Part 19

It is curious to note, by the way, that for a short time such coaches were hardly made at all, and the Report on the carriages shown at the London Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the “revival of an almost obsolete carriage, the four-in-hand coach, which had taken place within a few years.” This was undoubtedly due to the founding in 1856 of the Four-in-Hand Driving Club.

Nor was this revival confined to England. In the official _Reports upon Carriages_ at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, Mr. G. F. Budd draws attention to the fact that “the French have closely adhered to the English styles in the general design and shape of the bodies of their vehicles, especially in broughams ... landaus ... and drags. In the latter description of carriage, which has become so popular during the last few years, though it is peculiarly an English carriage, the style has been closely followed, and with such considerable success, that the French builders now appear as our formidable rivals in this branch of the manufacture.” “A novelty,” he continues, “in the design ... consists in the roof being so constructed as to admit of being opened in the centre ... a cover is placed on the top of the two portions of the head thus opened, and so forms, to all appearance, an ordinary luncheon-case with the ends open: it thus serves the purpose of a table when required ... and affords an increase of ventilation to those riding inside the vehicle.” Similarly in America drags began to be built after the establishment of a driving club. These are identical with the English models.

With regard to the other four-wheeled carriages, we have now arrived at a period when it is almost impossible to speak at any length of each particular kind.[56] For in the first place such a classification as I have used to describe the older vehicles must to a large extent break down, and in the second place, from the time when the great exhibitions did so much to make the manufacturers of all nations familiar with each other’s work, nearly every coachbuilder of standing has produced one model, if not more, peculiar to itself. So, in the middle of last century, you had carriages which approximated to the barouche, yet which had been evolved indirectly from so different a vehicle as the phaeton. You saw carriages, obviously dissimilar in appearance, yet bearing, to the layman, the same name. You had new combinations of perches and springs. And carriages were being exported from one country to be improved upon the lines most suitable to the roads and tastes of another.

Of all these carriages perhaps the two which deserve most mention are the _landau_ and the _victoria_, both open carriages, which can be closed at will.

The _landau_, as I have said, had originally been a coach made to open. At the beginning of the century it had hardly been so popular as the _landaulet_, but at this time it underwent several improvements at the hands of Mr. Luke Hopkinson, a celebrated coachbuilder of Holborn. It was Hopkinson who first built what was known as a _briska-landau_, but he chiefly concerned himself not so much with the shape of the carriage-body as with the hood. He built his new landaus in such a way as to allow the hood to be folded, so that it lay horizontally at the back of the seat. At the same time the floor and the seats were raised so as to make the whole carriage a far more spacious and comfortable vehicle than had been possible when the hood could not be completely opened.[57] And with the hood entirely “down” you had practically the landau of to-day, possibly the commonest carriage on the road. Nearly every “fly” which so often is to be seen standing rather forlornly outside the village station as your train thunders past is a landau modelled on Hopkinson’s designs. He was not, however, the only coachbuilder whose attention was being given to this useful carriage. Of one of the new landaus built by other firms a trade journal of the day observed with some truth that “its graceful outline and roominess” made it “the very beau-ideal of vehicular luxury.” And as the years passed the landau in its several varieties increased in popularity. Improvements tended almost solely in the direction of lightness. The Report on the carriages at the exhibition of 1862 pays particular attention to the landau. “The demand for them,” it runs, “has ... increased. They are well suited to the variable climate of the British Isles, as they can readily be changed from an open to a closed carriage and vice versa.” At a later exhibition—in 1885—the landau[58] had become so popular that there was actually shown one, built for the Earl of Sefton, suited to the capabilities of a single horse. This was an important departure from tradition which seems to have shocked some of the old-fashioned designers. “That an established house with an aristocratic connection,” lamented one trade paper at the time, “should exhibit a landau for one horse would have been considered incredible twenty years ago.” No doubt this was true, but people persisted in their desire for light carriages, and a one-horse landau was the natural outcome. At a later date there was a tendency to alter the shape of the body. Hitherto this had generally been angular; now the lines became curving, the body, looked at from the side, forming the arc of a huge circle. Such a carriage was known as the _canoe landau_. To-day the canoe bodies, both in England and abroad, are made rather deeper than at the time of their introduction, but the square shape still persists. If there is one English vehicle which may be called the favourite carriage it is surely the landau.

