EARLY CARRIAGES AND ROADS.

Introduction.

Only some three hundred and fifty years have elapsed since wheeled conveyances for passengers came into use in England; but, once introduced, they rapidly found favour with all classes of society, more especially in cities. The progress of road-making and that of light horse-breeding are so intimately connected with the development of carriages and coaches that it is difficult to dissociate the three. In the early days of wheeled traffic the roads of our country were utterly unworthy of the name, being, more particularly in wet weather, such quagmires that they were often impassable.

Over such roads the heavy carriages of our ancestors could only be drawn by teams of heavy and powerful horses, strength being far more necessary than speed; and for manygenerations the carriage or coach horse was none other than the Great or Shire Horse. Improved roads made rapid travel possible, and the increase of stage coaches created a demand for the lighter and more active harness horses, for production of which England became celebrated.

If comparatively little has been said concerning horses, it is because the writer has already dealt with that phase of the subject in previous works.[1]

[1]The Great Horse, or War Horse; Horses, Past and Present.By Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. (Vinton and Co., Ltd.)

FIRST USE OF WHEELED VEHICLES.

Wheeled vehicles for the conveyance of passengers were first introduced into England in the year 1555. The ancient British war chariot was neither more nor less than a fighting engine, which was probably never used for peaceful travelling from place to place. Carts for the conveyance of agricultural produce were in use long before any wheeled vehicle was adapted for passengers. The ancient laws and institutes of Wales, codified by Howel Dda, who reigned fromA.D.942 to 948,describe the “qualities” of a three-year-old mare as “to draw a car uphill and downhill, and carry a burden, and to breed colts.” The earliest mention of carts in England that some considerable research has revealed is in theCartulary of Ramsay Abbey(Rolls Series), which tells us that on certain manors in the time of Henry I. (1100-1135) there were, among other matters, “three carts, each for four oxen or three horses.”

BADNESS OF EARLY ROADS.

That carriages did not come into use at an earlier period than the sixteenth century is no doubt due to the nature of the cattle tracks and water-courses which did duty for roads in England. These were of such a nature that wheeled traffic was practically impossible for passengers, and was exceedingly difficult for carts and waggons carrying goods.

In old documents we find frequent mention of the impossibility of conveying heavy wares by road during the winter. For example, when HenryVIII. began to suppress the monasteries, in 1537, Richard Bellasis, entrusted with the task of dismantling Jervaulx Abbey, in Yorkshire, refers to the quantity of lead used forroofing purposes, which “cannot be conveyed away till next summer, for the ways in that countrie are so foule and deepe that no carriage (cart) can pass in winter.”

In the Eastern counties, and no doubt elsewhere in England, our ancestors used the water-courses and shallow stream beds as their roads. This is clear to anyone who is at pains to notice the lie and course of old bye-ways; and it is equally clear that a stream when low offered a much easier route to carts, laden or empty, than could be found elsewhere. The beds of the water courses as a general rule are fairly smooth, hard and gravelled, and invited the carter to follow them rather than to seek a way across the wastes. In process of use the banks and sides were cut down by the wheels or by the spade; and eventually the water was diverted into another channel and its old bed was converted into a road.

SAXON VEHICLES AND HORSE LITTERS.

Strutt states that the chariot of the Anglo-Saxons was used by distinguished persons for travel. If the illustrations from which he describes them give a fair idea of their proportions and general construction, they must have been singularly uncomfortableconveyances. The drawing is taken from an illuminated manuscript of the Book of Genesis in the Cotton Library (Claud. B. iv.), which Strutt refers to the ninth century, but which a later authority considers a production of the earlier part of the eleventh. The original drawing shows a figure in the hammock waggon, which figure represents Joseph on his way to meet Jacob on the latter’s arrival in Egypt; this figure has been erased in order to give a clear view of the conveyance, which no doubt correctly represents a travellingcarriage of the artist’s own time, viz.,A.D.1100-1200.

