Part 1
Transcriber’s Notes
Hyphenation has been standardised.
Footnotes were moved to the ends of the text they pertain to and numbered in one continuous sequence.
EARLY CARRIAGES AND ROADS
BY SIR WALTER GILBEY, Bart.
ILLUSTRATED
London VINTON & CO., Ltd., 9, NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C.
1903
_The use of carriages, coaches and wheeled conveyances have had an intimate relationship with the social life of English people from an early period in history._
_Many instructive books have appeared on the subject of carriages generally, but these have been for the most part written by experts in the art of coach and carriage building._
_In this publication, attention has been given to the early history of wheeled conveyances in England and their development up to recent times._
_Elsenham Hall, Essex._ _April, 1903._
CONTENTS.
PAGE Introduction 1
First Use of Wheeled Vehicles 2
Badness of Early Roads 3
Saxon Vehicles and Horse Litters 4
Continental Carriages in the 13th and 14th Centuries 8
Conveyances in Henry VI.’s Time 11
“Chariots” First Used on Great Occasions 12
First Use of Carriages: called Coaches 13
Coaches in France 15
Coaches First Used by Queen Elizabeth 16
Duke of Brunswick, 1588, Forbids Use of Coaches 20
The Stage Waggon 21
The Introduction of Springs 23
Steel Springs Introduced 24
The First Hackney Coaches 26
Excessive Number of Coaches in London 28
Hackney Carriages and the Thames Watermen 30
Hackney Carriages a Nuisance in London 32
Licensed Hackney Carriages 33
Coaches with “Boots” 35
Carriages in Hyde Park 38
Coach and Cart Racing 40
Regulations for Hackney Carriages 41
Pepys on Carriages 43
Glass Windows in Carriages 45
Improvements in Carriages 47
Pepys’ Private Carriage 50
Carriage Painting in Pepys’ Day 52
The First Stage Coaches 54
Objections Raised to Stage Coaches 56
Seventeenth Century High Roads 62
Hackney Cabs as a Source of Revenue 66
Manners of the Cabman 69
Cab-driving a Lucrative Occupation 70
Coaches and Roads in Queen Anne’s Time 73
Coaching in George I.’s and II.’s Reigns 74
Dean Swift on Coaches and Drivers 76
Roads in the 18th Century 78
Speed of the 18th Century Stage Coach 80
The Application of Springs 84
Outside Passengers 87
Roads in George III.’s Time 88
Improvements in Stage Coaches 90
The Mail Coach 91
Regulations for Mail and Stage Coaches 94
Mail Coach Parade on the King’s Birthday 95
The Mail Coachman and Guard 97
“The Road” in Winter 100
Passenger Fares 102
Difference Between Stage and Mail Coach 102
The “Golden Age” of Coaching 104
Fast Coaches 106
Heavy Taxation of Coaches 111
Early Cabs 112
Private and Stage Coaches, 1750-1830 116
Varieties of Carriage 120
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
“Going to Bury Fair” _Frontispiece_
Hammock Waggon 5
Horse Litter 7
Flight of Princess Ermengarde 9
Queen Elizabeth’s Travelling Coach 17
Hackney Coaches in London, 1637 29
Coach of Queen Elizabeth’s Ladies 35
The Machine, 1640-1700 Face 56
Mr. Daniel Bourn’s Roller Wheel Waggon, 1763 79
Travelling Posting Carriage (1), 1750 83
Travelling Posting Carriage (2), 1750 85
Portrait of Mr. John Palmer Face 92
Portrait of Mr. Macadam 104
Royal Mail Coach 108
London Hackney Cab (Boulnois’ Patent) 115
Travelling Post, 1825-35 Face 118
King George IV. in His Pony Phaeton 120
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 many generations 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 from A.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 the _Cartulary 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 Henry VIII. 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 for roofing 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 uncomfortable conveyances. 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 travelling carriage of the artist’s own time, viz., 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 Edward III.’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.
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, Richard II.’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 THE 13TH AND 14TH CENTURIES.
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 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 trace of 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 Henry IV. 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 at St. 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 HENRY VI.’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 Henry VI. 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 Henry IV.:—
“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 Henry VIII., 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, and these show with what luxury the horse-litter of a royal lady was equipped.
In this connection we must note that Markland, in his _Remarks 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 his _Summary of the English Chronicles_, says that carriages were not used in England till 1555, when Walter Rippon built one for the Earl of Rutland, “this being 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’s _Summary_: “In 1564, Walter Rippon made the first _hollow, 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 years later 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 the _Summary_: “In 1584 he (Rippon) made a _chariot throne_ with 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 to prove 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 Francis I., 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 his _History 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 opened on “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 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 to St. 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 horseback from 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. The _Household Book_ of 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’s _Hallamshire_ we 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.