their shoulders, elegant in design, supplied with wheels, to be drawn by hand should the king have occasion to visit mountainous regions inaccessible for chariots.”

[8] The History of Coaches. G. A. Thrupp. London, 1877.

[9] See p. 39.

[10] Stratton treats of these Roman carriages and carts in considerable detail, and mentions in addition to the plostellum, or small plaustrum, the carrus, monarchus, and birotum. Of these the carrus, or cart, differed from the plaustrum in the following particulars: “The box or form could not be removed, as in the former case, but was fastened upon the axle-tree; it lacked the broad flooring of planks or boards, which served as a receptacle for certain commodities when the sides were removed; the wheels were higher [and] ... spoked, not solid like the tympana.” The carrus clabularius, or stave-waggon, could be lengthened or shortened as required. The monarchus was a very light two-wheeled vehicle something like the cisium. The birotum was also a small two-wheeled vehicle, with a leather-covered seat, used in the time of Constantine, an “early post-chaise,” as Stratton puts it.

[11] The carts of north Italy in the eighteenth century had remained practically unchanged. Edward Wright, who visited Italy in 1719, thus describes them: “The carriages in Lombardy, and indeed throughout all Italy, are for the most part drawn with oxen; which are of a whitish colour: they have very low wheels. Some I saw without spokes, solid like mill-stones; such as I have seen describ’d in some antique basso-relievos and Mosaicks. The pole they draw by is sloped upwards towards the end; which is rais’d considerably above their heads; from whence a chain, or rope, is let down and fasten’d to their horns; which keeps up their heads, and serves to back the carriage. In some parts they use no yokes, but draw all by the horn, by a sort of a brace brought about the roots of them: the backs of the oxen are generally cover’d with a cloth. In the kingdom of Naples, and some other parts, they use buffaloes in their carriages, &c. These do somewhat resemble oxen: but are most sour, ill-looking animals, and very vicious; for the better management of them they generally put rings in their noses.”

[12] The World on Wheels.

[13] On the other hand, the scythes used by other nations may well have been on the wheels. Livy describes those used by Antiochus (currus falcatus): “Round the pole were sharp-pointed spears which extended from the yoke of the two outside horses about fifteen feet; with these they pierced everything in their way. On the end of the yoke were two scythes, one being placed horizontally, the other towards the ground. The first cut everything from the sides, the others catching those prostrate on the ground or trying to crawl under. The long spears (cuspides) were not on the yoke, as some say.”

[14] English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. J. J. Jusserand. London, 1888.

[15] Early Carriages and Roads. Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. London, 1903.

[16] This appears to have been similar to the carroccio, described by Stratton as a very heavy four-wheeled car, surmounted by a tall staff, painted a bright red. Stratton also mentions the cochio, which he describes as a thirteenth-century carriage having a covering of red matting, under which, in the fore-part of the body, the ladies were seated, the gentlemen occupying the rear end. Both these words, however, seem to belong to a much later date and may be translations of an earlier original.

[17] “The xxx day of September the Queen’s Grace came from the Tower through London, riding in a charrett gorgeously beseen, unto Westminster.” MS. Cotton. Vitellius, F.v.

[18] History of Great Britain. Arthur Wilson. London, 1653.

[19] cf. Spenser, who uses three words which appear to be interchangeable.

[20] It is probable that the closed carriage in which the Emperor Frederick III paid a visit to Frankfort in 1474 was one of these cotzi. Here the interesting point is that the Emperor’s attendants, apparently for the first time, were relieved of the necessity of holding a canopy over His Majesty’s head, except when he went to and returned from the Council Chamber.

[21] Taylor mentions in one place that “for the mending of the Harnesse, a Knights Coachman brought in a bill to his master of 25 pounds.” He also says that the owners of coaches liked to match their horses if possible.

[22] A Book about Travelling, Past and Present. Thomas Croal. London, 1877.

[23] So Massinger in The Bondman says:—

[24] The word hackney, possibly derived from the old French HaquenÉe, was the natural word to be used for a public coach, it being merely a synonym, used by Shakespeare and others, for common.

[25] Curialia Miscellanea. Samuel Pegge, F.S.A. London, 1818.

[26] Which was about the same sum that Defoe had to pay in London earlier in the century. “We are carried to these places [the coffee-houses],” he wrote in 1702, “in chairs which are here very cheap—a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour; and your chairmen serve you for porters, to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at Venice.”

[27] cf.

[28] In an article in the Pall Mall Magazine for March, 1912.

[29] Birch’s History of the Royal Society.

[30] Some people have considered that the name was not derived from the city of Berlin, but from an Italian word berlina, “a name given by the Italians to a kind of stage on which criminals are exposed to public ignominy.” This seems rather far-fetched. In England it was always thought to have been built first in Berlin, and was a common enough term for a coach early in the eighteenth century. Swift mentions it in his Answer to a Scandalous Poem (1733):—

“It should be noted,” says Croal, “that we find the word differently applied in the earlier years of the century, and in such a way as to cast doubts on the derivations quoted. In some of the last Acts passed by the Scottish Parliaments before the Union, there are references to a kind of ship or boat, called a berline. The royal burghs on the west coast of Scotland were in 1705 ordered to maintain two ‘berlines’ to prevent the importation of ‘victual’ from Ireland, this importation being forbidden at the time, and two years later an Act was passed to pay the expenses of the berlines.”