HAMMOCK WAGGON.Supposed to have been in use in England aboutA.D.1100-1200.

HAMMOCK WAGGON.

Supposed to have been in use in England about

A.D.1100-1200.

Horse litters, carried between two horses, one in front and one behind, were used in early times by ladies of rank, by sick persons, and also on occasion to carry the dead. Similar vehicles of a lighter description, carried by men, were also in use.

William of Malmesbury states that the body of William Rufus was brought from the spot where he was killed in the New Forest in a horse-litter (A.D.1100). When King John fell ill at Swineshead Abbey, in 1216, he was carried in a horse-litter to Newark, where he died. For a man who was in good health to travel in such a conveyance was considered unbecoming and effeminate. In recording the death, in 1254, of Earl Ferrers, from injuries received in an accident to his conveyance, Matthew Paris deems it necessary to explain that the Earl suffered from gout, which compelled him to use a litter when moving from place to place. The accident was caused by the carelessness of the driver of the horses, who upset the conveyance while crossing a bridge.

The illustration is copied from a drawing which occurs in a manuscript in the British Museum (Harl. 5256).

Froissart speaks of the English returning “in their charettes” from Scotland after EdwardIII.’s invasion of that country, about 1360; but there is little doubt that the vehicles referred to were merely the baggage carts which accompanied the army used by the footsore and fatigued soldiers.

HORSE LITTER USEDA.D.1400-1500.

The same chronicler refers to use of the “chare” or horse-litter in connection with Wat Tyler’s insurrection in the year 1380:—

“The same day that these unhappy people of Kent were coming to London, there returned from Canterbury the King’s mother, Princess of Wales, coming from her pilgrimage. She was in great jeopardy to have been lost, for these people came to her chare and dealt rudely with her.”

As the chronicler states that the “good lady” came in one day from Canterbury to London, “for she never durst tarry by the way,” it is evident that the chare was a “horse-litter,” the distance exceeding sixty miles.

The introduction of side-saddles by Anne of Bohemia, RichardII.’s Queen, is said by Stow to have thrown such conveyances into disuse: “So was the riding in those whirlicotes and chariots forsaken except at coronations and such like spectacles:” but when the whirlicote or horse-litter was employed for ceremonial occasions it was a thing of great magnificence.

CONTINENTAL CARRIAGES IN THE13THAND14THCENTURIES.

Carriages were in use on the continent long before they were employed in England. In 1294, Philip the Fair of France issued an edict whose aim was the suppression of luxury; under this ordinance the wives of citizens were forbidden to use carriages, and the prohibition appears to have been rigorously enforced. They were used in Flanders during the first half of the fourteenth century; an ancient Flemish chronicle in the British Museum (Royal MSS. 16,F. III.) contains a picture of the flight of Ermengarde, wife of Salvard, Lord of Rouissillon.

THE FLIGHT OF PRINCESS ERMENGARDE.Carriage used about 1300-1350 in Flanders.

THE FLIGHT OF PRINCESS ERMENGARDE.

Carriage used about 1300-1350 in Flanders.

The lady is seated on the floor boards of a springless four-wheeled cart or waggon, covered in with a tile that could be raised or drawn aside; the body of the vehicle is of carved wood and the outer edges of the wheels are painted grey to represent iron tires. The conveyance is drawn by two horses driven by a postillion who bestrides that on the near-side. The traces are apparently of rope, and the outer traceof the postillion’s horse is represented as passing under the saddle girth, a length of leather (?) being let in for the purpose; the traces are attached to swingle-bars carried on the end of a cross piece secured to the base of the pole where it meets the body.

Carriages of some kind appear also to have been used by men of rank when travelling on the continent.The Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land of Henry, Earl of Derby, in 1390 and 1392-3(Camden Society’s Publications, 1894), indicate that the Earl, afterwards King HenryIV. of England, travelled on wheels at least part of the way through Austria.

