Part 11

“These are to give notice to all Persons that have occasions for Coach Glasses, or Glasses for Sash Windows, that they may be furnished with all sorts, at half the prices they were formerly sold for.”

Twelve inches square cost half a crown, thirty-six inches two pounds ten shillings.

Other advertisements concern the coaches themselves. In Anne’s day calashes, chaizes, both two-and four-wheeled, as well as the larger chariots—these often flamboyantly decorated—were constantly for sale.

“A very fine CHAIZE,” we read, “very well Carved, gilded and painted, and lined with Blue Velvet, and a very good HORSE for it, are to be sold together, or apart.”

“A curious 4-Wheel SHAZE, Crane Neck’d, little the worse for wearing, it is to be used with 1 or 2 Horses, and there is a fine Harness for one Horse, and a Reputable Sumpture Laopard Covering.”

Here then is mention of a four-wheeled chaise with a perch curved in front after the German fashion. Other chaises for sale had only two wheels:—

“At the Greyhound in West Smithfield is to be sold a Two-Wheeled Chaize, with a pair of Horses well match’d: It has run over a Bank and a Ditch 5 Foot High; and likewise through a deep Pit within the Ring at Hide Park, in the presence of several persons of Quality; which are very satisfied it cannot be overturn’d with fair Driving. It is to be Lett for 7s. 6d. a Day, with some Abatement for a longer Time.”

One is reminded of Sir Richard Bulkeley’s wonderful calash. Here was surely a rival. Calashes were now common, though precisely what the difference was between them and the two-wheel chaises I am unable to say. Indeed, there is some confusion also between the small chariots and the four-wheel chaises, and the words seem to have become interchangeable. Both came to resemble the coupé of a later day, being like a modern coach with the front part removed. Sometimes the coachman’s box was on a level with the roof, but often much lower, and sometimes altogether absent, the horses being ridden by a postilion. Probably the carriage was called a chariot when it possessed a coachman’s box, such as was used in town, and a chaise when it was absent.

It was a calash that Squire Morley of Halstead wished for, but did not obtain, in Prior’s ballad of _Down-Hall_, 1715.

“Then answer’d Squire Morley; Pray get a calash, That in summer may burn, and in winter may splash; I love dust and dirt; and ’tis always my pleasure, To take with me much of the soil that I measure.

“But Matthew thought better: for Matthew thought right, And hired a chariot so trim and so tight, That extremes both of winter and summer might pass: For one window was canvas, the other was glass.”

Prior evidently liked the chaises of Holland.

“While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, And in one day atone for the business of six, In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night, On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right: No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move, That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love; For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee: This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, To good or ill-fortune the third we resign: Thus scorning the world and superior to fate, I drive on my car in processional state.”

Another advertisement tells of a gentleman who brought a one-horse calash to an Inn near Hyde Park Corner, took away the horse ten days later, but left his carriage “as a pawn for what was due for the same.” In a while the inn-keeper was advertising the fact that unless the owner claimed it within ten days he should sell the carriage for what it would fetch. A more curious advertisement belonging to this period may be quoted in full:—

“Lost the 26th of February, about 9 a Clock at Night, between the Angel and Crown Tavern in Threadneedle Street, and the end of Bucklers Berry, the side door of a Chariot, Painted Coffee Colour, with a Round Cypher in the Pannel, Lin’d with White Cloath embos’d with Red, having a Glass in one Frame, and White Canvas in another, with Red Strings to both Frames. Whoever hath taken it up are desir’d to bring it to Mr. Jacob’s a Coachmaker at the corner of St. Mary Ax near London Wall, where they shall receive 30s. Reward if all be brought with it; or if offer’d to be Pawn’d or Sold, desire it may be stop’d and notice given, or if already Pawn’d or Sold, their money again.”

At this time, if not before, it became customary for wealthy people to possess coaches used only when they were in mourning. So we have:—

“At Mr. Harrison’s, Coach Maker, in the Broadway, Westminster, is a Mourning Coach and Harness, never used, with a whole Fore Glass, and Two Glasses and all other Materials (the Person being deceased); also a Mourning Chariot, being little used, with all Materials likewise, and a Leather Body Coach, being very fashionable with a Coafoay Lining and 4 Glasses, and several sorts of Shazesses, at very reasonable rates.”