[31] A point of minor interest may here be noticed. When leather was first used for the covering of the coach quarters, the heads of the nails showed. But about 1660, “these nail-heads were covered with a strip of metal made to imitate a row of beads; from this practice arose the name of ‘beading’ which has been retained, although beading is now made in a continuous, level piece, either rounded or angular.” Thrupp.

[32] See below, p. 133.

[33] The reader is referred for the fullest information on the subject of these stage-coaches to Mr. Charles G. Harper’s Stage-Coach and Mail in Days of Yore. 2 vols. London, 1903.

[34] Omnibuses and Cabs. London, 1902.

[35] It was over a calÈche presented by the Chevalier de Grammont to Charles II, that the famous quarrel took place between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart, afterwards the Duchess of Richmond. The ladies had been complaining that coaches with glass windows, but lately introduced, did not allow a sufficiently free display of their charms, whence followed the gift of a French calÈche which cost two thousand livres. When the queen drove out in it, both the ladies agreed with de Grammont that it afforded far better opportunities than a coach for showing off their figures, and both endeavoured to get the first loan of it. In the fierce quarrel that followed Miss Stewart came off the conqueror.

[36] Peter the Great. By K. Waliszewski. Translated by Lady Mary Loyd. London, 1898.

[37] Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne. John Ashton. London, 1883.

[38] Originally, I understand, a fish-cart or lugger.

[39] This well-known expression for a carriage is generally thought to have been used first by an American quaker later in the century. Ned Ward, however, would seem to have been its real inventor.

[40] At this time M. Dessein used to advertise in the London papers. In The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser for July 21, 1767, is the following: “To be sold, at Calais, a Travelling Vis-À-Vis, built at Paris about a year and a half ago; very fit also to use in the towns on the Continent upon occasion; being varnished in the newest taste, and covered with an oiled case to preserve it from the weather in travelling, and requires nothing but a new set of wheels to be in perfect repair to make the tour of Europe. Enquire of Mr. Dessein, at the HÔtel D’Angleterre at Calais, with whom the lowest price is left.”

[41] See next chapter.

[42] This was the Mr. Francis Moore, of Cheapside, who in 1786 and 1790 obtained patents for two two-wheeled carriages. The second of these bore considerable resemblance to the hansom-cab of a later date. It had enormous wheels—higher, indeed, than the body of the carriage—and the driver sat on a small box-seat in front and at a level with the top of the roof. The door was at the back.

[43] Caricature History of the Georges, Thomas Wright. London, n.d.

[44] “The shape of the body,” says Bridges Adams, describing Coates’s carriage, “was that of a classic sea-god’s car, and it was constructed in copper. This vehicle was very beautiful in its outline, though disfigured by the absurdity of its ornamental work.” When Coates had a fall, Horace Smith, of Rejected Addresses fame, seized the occasion to write a mock condoling poem.

[45] For a detailed account of these mail-coaches the reader is referred to Mr. Charles Harper’s book, Stage Coach and Mail in the Days of Yore.

[46] The Danger of Travelling in Stage-Coaches; and a Remedy Proposed to the Consideration of the Public, by the Rev. William Milton, A.M., Vicar of Heckfield, Hants. Reading, 1810.

[47] It may be well to add here a note on the simpler springs which were in use at this time. These seem to have been of five distinct varieties—the straight or elbow spring, the elliptic spring, the regular-curved, and the reverse-curved springs, all these being either single or double, and the spiral spring. The straight spring was used in the stage-coaches, in the later phaetons, in the Tilbury, and in most of the two-wheeled carriages. The elliptic spring, invented by Elliott, was “used single in what are called under-spring carriages, where the spring rests on the axle, and is connected with the framework by means of a dumb or imitation spring so as to form a double or complete ellipse. This is technically called an under spring.” Its importance, of course, followed on its power of acting as a complete support, no perch being required to hold the two parts of the undercarriage together. Sometimes four of these springs were “hinged together in pairs,” and used thus in the larger four-wheeled carriages. When a regular-curved or C spring was used, “a leathern brace was suspended from it to carry the body or weight.” The reverse-curved spring was used in the older phaetons, and in the fore springs of the Tilbury, and springs similar to this had been used as body springs in place of suspension brackets or loops, or as upright springs, to the earlier coaches and chariots, under the technical name of S springs—“in which case leather braces were attached to them, and they were supported by a bracket or buttress of iron called the spring stay. The whip spring which succeeded them ... was used in the same way.” But in addition to these springs, there were all kinds of combinations, and the whole subject is too complicated for the lay mind to understand. The chief point, however, to notice is the changes in structure which were made possible by the elliptic spring of Elliott’s resting on the axle.

[48] Which reminds me that at the present day there is a singular three-wheeled cab to be hired in London, if only you know where to look for it. It is the only one of its kind, and rarely, I believe, appears until after nightfall. It is the kind of carriage which is to be avoided by those who have drunk not wisely but too well.