The accounts kept by his Treasurer during the journey contain several entries relative to carriages; thus on November 14, 1392, payment is made for the expenses of two equerries named Hethcote and Mansel, who were left for one night atSt.Michael, between Leoban and Kniltelfeld, with thirteen carriage horses. On the following day the route lay over such rugged and mountainous country that the carriage wheels were broken despite the liberal use of grease; and at last the narrowness of the way obliged the Earl to exchange his own carriage for two smaller ones better suited to the paths of the district.

The Treasurer also records the sale of an old carriage at Friola for three florins. The exchange of the Earl’s “own carriage” is the significant entry: it seems very unlikely that a noble of his rank would have travelled so lightly that a single cart would contain his own luggage and that of his personal retinue; and it is also unlikely that he used one baggage cart of his own. The record points directly to the conclusion that the carriages were passenger vehicles used by the Earl himself.

CONVEYANCES IN HENRYVI.’s TIME.

It was probably possession of roads unworthy of the name that deterred the English from following the example of their continental neighbours, for forty years later the horse-litter was still the only conveyance used by ladies. On July 13, 1432, King HenryVI. writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Winchester and Durham, and the High Treasurer, in connection with the journeyings of Joan of Navarre, widow of HenryIV.:—

“And because we suppose that she will soon remove from the place where she is now, that ye order for her also horses for two chares and let her remove thence into whatever place within our kingdom that she pleases.”

“CHARIOTS” FIRST USED ON GREAT OCCASIONS.

There is still some little doubt concerning the date when the carriage or coach was first seen in England; but it seems certain that wheeled vehicles of some kind were used on great ceremonial occasions before the coach suitable for ordinary travel came into vogue.

When Catherine of Aragon was crowned with HenryVIII., on June 24, 1509, she was, says Holinshed, conveyed in a litter followed by “chariots covered, with ladies therein.” Similarly when Anne Boleyn passed in state through London she was borne in a litter followed by ladies in a chariot. From these records it is clear that the horse-litter was considered the more dignified conveyance.

The litter used by princesses and ladies of high degree on state occasions was very richly furnished. The poles on which it was supported were covered with crimson velvet, the pillows and cushions with white satin, and the awning overhead was of cloth of gold. The trappings of the horses and dress of the grooms who led them were equally splendid. Ancient records contain minute particulars of the materials purchased for litters on special occasions, andthese show with what luxury the horse-litter of a royal lady was equipped.

In this connection we must note that Markland, in hisRemarks on the Early Use of Carriages in England, discriminates between the “chare” and the horse-litter: the chare gave accommodation to two persons or more and was used for ordinary purposes of travel, and he believes that it ran on wheels; whereas the horse-litter accommodated only one person, and that usually a lady of high rank, on ceremonial occasions.

The chariot was clearly rising in esteem at this period, for when Queen Mary went in state to be crowned in the year 1553, she herself occupied a chariot. It is described as “a chariot with cloth of tissue, drawn with six horses”; and it was followed by another “with cloth of silver and six horses,” in which were seated Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves.

FIRST USE OF CARRIAGES; CALLED COACHES.

We are now come to the period when the coach proper was introduced into England. Stow, in hisSummary of the English Chronicles, says that carriages were not used in England till 1555, when Walter Rippon built one for the Earl of Rutland, “thisbeing the first ever made.” Taylor, the “Water Poet,” in his life of Thomas Parr, states that Parr was 81 years old “before there was any coach in England.” Parr was born in 1483, so the year in which he reached 81 would be 1564; in that year William Boonen, a Dutchman, brought from the Netherlands a coach which was presented to Queen Elizabeth; and Taylor, on Parr’s authority, mentions this as the “first one ever seen here.”