The earlier history of the _victoria_, the landau’s chief rival, is rather obscure. As I have mentioned, the once popular _cab-phaeton_ was still to be seen in the ’forties in many continental cities as the _milord_, which from a most aristocratic vehicle had descended into the realms of hackdom. An English coachbuilder, however, Mr. J. C. Cooper, saw possibilities in such a vehicle and prepared a series of designs. His drawings were scornfully treated in England, but “found favour in the eyes of his continental clients,” who about 1845 constructed from them a four-wheeled cabriolet with seats for two. This small open carriage was copied in more than one place, particularly, it would seem, in Paris and Vienna. Whether these copies were still called _milords_ I am not sure, but in 1856 they seem to have been described as _victorias_. In the meantime the pony phaeton had become popular in England, and in 1851 a new model designed for Her Majesty was, according to Stratton, also called a victoria.

“In the summer of 1851,” he writes, “a unique little pony phaeton was built by Mr. Andrews, of Southampton, for the Queen. The original announcement stated that when the carriage was delivered in front of the palace in the Isle of Wight, ‘the Queen and Prince expressed to Mr. Andrews their entire satisfaction with the style, elegance, and extraordinary lightness and construction of the carriage,’ which scarcely weighed three hundredweight. The height of the fore wheels is only eighteen inches, and of the hind ones thirty inches. The phaeton is cane-bodied, of George IV style, with movable head; the fore part is iron, but very light and elegant and beautifully painted. This carriage is known as the victoria, and has since been much improved in England and America.”

Mr. Stratton is probably right; but it was the French-built carriage which the then Prince of Wales brought to England in 1869 to which the name may be more correctly ascribed. It is to be noticed, however, that the pony phaeton and the victoria proper differ from one another only in size and in the presence or absence of a driver’s seat. The Prince of Wales’s carriage was curved in shape and hooded, but about the same time Baron Rothschild imported a victoria from Vienna of the square shape. Both forms persist. At first, of course, the victoria was looked on with suspicion, but the Princess of Wales speedily showed her liking for it—it did indeed make an ideal lady’s carriage—and in a short while the world followed suit. “Light, low, easy, fit for one horse, and looking very well behind a pair of cobs,” remarks Thrupp, “it is not surprising that the victoria meets with so much patronage.” At first it would seem that the hood was not made to lie flat, a fact amongst others which prompted a caustic critic in 1877 to grumble at the conservatism of English manufacturers. “Even with so good a model of this carriage as that presented to them in the victoria,” he wrote, “the English builders do not see fit to maintain the same lines, and for some inscrutable reason deem that the hood when down should rest at an angle; whereas the ‘cachet’ of the Parisian equipages lies in the absolute straight line it maintains with the horizon.” Only a few years later, however, another critic was drawing attention to the superiority of the English victoria over its French counterpart. “Their rattle,” he wrote of the latter, “is enough to distinguish them. The French victoria is a low-mounted and decidedly unsymmetrical machine. The pole [is] a foot longer than it should be, the splinter bar and fore carriage too low”—a criticism which holds good to-day with most of the Italian carriages of this type.

Varieties of the victoria were constructed almost as soon as the carriage had reached to any degree of popularity. A hinge-seat was fitted into the front boot to face the ordinary seat, and this not proving enough, a permanent seat for two was built in its place, this innovation giving rise to the double victoria, which was built with or without doors. I need not, perhaps, dwell further on the victoria, except to observe that such changes as took place in the landau also took place in its more delicate rival.

Another open carriage which remained popular until the introduction of automobiles is the phaeton. Sir Walter Gilbey mentions several varieties. Of these the largest seems to have been the mail phaeton.

“It was a favourite carriage,” he writes, “seventy years ago or more, and was frequently used by gentlemen for long posting journeys in England and on the Continent. In these days this carriage was always built with a perch, the undercarriage resembling that of a coach, whence its name. For a time elliptical springs were adopted, but during the last ten years the fashionable mail phaeton has been a solid-looking square-bodied vehicle on its old undercarriage.”

In 1889, he also observes that a jointed perch was used, the object being “to prevent the vehicle being twisted on bad roads, and also to preserve its equilibrium under trying conditions of roads.” The _demi mail phaeton_, to which Sir Walter gives the credit of having ousted the ugly _perch high phaeton_ from public favour, “derives its names from the peculiar arrangement of the springs in the construction of the undercarriage.” Another variety, the _Beaufort phaeton_, is large enough to carry six people, and was, in the first place, expressly designed to carry people to the meet. Yet another modification, the _Stanhope phaeton_, invented by the peer of that name, is smaller than the last-mentioned, and has achieved a world-wide popularity. “The head and apron render it suitable for winter work, and when the hood is thrown back the stanhope is an admirable vehicle for summer use whether in town or country.” The _T-cart_ is a smaller _stanhope_ “with compassed rail and sticked body in front and a seat for the groom behind.” Sir Walter records the fact that its greatest popularity was about 1888, after which it was supplanted by the _spider phaeton_—a “tilbury body on four wheels with a small seat for the groom supported on branched irons behind.”