[49] A good description is given of the appearance of these coaches by Baron d’Haussez, an exiled Frenchman, in 1833.

“The appointments of an English coach are no less elegant than its form. A portly, good-looking coachman seated on a very high coach-box, well dressed, wearing white gloves, a nosegay in his button-hole, and his chin enveloped in an enormous cravat, drives four horses perfectly matched and harnessed, and as carefully groomed as when they excited admiration in the carriages of Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares. Such is the manner in which English horses are managed, such also is their docility, the effect either of temperament or training, that you do not remark the least restiveness in them. Four-horse coaches are to be seen rapidly traversing the most populous streets of London, without occasioning the least accident, without being at all inconvenienced in the midst of the numerous carriages which hardly leave the necessary space to pass. The swearing of ostlers is never heard at the relays any more than the neighing of horses; nor are you interrupted on the road by the voice of the coachman or the sound of his whip, which differs only from a cabriolet whip in the length of the thong, and serves more as a sort of appendage than a means of correction in the hand which carries it.”

[50] Omnibuses and Cabs.

[51] See note on p. 192.

[52] According to Mr. Moore, whose account of this matter seems perfectly clear, the actual vehicle which proved so popular when plying the streets contained very much more of Chapman’s work than of Hansom’s, and, indeed, if full justice had been done, these light carriages should have come down to posterity as chapmans and not hansoms at all. On the other hand it is quite possible, that but for Hansom’s work, Chapman would never have given such careful attention to this class of vehicle.

[53] It seems, however, that so long as ten years before one-horse cars of this form had been plying for hire in Birmingham and Liverpool.

[54] Modern Carriages. Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. London, 1905.

[55] Bridges Adams has an amusing passage on the question of colour. He had his own ideas upon the best colours to use on a carriage body. “For bright sunny days,” he thinks, “the straw or sulphur yellow is very brilliant and beautiful; but for the autumnal haze, the rich deep orange hue conveys the most agreeable sensations. The greens used are of innumerable tints, commencing with the yellowish olive, and gradually darkening till they are barely distinguishable from black. Neither apple green, grass green, sea green, nor any green of a bluish tint, can be used in carriage painting with good effect as a ground colour; but in some species of light carriages a pleasing effect may be produced for summer by the imitation of the variegated grasses.” Quite a poetical idea! “Blues,” he continues, “were formerly principally used as a ground colour for bodies, to contrast with a red carriage and framework. Of late very dark blues have been used as a general ground colour, and when new they are very rich, being a glazed or partially transparent colour; but they very soon become worn and faded, the least speck of dust disfiguring them. Blue is also a cold colour, and while it is unfitted for summer by reason of its easy soiling, it is unpleasant in winter, owing to its want of warmth.”

[56] For full and particular accounts of all such carriages as have been constructed since the middle of last century, the reader is referred to the various trade journals. Further information is to be obtained from the Reports on carriages at the successive London and Paris Exhibitions. Here the more important differences between English, French, and Austrian carriages are clearly shown in a language which is not too technical for the ordinary reader to understand.

[57] This was also the case in France.

[58] There is an interesting passage in the 1878 Report which may be quoted here. “It is somewhat singular,” this runs, “that while the attention of the English coachbuilders has, for the past few years, been directed to perfect an arrangement to open and close landau heads in a simple and effectual manner, the French builders have paid little or no heed to the attainment of this desideratum, but have instead adopted a plan which allows of the doors of a landau being opened when the glass is up, being first introduced by M. Kellner ... in 1866.... The simplest method is to have two pieces of brass, about ten inches long, in the form of a groove, for the glass frame to slide in, hinged to the upper extremities of the door pillars, and to close down on the fence rail when not required for use.”

[59] Here, I suppose, should be included the Eridge cart, invented by Lord Abergavenny. It holds four persons on two parallel seats.

[60] The phaeton has found particular favour in France. At the Paris Exhibition in 1878 was shown a phaeton built at Rouen, which, according to the official Report, was “the finest small carriage exhibited in the French department for ingenuity and fitness for work.”

[61] Sir Walter Gilbey had a posting brougham built for his own use, which to an even greater extent resembled the old chariot. In this case postilions were used.

[62] “The Patent Dioropha, or two-headed carriage, combining in one a clarence or pilentum coach, complete with all its appointments; a barouche, with folding head and three-fold knee-flap; and an open carriage. The heads can be removed or exchanged with facility by means of a pulley attached to the ceiling of the coach-house, aided by a counterpoise weight.” Vide the Official Catalogue, which also gives illustrations of several Indian carriages, such as the Keron, the rath, a Mahratta carriage from Bengal, and a lady’s carriage from Lahore—the last being a four-wheeled conveyance covered with scarlet and crimson cloth, and shut in with thick curtains.

[63] The only sulky now to be seen in this country is the trotting carriage used in races—a mere skeleton. See also p. 210.

[64] Suspension of Road Carriages. A Paper read before the Institute of British Carriage Manufacturers at York. 1899.