The obvious inference is that Parr had not heard of or (what is more probable considering his advanced age) had forgotten the coach built eleven years earlier for a much less conspicuous person than the sovereign. There is also mention in the Burghley Papers (III., No. 53) quoted by Markland, of Sir T. Hoby offering the use of his coach to Lady Cecil in 1556. It is quite likely that the coach brought by Boonen from the Netherlands served as a model for builders in search for improvements, as we read in Stow’sSummary: “In 1564, Walter Rippon made the firsthollow, turning coach, with pillars and arches, for her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.” What a “hollow, turning” coach may have been it is difficult to conjecture. Drawings of a hundred yearslater than this period show no mechanism resembling a “turning head” or fifth wheel. Captain Malet[2]says that the Queen suffered so much in this vehicle, when she went in it to open Parliament, that she never used it again. The difference between the coach for ordinary travel and the chariot for ceremony is suggested by the next passage in theSummary: “In 1584 he (Rippon) made achariot thronewith four pillars behind to bear a crown imperial on the top, and before, two lower pillars whereon stood a lion and a dragon, the supporters of the arms of England.”

[2]Annals of the Road, London, 1876.

Queen Elizabeth, according to Holinshed, used a “chariot” when she went to be crowned at Westminster in 1558.

COACHES IN FRANCE.

By way of showing how the old authorities differ, mention may be made of the coach which Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, brought from France and presented to the Queen, it is said, in 1580. This vehicle is cited as the first coach ever seen in public but inasmuch as we have ample evidence toprove the last statement incorrect, apart from the fact that the Earl died in 1579, nothing more need be said about it.

France does not seem to have been very far ahead of Britain in the adoption of coaches. In 1550 there were only three in Paris; one belonged to the Queen of FrancisI., another to Diana of Poitiers, and the third to René de Laval, who was so corpulent that he could not ride. Mr. George Thrupp, in hisHistory of the Art of Coach Building(1876), observes that “there must have been many other vehicles in France, but it seems only three covered and suspended coaches.”

COACHES FIRST USED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Queen Elizabeth travelled in a coach, either the one built by Walter Rippon or that brought by Boonen (who, by the way, was appointed her coachman), on some of her royal progresses through the kingdom. When she visited Warwick in 1572, at the request of the High Bailiff she “caused every part and side of the coach to be opened that all her subjects present might behold her, which most gladly they desired.”

The vehicle which could thus be openedon “every part and side” is depicted incidentally in a work executed by Hoefnagel in 1582, which Markland believed to be probably the first engraved representation of an English coach. As will be seen from the reproduction here given, the body carried a roof or canopy on pillars, and the intervening spaces could be closed by means of curtains.

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S TRAVELLING COACH.About the year 1582.

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S TRAVELLING COACH.

About the year 1582.

Queen Elizabeth seems to have preferred riding on a pillion when she could; she rode thus on one occasion from London to Exeter, and again we read of her going in state toSt.Paul’s on a pillion behind her Master of the Horse. Sir Thomas Browne, writing to his son on October 15, 1680, says: “When Queen Elizabeth came to Norwich, 1578, she came on horsebackfrom Ipswich by the high road to Norwich, but she had a coach or two in her train.”

Country gentlemen continued to travel on horseback, though ladies sometimes made their journeys by coach. TheHousehold Bookof the Kytson family of Hengrave in Suffolk contains the following entry under date December 1, 1574: “For the hire of certain horses to draw my mistress’ coach from Whitsworth to London 26 shillings and 8 pence.”

Other entries show that “my mistress” occupied the coach: whence it would appear that not all our country roads in Queen Elizabeth’s time were impassable during the winter, as we might reasonably infer from many contemporary records. The horse-litter, as we may well suppose, was an easier conveyance than the early springless coach: for example, in Hunter’sHallamshirewe find mention of Sir Francis Willoughby’s request in 1589 to the Countess of Shrewsbury to lend her horse-litter and furniture for his wife, who was ill and unable to travel either on horseback or in a coach.

It may be observed here that the latest reference we have found to the use of the horse-litter occurs in theLast Speech of Thomas Pride(Harleian Miscellany): in1680 an accident happened to General Shippon, who “came in a horse-litter wounded to London; when he paused by the brewhouse inSt.John Street a mastiff attacked the horse, and he was tossed like a dog in a blanket.”