What these reasonable rates were does not appear, but we learn from an agreement made in 1718 between one Hodges, a job-master, and a private gentleman, the cost of hiring a complete equipage. Hodges was to maintain “a coach, chariot, and harness neat and clean, and in all manner of repair at his own charge, not including the wheels, for a consideration of five shillings and sixpence a day—this to include a pair of well-matched horses and a good, sober, honest, creditable coachman.” If extra horses were required for country work, they were to be had for half a crown the pair per day. And if the coachman should break the glass when the coach was empty, Hodges and not the private gentleman should be responsible for the damage.

From another advertisement of about the same time comes the information that the hammercloth of carriages was constantly being stolen. Ashton[37] gives three such advertisements.

“Lost off a Gentleman’s Coach Box a Crimson Coffoy Hammer Cloth, with 2 yellow Laces about it.”

“Lost off a Gentleman’s Coach Box, a Blue Hammer Cloth, trimm’d with a Gold colour’d Lace that is almost turn’d yellow.”

“Lost a Red Shag Hammock Cloth, with white Silk Lace round it, embroider’d with white and blue, and 3 Bulls Heads and a Squirrel for the Coat of Arms.”

The etymology of this hammercloth, which was simply a covering over the coach-box, seems to have puzzled people considerably. Most coachbuilders consider that the box beneath the seat used to contain a hammer and other tools necessary in case of a breakdown, whence the name. The anonymous author of the coach-building articles in the _Carriage Builders’ and Harness-Makers’ Art Journal_ scouts this idea, and suggests that it is merely a corruption of hamper-cloth—the box or chest having originally contained a hamper of provisions. The last advertisement quoted above gives hammock-cloth, which vaguely suggests suspension of a kind. It is perhaps not a very important question.

Advertisements also mention a “_Curtin Coach for 6 People_,” and “a _Chasse marée Coach_,”[38] which was some form of covered waggon; but, unfortunately, I have not been able to discover any information about them.

The State Coaches of this time were as handsome as ever. George I, Mrs. Delaney has recorded, rode in a coach that was “covered with purple cloth; the eight horses the beautifullest creatures of their kind were cream colour”—the custom of using cream-coloured horses still obtains in the State Coach of Great Britain—“the trapping purple silk, and their manes and tails tied with purple riband.” Luttrell in his Diary for May 20th, 1707, says of a foreign coach:—

“Yesterday the Venetian Ambassadors made their public entry thro’ this citty to Somerset House in great state and splendour, their Coach of State embroidered with gold, and the richest that ever was seen in England: they had two with 8 horses, and eight with 6 horses, trimm’d very fine with ribbons, 48 footmen in blew velvet cover’d with gold lace, 24 gentlemen and pages on horseback, with feathers in their hats.”

The Venetians apparently prided themselves on a magnificent display, and four years later Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, was commenting upon their ambassador’s coach again—“the most monstrous, huge, fine, gilt thing that ever I saw,” he says of it. Every possible luxury was commandeered for these State vehicles. One of the Emperors built a coach “studded with gold” for his bride. Another’s consort rode in a carriage “covered with perfumed leather.” The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold had cost 38,000 florins. But the Austrian State Imperial Coach, built in 1696, was perhaps the most gorgeous of all. Immense sums too were being spent on coaches by private individuals. Swift writes on February 6th, 1712: “Nothing has made so great a noise as one Kelson’s chariot, that cost nine hundred and thirty Pounds, the finest was ever seen. The rabble huzzaed him as much as they did Prince Eugene.” Fashion decreed six horses. “I must have Six Horses in my Coach,” says Mrs. Plotwell in the _Beau’s Duel_, “four are fit for those that have a Charge of Children, you and I shall never have any”; and in another of Mrs. Centlivre’s comedies, Lucinda says to Sir Toby Doubtful: “You’ll at least keep Six Horses, Sir Toby, for I wou’d not make a Tour in High Park with less for the World: for me thinks a pair looks like a Hackney.” Abroad even more display was made. “Two coaches,” wrote Lady Mary from Naples in 1740, “two running footmen, four other footmen, a gentleman usher, and two pages, are as necessary here as the attendance of a single servant is at London.”

Nor was carriage-driving confined to the gentry. Every retired tradesman appeared abroad in his coach and aped the noble, a matter which disturbed Sir Richard Steele, who in one of the _Tatlers_ drew attention to the truly lamentable fact that you could not possibly estimate the social position of the occupant of a coach by the appearance of his equipage.

