The History of Coaches

by George Athelstane Thrupp

Mr T. H. Markland read an interesting paper on the origin of carriages to a learned society, which is published in the twentieth volume of the “Archæologia,” accompanied with several interesting copies of old pictures of carriages.

In the “History of Inventions,” by Beckmann, is an interesting article on coaches, which has been taken as the best authority by all succeeding writers. The dates he gives are not all accurate.

The next published was, I believe, that by Mr W. Bridges Adams, in 1837, by Messrs C. Knight & Co., of Ludgate Street, entitled, “English Pleasure Carriages.” This book should certainly be possessed by all Coachbuilders who desire information as to the best method of forming and completing a good carriage. It is full and accurate in the rules given, and the theories and mechanical principles expounded, giving very ample details as to materials to be used, and the manner of making the best use of them. Mr Adams, who was for a time in the firm of Hobson & Co., has given a description of the different carriages used in his time, which will form a reference for future ages, as M. Roubo’s descriptions serve for the previous century.

Since Mr Adams’ work we have a valuable contribution to the history of the art of Coachbuilding in the treatise by the Count Giovanni Gozzadini on “The Origin of Coaches,” published in 1864 at Bologna. This is in the Italian language; a copy is in the British Museum. We find in it a spirited defence of Italy from the charge of deriving their knowledge of Carriage-building from France; and the author proves, from the archives of different towns and noble families, that Italy was second only to Germany in its wealth and number of carriages during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Besides these, we have had the Carriage Builders’ Art Journal, which commenced in 1859 and lasted for four years, a journal which reflected great credit upon its editor, and is full of information still worthy of our study; the Art du Carrossier, published at Paris; two American periodicals; and the Saddlers and Coachbuilders’ Gazette in London.

The carriages of America are so different from our own, and from those of Europe, that they require special attention. It is possible that their style may influence in an important degree the carriages of future ages. We see in them primarily “lightness.” That lightness in their larger carriages is carried to excess most Coachbuilders will agree. We are supported in this view by the fact that for some years these, such as landaus, broughams, and coaches, have been materially modified by European types. The Americans have adopted some of the shapes of Europe, and the mode of constructing the under carriages, retaining their own methods of making the pole and splinters, or whipple trees, as giving greater freedom to the horses. I think this principle of allowing the horse greater scope for exertion is particularly worth the attention of Coachbuilders. The manner in which our horses are confined by tight heavy strapping and traces, by tight pole chains, by bearing reins, and the indiscriminate use of blinkers to the bridles has been much overdone in England. If a horse with a heavy load, driven fast over slippery roads should stumble, it is most difficult for him to recover himself—he falls, is sometimes pushed along by the impetus of the carriage, and is more or less injured in his limbs or nerves by the accident, whilst it is difficult for him to rise again until the harness is unstrapped, and the carriage is removed from above him. We also harness our horses too closely to their work in the two-wheeled carriages. We have thought only of the ease of turning and moving the whole vehicle in crowded or narrow ways, without observing the advantage of the long shafts over short shafts. If the shafts are considered as levers by which the horse supports and moves the weight behind him in a two-wheeled cart, it will be at once obvious that (although whilst those levers are parallel with the road) it does not so much signify whether they are long or short; yet the moment they point upwards, and especially when they point downwards, the difference between long and short levers is felt severely by the horse. We can all of us lift a weight or support a weight more easily with a long lever than with a short one, and it is the same with a horse. Those who have travelled abroad must have noticed the great weights placed upon two-wheeled carts in France and Belgium, and the greater comparative distance at which the horse is placed from the wheels, and yet how little the horse is distressed. He manages his load more easily because he does not feel the weight so heavily upon his back. Many drivers in England seem to have observed this, and try to ease the horse and lessen his chance of stumbling by tipping the shafts up in front, but in this way the horse is made to feel a pressure on the under part of the body which is neither natural nor healthy. I think therefore that, in future years, the growth of public opinion will be in favour of longer shafts and poles. This will also tend to preserve good carriages from the damage they at present suffer from the heat of the horses, and the quantity of mud which is thrown by their heels upon the front of the vehicle. The reins will of course have to be longer, but this cannot be of much consequence; the driver of a brougham is further from the horse than the driver of a mail phaeton, but we do not consider that the brougham is more difficult to drive than the mail phaeton on that account.

Another fashion prevalent in this and in some other countries, may prove, in the opinion of the drivers of the future, to be a fallacy; I mean the supposed necessity for the driver to sit nearly upright, which necessitates a deep boot and a clumsy thick coachman’s cushion. In America, Russia, and in parts of Germany the driver sits low, but places his feet against a bar in front of the footboard, which in their carriages is longer than in ours. I have seen four horses driven very well and easily in a low landau, and very powerful fast-trotting pulling horses held in with apparent ease. It has seemed to me that our coachmen are often in danger of being pulled over by their horses; and certainly, when an accident happens in a collision they are easily thrown from their boxes. They do not have the purchase and security that the Russian drivers especially seem to possess.

Perhaps we shall learn from the American carriages a few useful hints in this respect.

The American carriage, called, I believe, a “Rock-away,” has a projection over the driver’s seat, to shield him from sun and rain. Some of the Asiatic carriages have an awning for the same purpose. In Italy travelling carriages often had a hood over the driver. In instances where the master of the household likes to drive his own family carriage, it would certainly add to his comfort, and that of any one sitting by him, to have some useful addition of this nature.

The greatest novelty introduced by the Americans of the United States is the light waggon, called also “buggy,” a name first given in England a hundred years ago to a light two-wheeled cart carrying one person only, and which we call a “sulky.” These American waggons 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. They were doubtless formed as a development of the V-shaped agricultural waggon already described in the second chapter.

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 timber 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 of hickory wood, bent to the shape by steam. The iron work 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 bodies are of light work, like what we call cabinet work. 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 of nearly the same height, and the body is suspended centrally between them. There are no futchels; the pole or shafts are attached to the front axletree 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 leather work is very thin and of beautifully supple enamelled leather.