Owing no doubt to their patronage by royalty, coaches grew rapidly popular. William Lilly, in a play called “Alexander and Campaspes,” which was first printed in 1584, makes one of his characters complain of those who had been accustomed to “go to a battlefield on hard-trotting horses now riding in easy coaches up and down to court ladies.” Stow, referring to the coach brought to England by Boonen, says:—

“After a while divers great ladies, with as great jealousy of the Queen’s displeasure, made them coaches and rid in them up and down the countries, to the great admiration of all the beholders, but then by little and little they grew usual among the nobilitie and others of sort, and within twenty years became a great trade of coach making.”

This confirms the statement of Lilly above quoted: it is quite clear therefore that, about 1580, coaches had come into general use among the wealthy classes. Their popularity became a source of anxiety to those who saw in the use of a coach the coming degeneracy of men and neglect of horsemanship.

DUKE OF BRUNSWICK, 1588, FORBIDS USE OF COACHES.

In 1588, Julius Duke of Brunswick issued a proclamation forbidding the vassals and servants of his electorate to journey in coaches, but on horseback, “when we order them to assemble, either altogether or in part, in times of turbulence, or to receive their fiefs, or when on other occasions they visit our court.” The Duke expressed himself strongly in this proclamation, being evidently resolved that the vassals, servants and kinsmen who “without distinction young and old havedaredto give themselves up to indolence and to riding in coaches,” should resume more active habits.

The same tendency on the one side and the same feeling on the other in this country led to the introduction of a Bill in Parliament in November, 1601, “to restrain the excessive use of coaches,” but it was rejected. Whereupon:—

“Motion was made by the Lord Keeper, that forasmuch as the said Bill did in some sort concern the maintenance of horses within this realm, consideration might be had of the statutes heretofore made and ordained touching the breed and maintenance of horses. And that Mr. Attorney-general should peruse and consider of the said statutes, and of some fit Bill to be drawn and prefered to the house touchingthe same, and concerning the use of coaches: which motion was approved of the House.”

It does not appear, however, that any steps were taken by the Parliament of the time to check the liberty of those who could afford it to indulge in coaches.

They were probably little used except in London and large towns where the streets afforded better going than country roads: though, as we have seen, Queen Elizabeth took coaches with her when making a progress. The coach seems to have been unknown in Scotland till near the end of the century, for we read that when, in 1598, the English Ambassador to Scotland brought one with him “it was counted a great marvel.”

THE STAGE WAGGON.

About 1564 the early parent of the stage coach made its appearance. Stow says: “And about that time began long waggons to come in use, such as now come to London from Canterbury, Norwich, Ipswich, Gloucester, &c., with passengers and commodities.” These were called “stages”: they were roomy vehicles with very broad wheels which prevented them sinking too deeply into the mud: they travelled very slowly, butwriters of the period make frequent allusions to the convenience they provided. Until the “long waggon” came into use the saddle and pack horse were the only means of travelling and carrying goods: this conveyance was largely used by people of small means until late in the eighteenth century, when stage coaches began to offer seats at fares within the reach of the comparatively poor.

Some confusion is likely to arise when searching old records from the fact that words now in current use have lost their original meaning. Thus in an Act passed in the year 1555 for “The amending of High Ways,” the preamble states that certain highways are “now both very noisome and tedious to travel in and dangerous to all passengers and ‘cariages.’” We might read this to mean vehicles for the conveyance of passengers; but the text (which empowers local authorities to make parishioners give four days’ work annually on the roads where needed) shows us that the “cariage” or “caryage” is identical with the “wayne” or “cart” used in husbandry. “Carriage” is used in the same sense in a similar Act of Elizabeth dated 1571, which requires the local authority to repair certainstreets near Aldgate which “become so miry and foul in the winter time” that it is hard for foot-passengers and “caryages” to pass along them.

THE INTRODUCTION OF SPRINGS.