“For the better understanding of things and persons,” he writes, “in this general confusion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and coachpainters in town, to bring me in lists of their several customers; and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in the placing of his arms on the door of his chariot, as well as the words, devices and ciphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us into the nature, if not the history, of mankind, more usefully than the curiosities of any medallist in Europe. It is high time,” he continues, “that I call in such coaches as are in their embellishment improper for the character of their owners. But if I find I am not obeyed herein, and think I cannot pull down those equipages already erected, I shall take upon me to prevent the growth of this evil for the future, by inquiring into the pretensions of the persons, who shall hereafter attempt to make public entries with ornaments and decorations of their own appointment. If a man, who believed he had the handsomest leg in this kingdom, should take a fancy to adorn so deserving a limb with a blue garter, he would be justly punished for offending against the Most Noble Order; and, I think, the general prostitution of equipage and retinue is as destructive to all distinction, as the impertinences of one man, if permitted, would certainly be to that illustrious fraternity.”

The temptation for display must have been great. Nothing attracted the public attention like a fine coach. In the north of Scotland, indeed, any carriage caused the profoundest astonishment.

“I was entertained,” says a contemporary writer, “with the Surprise and Amusement of the Common People when in the year 1725 a Chariot with six monstrous great Horses arrived here by way of the Sea Coast. An Elephant publicly exhibited in the Streets of London could not have excited greater admiration. One asked what the Chariot was; another, who had seen the gentlemen alight, told the first with a Sneer at his Ignorance, it was a great cart to carry people in, and such like.”

And even in Johnson’s day, when there were few coaches to be found in this part of the country, though a lighter vehicle called in old account books a _cheas_ was sometimes used, public astonishment was great. Yet it was in the north of Scotland that military roads were constructed in 1726 and 1737—not particularly good roads, but very necessary—and the first of their kind.

Swift in _Apollo, or a Problem Solved_, satirised the prevailing luxury. Compared with Apollo, he says:—

“No heir upon his first appearance, With twenty thousand pounds a year rents, E’er drove, before he sold his land, So fine a coach along the Strand: The spokes, we are by Ovid told, Were silver, and the axle gold: I own, ’twas but a coach-and-four, For Jupiter allows no more.”

But whether Jupiter allowed it or not, your fashionable dame had six horses put into her coach, and the more grooms in attendance upon her, the better for her reputation as a Person of Quality. There is a good story, by the way, of Swift and a hackney coach. It is told by Leigh Hunt in his essay on _Coaches_.

“He was going,” says Hunt, “one dark evening, to dine with some great man, and was accompanied by some other clergymen, to whom he gave their clue. They were all in their canonicals. When they arrive at the house, the coachman opens the door, and lets down the steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in his black robes; after him comes another personage, equally black and dignified; then another; then a fourth. The coachman, who recollects taking up no greater number, is about to put up the steps, when another clergyman descends. After giving way to this other, he proceeds with great confidence to toss them up, when lo! another comes. Well, there cannot, he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. Down comes a seventh, then an eighth; then a ninth; all with decent intervals; the coach in the meantime rocking as if it were giving birth to so many daemons. The coachman can conclude no less. He cries out ‘The devil! the devil!’ and is preparing to run away, when they all burst into laughter. They had gone round as they descended, and got in at the other door.”

It may be that the private coaches and chariots were rather more comfortable than the hackneys, but nothing, it seems, could equal the tortures which were inflicted upon the unfortunate passengers who were forced to ride in the public carriages.

“When our _Stratford_ Tub,” writes Ned Ward, “by the Assistance of its Carrionly Tits of different colours, had outrun the Smoothness of the Road, and enter’d upon _London_-Stones, with as frightful a Rumbling as an empty _Hay-Cart_, our Leathern-Conveniency[39] being bound in the Braces to its good Behaviour, had no more Sway than a _Funeral Hearse_, or a _Country-Waggon_, that we were jumbled about like so many _Pease_ in a Childs-Rattle, running, at every Kennel-Jolt, a great hazard of a Dislocation: This we endured till we were brought within White-Chappel Bars, where we Lighted from our Stubborn Caravan, with our Elbows and Shoulders as Black and Blew as a _Rural Joan_, that had been under the Pinches of an Angry _Fairy_. Our weary Limbs being rather more Tir’d than Refresh’d, by the Thumps and Tosses of our ill-contriv’d Engine, as unfit to move upon a Rugged Pavement as a Gouty Sinner is to valt o’er _London Bridge_, with his Boots on. For my part, said I, if this be the Pleasure of Riding in a Coach thro’ _London-Streets_, may those that like it enjoy it, for it has loosen’d my Joynts in so short a Passage, that I shall scarce recover my former Strength this Fortnight; and, indeed, of the two, I would rather chuse to cry _Mouse-Traps_ for a Livelihood, than be oblig’d every day to be drag’d about Town under such uneasiness; and if the Qualities Coaches are as troublesome as this, I would not be bound to do their Pennance for their Estates. You must consider, says my Friend, you have not the right Knack of Humouring the Coaches Motion; for there is as much Art in Sitting in a coach finely, as there is in riding the Great Horse; and many a younger Brother has got a good Fortune by his Genteel Stepping in and out, when he pays a Visit to her Ladyship.”