It would be possible to mention half a dozen other varieties of the phaeton,[59] but such a list is best relegated to a coachbuilder’s catalogue. There is only one innovation which should not be allowed to pass unnoticed here. Many of the phaeton bodies during the ’sixties were constructed of basket-work; indeed, Croydon, where lived the inventor, received all the benefits which a new industry brings in its trail, but the popularity of these basket-carriages waned as rapidly as it had waxed—due, according to one writer, to the ridicule heaped upon them by _Punch_. A revival was attempted in 1886, and “we have a reminiscence of it in the imitation cane-work painted on the panels of many carriages” at a still later date.[60]

We come to the closed carriages.

The _brougham_ was undergoing about as many changes and improvements as fell to the lot of any other carriage, yet superficially it maintained much the same appearance. The coupé brougham so popular to-day is the relic of the old chariot.[61] Of its several varieties the best-known is, or rather was—for it is rarely, if ever, seen now—the _clarence_. “It was introduced,” says Sir Walter, “about the year 1842 by Messrs. Laurie and Marner, of Oxford Street, and has fairly been described as “midway between a brougham and a coach.” It had very curved and rather fanciful lines, seated four persons inside, and was entered by one step from the ground, carried the coachman and footman on a low driving seat, and was used with a lighter pair of horses than the family coach.” Certain models, however, show the driver’s seat to have been high, on a level, that is to say, with the roof; and not long after the first clarence was designed, Lytton Bulwer caused to be built what was called a _Surrey clarence_, which possessed a hammercloth. The attempt, however, to produce a miniature chariot did not succeed. Another variety, named uncomfortably the _dioropha_, was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851.[62] Here the side windows would slide up and down upon a new principle, and “the whole upper part of the body from the elbow-line could be lifted from the lower, leaving a barouche body.” You were shown models of this upper portion hanging rather forlornly from the roof of a coach-house. But improvements in the landau caused the extinction of the _dioropha_, which does not seem to have been built after 1875. The _amempton_, invented by a Mr. Kesterton, was a smaller form of this carriage. The one-horse “growler” or “four-wheeler,” by the way, which still wanders up and down the streets of London, is the lineal descendant of the _clarence_.

Of the more unconventional four-wheeled carriages, the waggonette seems to have been introduced about 1845 by the Prince Consort after a German model, though one writer gives the credit of the design to the Prince himself. Here, as every one knows, the seats faced each other at right-angles to the driver’s seat, the door being at the back. At first they were built very large—to carry out the original intention of providing a _family_ carriage which should really be worthy of the name. Afterwards smaller models were produced, and proved equally popular. “The principle of riding sideways,” remarks Thrupp, “was not new. The Irish car, the four-wheeled Inside car of the Westmorland district, the old Break, and the Omnibus all contributed to the design of the modern vehicle.” A few particular varieties may be mentioned. The now forgotten _perithron_, a Suffolk invention, was a waggonette in which the driving seat was bisected down its centre, so as to allow a passenger entering from the back to reach the front seat. The _Portland waggonette_, built for the Duke of Portland in 1893, was a large carriage with a folding hood. Another carriage of the kind with a folding leather hood was presented by Lord Lonsdale to the King and Queen at the time of their wedding. This is known as a _Lonsdale waggonette_. “Lord Lonsdale,” remarks Sir Walter Gilbey, “allowed his name to be given to this device under the impression that he was the first to originate a head of this description; but his claim for invention of it was disputed at the time. Mr. Robertson stated that he had built such a waggonette so far back as 1864; Mr. Kinder had built one in 1865; and Messrs. Morgan stated that they had turned out a similar vehicle before the year 1870.” A very large waggonette, the _brake_, is a common enough object to-day, and is built in various forms. Sometimes a second seat is placed directly behind and parallel to the driver’s seat. In some models these seats stretch back throughout the length of the carriage, in which case it is a _char-à-banc_. Awnings, permanent or temporary, are generally provided.

In America the commonest four-wheeled carriage is the light _wagon_ or _buggy_, a name given in England to a light two-wheeled, single-seated cart (also called a sulky[63]) towards the end of the eighteenth century. The _buggy_ has one seat fixed on to a long, shallow tray; the _wagon_ is similar, but has two or more seats.

“These American waggons,” says Thrupp, “were modelled from the old German waggon, but they have been so much improved as to be scarcely recognised. The distinctive feature of the German waggon was a light, shallow tray, suspended above a slight perch carriage on two grasshopper springs placed horizontally and parallel with and above the front and hind axle-tree; on the tray one or two seats were placed, the whole was light and inexpensive, and well adapted to a new, rough country without good roads. These waggons may still be found in Germany and Switzerland....