It is impossible to discover when builders of passenger vehicles first endeavoured to counteract the jolting inseparable from the passage of a primitive conveyance over rough roads by means of springs. Homer tells us that Juno’s car was slung upon cords to lessen the jolting: and the ancient Roman carriages were so built that the body rested on the centre of a pole which connected the front and rear axles, thus reducing the jolt by whatever degree of spring or elasticity the pole possessed.

To come down to later times, Mr. Bridges Adams inEnglish Pleasure Carriages(1837) refers to a coach presented by the King of Hungary to King CharlesVII. of France (1422-1461), the body of which “trembled.” Mr. George Thrupp considers that this probably indicates a coach-body hung on leather straps or braces, and was a specimen of the vehicle then in use in Hungary. At Coburg several ancient carriages are preserved: one of those built in 1584 for themarriage ceremony of Duke John Casimir, the Elector of Saxony, is hung on leather braces from carved standard posts which, says Mr. Thrupp, “are evidently developed from the standards of the common waggon. The body of this coach is six feet four inches long and three feet wide: the wheels have wooden rims, but over the joints of the felloes are small plates of iron about ten inches long.”

In regard to these iron plates it will be remembered that the wheels of the coach represented in the “Flemish Chronicle” of the first half of the fourteenth century referred to on pp. 8-9, is furnished with complete iron tires. Neither this vehicle, nor that of Queen Elizabeth, a sketch of which is given on p. 17 are furnished with braces of any kind. It would not be judicious to accept these drawings as exactly representing the construction of the carriages, but if the artist has given a generally accurate picture it is difficult to see how or where leather braces could have been applied to take the dead weight of the coach body off the under-carriage.

STEEL SPRINGS INTRODUCED.

Mr. Thrupp states that steel springs were first applied to wheel carriages about1670,[3]when a vehicle resembling a Sedan chair on wheels, drawn and pushed by two men, was introduced into Paris. This conveyance was improved by one Dupin, who applied two “elbow springs” by long shackles to the front axle-tree which worked up and down in a groove under the seat. The application of steel springs to coaches drawn by horses was not generally practised until long afterwards: in 1770 Mons. Roubo, a Frenchman, wrote a treatise on carriage building, from which we learn that springs were by no means universally employed.

[3]See page 84.

When used, says Mr. Thrupp,

“They were applied to the four corners of a perch carriage and placed upright, and at first only clipped in the middle to the posts of the earlier carriages, while the leather braces went from the tops of the springs to the bottoms of the bodies without any long iron loops such as we now use; and as the braces were very long we find that complaints were made of the excessive swinging and tilting and jerking of the body. The Queen’s coach is thus suspended. Four elbow springs, as we should call them, were fastened to the bottom of the body, but again the ends did not project beyond the bottom, and the braces were still far too long; and Mons. Roubo doubts whether springs were much use.”

The doubt concerning the value of springswas shared in this country; for Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, in hisEssay on the Construction of Roads and Carriages(1817), tells us that in 1768 he discovered that springs were as advantageous to horses as to passengers, and constructed a carriage for which the Society of English Arts and Manufactures presented him with a gold medal. In this carriage the axletrees were divided and the motion of each wheel was relieved by a spring.

Travel in a springless coach over uneven streets and the roughest of roads could not have been a sufficiently luxurious mode of progress to lay the traveller open to charge of effeminacy. Taylor, the Water Poet, was no doubt biased in favour of the watermen, but he probably exaggerated little when he wrote, in 1605, of men and women “so tost, tumbled, jumbled and rumbled” in the coach of the time.

THE FIRST HACKNEY COACHES.

