Early Carriages and Roads

by Sir Walter Gilbey

[9] This suggests that the North German province of Oldenbourg was famed then, as now, for its breed of coach horses.

From this it is evident that when six horses were used a postillion rode one of the leaders and controlled them; while the driver managed the wheelers and middle pair. When four horses were driven it was the custom to have two outriders, one to ride at the leaders’ heads and one at the wheelers’; in town this would be merely display, but on a journey the outrider’s horses might replace those of the team in case of accident, or more frequently, be added to the team to help drag the coach over a stretch of bad road.

COACH AND CART RACING.

John Evelyn in his Diary refers to a coach race which took place in the Park on May 20, 1658, but gives no particulars. Mr. Jacob Larwood observes that at this period and for a century later coach-racing was a national sport; some considerable research through the literature of these times, however, has thrown no light upon this sport, and while we need not doubt that coaches when they chanced to meet on suitable ground did make trials of speed, it is open to question whether the practice was ever developed into a sport. It may be that Mr. Larwood had in mind the curious cart-team races described by Marshall in his Rural Economy of Norfolk, published in 1795.

This writer tells us that before Queen Anne’s reign the farmers of Norfolk used an active breed of horses which could not only trot but gallop. He describes as an eyewitness the races which survived to his day; the teams consisted of five horses, which were harnessed to an empty waggon:—

“A team following another broke into a gallop, and unmindful of the ruts, hollow cavities and rugged ways, contended strenuously for the lead, while the foremost team strove as eagerly to keep it. Both were going at full gallop, as fast indeed as horses in harness could go for a considerable distance, the drivers standing upright in their respective waggons.”

REGULATIONS FOR HACKNEY CARRIAGES.

The Act of 1662 has already been referred to in connection with the number of hackney coaches in London; we may glance at it again, as it gives a few interesting particulars. No license was to be granted to any person following another trade or occupation, and nobody might take out more than two licenses. Preference was to be given to “ancient coachmen” (by which expression we shall doubtless be right in understanding, not aged men but men who had followed the calling in previous years), and to such men as had suffered for their service to Charles I. or Charles II.

Horses used in hackney coaches were to be not less than fourteen hands high. The fares were duly prescribed by time and distance; for a day of twelve hours the coachman was to be paid not over 10s.; or 1s. 6d. for the first and 1s. for every subsequent hour. “No gentleman or other person” was to pay over 1s. for hire of a hackney coach “from any of the Inns of Court or thereabouts to any part of St. James’ or the city of Westminster (except beyond Tuttle Street)”; and going eastwards the shilling fare would carry the hirer from the Inns of Court to the Royal Exchange; eighteenpence was the fare to the Tower, to Bishopsgate Street or Aldgate. This Act forbade any hackney coach to ply for hire on Sunday; thus the hackney carriage was placed in the same category as the Thames wherries and barges. The restrictions concerning the persons to whom licenses might be granted obviously afforded the Commissioners opportunity for the malpractices we have already mentioned.