In Fleet Street, it seems, things were very bad. “The Ratling of Coaches,” says Ward, “loud as the _Cataracts_ of _Nile_ Rob’d me of my Hearing, and put my Head into as much disorder as the untunable Hollows of a Rural Mob at a Country _Bull-Baiting_.” More trouble followed later in the day.

“Now, says my Friend, I believe we are not tired with the Labours of the Day; let us therefore Dedicate the latter part purely to our Pleasure, take a Coach and go see _May-Fair_. Would you have me, said I, undergo the Punishment of a Coach again, when you know I was made so great a sufferer by the last, that it made my Bones rattle in my Skin, and has brought as many Pains about me, as if troubled with Rheumatism. That was a Country Coach, says he, and only fit for the Road; but _London_ Coaches are hung more loose to prevent your being Jolted by the Roughness of the Pavement. This Argument of my Friends prevail’d upon me, to venture my Carcase a second Time to be Rock’d in a _Hackney_ Cradle. So we took Leave of the _Temple_, turn’d up without _Temple-Bar_, and there took Coach for the General Rendezvous aforementioned.

“By the help of a great many Slashes and Hey-ups, and after as many Jolts and Jumbles, we were dragg’d to the _Fair_, where our Charioteer had difficulty with his fare—the gay ladies refusing to pay, but one eventually pledging her scarf and taking his number.”

It is to be remembered that at this time, as in the last century, the hackney coaches were used much in the manner of the modern omnibus. You did not necessarily have one to yourself. The same held good with regard to the post-chaises. Advertisements were constantly appearing for a “partner.”

The uneasy motion which so disturbed Ned Ward was a matter which was receiving the attention of carriage-builders, but little enough was done. Yet in England, France and Spain, quite a number of strange machines (including one which was supposed to go without horses) were invented, and had their day, and disappeared into the lumber-room of time. Two in particular, though in the main unsuccessful, deserve mention.

One, properly belonging to the seventeenth century, concerned a new steel spring, patented in 1691 by a Mr. John Green. It was thus advertised:—

“All the nobility and gentry may have the carriages of their coaches made new or the old ones altered, after this invention, at reasonable rates; and hackney and stage coachmen may have licences from the Patentees, Mr. _John Green_ and Mr. _William Dockwra_, his partner, at the rate of 12_d._ per week, to drive the roads and streets, some of which having this week began, and may be known from the common coaches by the words patent Coach being over both doors in carved letters. These coaches are so hung as to render them easier for the passenger and less labour for the horses, the gentleman’s coaches turning in narrow streets and lanes in as little or less room than any French carriage with crane neck, and not one third of the charge. The manner of the coachman’s sitting is more convenient, and the motion like that of a sedan, being free from the tossing and jolting to which other coaches are liable over rough and broken roads, pavements or kennels. These great Conveniences (besides others) are invitation sufficient for all persons that love their own ease and would save their horses draught, to use these sort of carriages and no other, since these carriages need no alteration.”

Here, in addition to the spring, there was some kind of turning head—a question which occupied the attention of designers throughout the next century, but nothing more of Mr. John Green or of his partner was heard of, and his patent coaches found few if any purchasers.

The other contrivance was a primitive form of gear invented by one James Rowe. In 1727 this Rowe wrote a book—not, however, published until 1734—called _All Sorts of Wheel Carriage, Improved_. This was a small tract “wherein is plainly made to appear, that a much less than the usual Draught of Horses, etc., will be required, in Waggons, Carts, Coaches, and all other Wheel Vehicles” by the application of small “friction wheels and pulleys.” Rowe obtained a patent for his gear and apparently applied his small wheels to the axle just within the ordinary wheels, but his own coach was probably the only one ever to be so fitted. It was felt no doubt that the whole question was one of roads rather than of carriages. Improve your roads, and the discomforts of travelling would disappear.

The British stage-coaches of this time were, according to Sir Walter Scott,