It was in the year 1605 that hackney coaches came into use; for several years these vehicles did not stand or “crawl” about the streets to be hired, but remained in the owners’ yards until sent for. In 1634 the first “stand” was established inLondon, as appears from a letter written by Lord Stafford to Mr. Garrard in that year:—

“I cannot omit to mention any new thing that comes up amongst us though ever so trivial. Here is one Captain Bailey, he hath been a sea captain, but now lives on land about this city where he tries experiments. He hath created, according to his ability, some four hackney coaches, put his men into livery and appointed them to stand at the Maypole in the Strand, giving them instructions at what rate to carry men into several parts of the town where all day they may be had. Other hackney men veering this way, they flocked to the same place and performed their journeys at the same rate so that sometimes there is twenty of them together which dispose up and down, that they and others are to be had everywhere, as watermen are to be had at the waterside.”

Lord Stafford adds that everybody is much pleased with the innovation. It may here be said, on the authority of Fynes Morryson, who wrote in 1617, that coaches were not to be hired anywhere but in London at that time. All travel (save in the slow long waggons) was performed on horseback, the “hackney men”[4]providing horses at from 2½d. to 3d. per mile for those who did not keep their own.

[4]SeeHorses Past and Present, by Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. Vinton & Co., 1900.

The number of coaches increased rapidlyduring the earlier part of the seventeenth century.

EXCESSIVE NUMBER OF COACHES IN LONDON.

The preamble of a patent granted Sir Saunders Duncombe in 1634 to let Sedan chairs refers to the fact that the streets of London and Westminster “are of late time so much encumbered and pestered with the unnecessary multitude of coaches therein used”; and in 1635 CharlesI. issued a proclamation on the subject. This document states that the “general and promiscuous use” of hackney coaches in great numbers causes “disturbance” to the King and Queen personally, to the nobility and others of place and degree; “pesters” the streets, breaks up the pavements and cause increase in the prices of forage. For which reasons the use of hackney coaches in London and Westminster and the suburbs is forbidden altogether, unless the passenger is making a journey of at least three miles. Within the city limits only private coaches were allowed to ply, and the owner of a coach was required to keep four good horses or geldings for the king’s service.

HACKNEY COACHES IN LONDON, 1637.

This proclamation evidently produced the desired effect, for in 1637 there were onlysixty hackney carriages in London: the majority of these were probably owned by James Duke of Hamilton, Charles’ Master of the Horse, to whom was granted in July of that year power to license fifty hackney coachmen in London, Westminster and the suburbs, and “in other convenient places”; and this notwithstanding the fact that in 1636 the vehicles “in London, the suburbs and within four-mile compass without are reckoned to the number of six thousand and odd.”[5]

[5]Coach and Sedan Pleasantly Disputing for Place and Precedence, the Brewer’s Cart being Moderator.Published at London by Robert Raworth for John Crooch in 1636.

CharlesI. can hardly have shared the dislike exhibited by some of his subjects to wheel passenger traffic, for in 1641 we find him granting licenses for the importation of horses and enjoining licensees to importcoachhorses, mares, and geldings not under 14 hands high and between the ages of three and seven years.

HACKNEY CARRIAGES AND THE THAMES WATERMEN.

The number of cabs, then called hackney coaches, soon produced an effect upon the earnings of the Thames watermen, who,until these vehicles were introduced, enjoyed the monopoly of passenger traffic. Thomas Dekker[6]refers to the resentment felt by the watermen in 1607, two years after the hackney couch made its appearance:—

“The sculler told him he was now out of cash, it was a hard time; he doubts there is some secret bridge made over to hell, and that they steal thither in coaches, for every justice’s wife and the wife of every citizen must be jolted now.”

[6]A Knight’s Conjuring Done in Earnest.By Thomas Dekker. London: 1607.

There seems to have been good reason for the preference given the hackney coach over the waterman’s wherry. The preamble of an Act passed in 1603 “Concerning Wherrymen and Watermen” shows that the risks attending a trip on the Thames were not inconsiderable, and that love of novelty was not the only motive which caused the citizens of London to take the hackney coach instead of the wherry. This Act forbade the employment of apprentices under 18 years of age, premising that:—

“It hath often happened that divers and sundry people passing by water upon the River of Thames between Windsor and Gravesend have been put to great hazard and danger of the loss of their lives and goods, and many times have perished and been drowned in the said River through the unskilfulnessand want of knowledge or experience in the wherrymen and watermen.”