“American ingenuity was lavished upon these waggons, and they have arrived at a marvel of perfection in lightness. The two grasshopper springs have been replaced with two elliptical springs. The perch, axle-trees, and carriage timbers have been reduced to thin sticks. The four wheels are made so slender as to resemble a spider’s web; in their construction of the wheels the principle of the patent rim used in England in 1790 has been adopted. Instead of five, six, or seven felloes to each wheel, there are only two, of oak or hickory wood, bent to the shape by steam. The ironwork of the American buggy is very slender, yet composed of many pieces, and, in order to reduce the cost, these pieces of iron are mostly cast, not forged, of a sort of iron less brittle than our cast iron.... The weight of the whole waggon is so small that one man can lift it upon its wheels again if accidentally upset, and two persons of ordinary strength can raise it easily from the ground. The four wheels are nearly of the same height, and the body is suspended centrally between them. There are no futchels; the pole or shafts are attached to the front axle-tree bed, and the front of the pole is carried by the horses just as they carry the shafts; the splinter-bar and whipple-trees are attached to the pole on swivels. Some are made without hoods and some with hoods. These are made so that the leather of the sides can be taken off and rolled up, and the back leather removed, rolled, or fixed at the bottom, a few inches away from the back, the roof remaining as a sunshade....

“The perfection to which the American buggy or waggon has been carried, and every part likely to give way carefully strengthened, is marvellous. Those made by the best builders will last a long time without repair. The whole is so slender and elastic that it ‘gives’—to use a trade term—and recovers itself at any obstacle. The defect in English eyes of these carriages consists in the difficulty of getting in or out by reason of the height of the front wheel, and its proximity to the hind wheel—it is often necessary partly to lock round the wheel to allow of easy entrance. There is also a tremulous motion on a hard road which is not always agreeable. It is not surprising that, with the great advantages of extreme lightness, ease, and durability, and with lofty wheels, the American waggons travel with facility over very rough roads, and there is a great demand for them in our colonies. It must be remembered that the price is small, less than the price of our gigs and four-wheeled dog-carts.”

Indeed, the tourist in America will come away with the impression that there is hardly a family in the continent which does not possess at least one buggy or waggon. They can be driven, too, at a very great pace. In this connection it is interesting to notice that it was a buggy which Lord Lonsdale selected in order to carry out his great driving feat in 1891, when “he undertook to drive four stages of five miles within an hour, using for the first three stages one, a pair, a team, and riding postilion in the fourth.”

There are, of course, many varieties, several invented after Thrupp wrote the above account. Of these some are peculiar to a particular State, while others seem to be in general use throughout the continent. In Chicago, for instance, and other towns of the middle west, the commonest buggy seems to be the _bike wagon_, of which a variety is the _cut-under bike wagon_, where the tray is double—the seat forming a bridge between its two parts.

Stanhopes and phaetons are also manufactured in America, though on a much lighter scale than in England. Another popular American carriage is the _surrey_, which has the two-seated arrangements of the larger waggons, but is without the tray. The _station wagon_, very popular in New England, resembles the old English chariot, and differs from it only in its driving seat, which is on a level with the inside seat and directly against the front lines of the carriage-body. This is one of the most comfortable carriages in the country. The _buckboard_, even slenderer than the buggy, is hardly more than the skeleton of a carriage, but seems none the less popular on that account. The _barge_ is the name given in Massachusetts to a two-seated waggon, and the word has a curious origin. It seems probable that it is a relic of the days when in that part of the country the boat sleighs used in the winter were put upon wheels in the summer. At a later date ordinary waggons were used for summer traffic, but the old name stuck. And I dare say there are a dozen or more local names of some peculiarity in other parts of America which to-day are given to carriages not in the least like those to which the name was originally applied.

Coming to the two-wheeled carriages, we find similar changes to those described above showing themselves. The old curricle, for instance, is now but rarely seen, its place being taken by one or other of the dog-carts. What was probably the most fashionable of these carriages during the early Victorian era is now practically extinct. This was the _cabriolet_, rather different in appearance from the vehicles of that name which had plied for hire but a few years before, yet built on the same principles as the earliest French gigs.

“They were greatly improved,” wrote Mr. G. N. Hooper in 1899,[64] “about fifty years ago by the well-known Count D’Orsay and the late Mr. Charles B. Courtney, who greatly refined the outlines and proportions, making them lighter, more compact, and far more stylish. They became _par excellence_ the equipage of the _jeune noblesse_, and no more stylish two-wheel carriages for one horse were driven for many years while they were fashionable. A large, well-bred horse was a necessity, and this the cabriolet generally had.