HACKNEY COACHES IN LONDON, 1637.
This proclamation evidently produced the desired effect, for in 1637 there were only sixty 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.
Charles I. 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 import coach horses, 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:—