In 1636, when, as we have seen, there were over 6,000 coaches, private and hackney, in London, Sedan chairs also were to be hired in the streets; and the jealousy with which the hackney coachman regarded the chairman was only equalled by the jealousy with which the waterman regarded them both. We quote from “Coach and Sedan,” the curious little publication before referred to:—

“Coaches and Sedans (quoth the waterman) they deserve both to be thrown into the Thames, and but for stopping the Channel I would they were, for I am sure where I was wont to have eight or ten fares in a morning, I now scarce get two in a whole day. Our wives and children at home are ready to pine, and some of us are fain for means to take other professions upon us.”

HACKNEY CARRIAGES A NUISANCE IN LONDON.

By the year 1660, the number of hackney coaches in London had again grown so large that they were described in a Royal Proclamation as “a common nuisance,” while their “rude and disorderly handling” constituted a public danger. For these reasons the vehicles were forbidden to stand in the streets for hire, and the drivers were directed to stay in the yards until theymight be wanted. We can well understand that the narrowness of the streets made large numbers of coaches standing, or “crawling,” to use the modern term, obstacles to traffic; and it is interesting to notice that the earliest patent granted in connection with passenger vehicles (No. 31 in 1625) was to Edward Knapp for a device (among others) to make the wheels of coaches and other carriages approach to or recede from each other “where the narrowness of the way may require.”

LICENSED HACKNEY CARRIAGES.

In 1662, there were about 2,490 hackney coaches in London, if we may accept the figures given by John Cressel in a pamphlet, which we shall consider on a future page. It was in this year that CharlesII. passed a law appointing Commissioners with power to make certain improvements in the London streets. One of the duties entrusted to them was that of reducing the number of hackney coaches by granting licenses; and only 400 licenses were to be granted.

These Commissioners grossly abused the authority placed in their hands, wringing bribes from the unfortunate persons who applied for licenses, and carrying out theirtask with so little propriety that in 1663 they were indicted and compelled to restore moneys they had wrongfully obtained. In regard to this it is to be observed that one of the 400 hackney coach licenses sanctioned by the Act was a very valuable possession. We learn from a petition submitted by the hackney coachmen to Parliament that holders of these licenses, which cost £5 each, sold them for £100. The petition referred to is undated, but appears to have been sent in when WilliamIII.’s Act to license 700 hackney coaches (passed in 1694) was before Parliament.

The bitterness of the watermen against Sedan chairs seems to have died out by Pepys’ time, but it was still hot against the hackney coaches, as a passage in theDiarysufficiently proves. Proceeding by boat to Whitehall on February 2, 1659, Samuel Pepys talked with his waterman and learned how certain cunning fellows who wished to be appointed State Watermen had cozened others of their craft to support an address to the authorities in their favour. According to Pepys’ informant, nine or ten thousand hands were set to this address (the men were obviously unable to read or write)“when it was only told them that it was a petition against hackney coaches.”

COACHES WITH “BOOTS.”

FromCoach and Sedan(see page 30), we obtain a quaint but fairly graphic description of the coach of this period:—

“The coach was a thick, burly, square-set fellow in a doublet of black leather, brasse button’d down the breast, back, sleeves and wings, with monstrous wide boots, fringed at the top with a net fringe, and a round breech (after the old fashion) gilded, and on his back an atchievement of sundry coats [of arms], in their proper colours.”

COACH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S LADIES.Showing near-side “Boot.”

COACH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S LADIES.

Showing near-side “Boot.”

The “boots” were projections at the sides of the body between the front and back wheels, as shown in the drawing of the coach occupied by Queen Elizabeth’s ladies; and there is much evidence to support the opinion that these boots were not covered.Taylor inThe World Runnes on Wheelesdescribes the boot with picturesque vigour:—

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