I shall now proceed to give an account of the rise and progress of the
London hackney-cabs, as well as the decline and fall of the London
hackney-coaches.
Nearly all the writers on the subject state that hackney-coaches were
first established in London in 1625; that they were not then stationed
in the streets, but at the principal inns, and that their number grew
to be considerable after the Restoration. There seems to be no doubt
that these conveyances were first kept at the inns, and sent out when
required--as post-chaises were, and are still, in country towns. It may
very well be doubted, however, whether the year 1625 has been correctly
fixed upon as that in which hackney-carriages were established in
London. It is so asserted in Macpherson’s “Annals of Commerce,” but it
is thus loosely and vaguely stated: “Our historiographers of the city
of London relate that it was in this year (1625) that hackney-coaches
first began to ply in London streets, or rather at the inns, to be
called for as they are wanted; and they were, at this time, only
twenty in number.” One of the City “historiographers,” however, if so
he may be called, makes a very different statement. John Taylor, the
waterman and the water-poet, says in 1623 (two years before the era
usually assigned), “I do not inveigh against any coaches that belong to
persons of worth and quality, but only against the caterpillar swarm of
hirelings. They have undone my poor trade, whereof I am a member; and
though I look for no reformation, yet I expect the benefit of an old
proverb, ‘Give the losers leave to speak.’... This infernal swarm of
tradespellers (hackney-coachmen) have so overrun the land that we can
get no living upon the water; for I dare truly affirm that in every day
in any term, especially if the Court be at Whitehall, they do rob us of
our livings, and carry 500 fares daily from us.”
Of the establishment of hackney-coach “stands,” we have a more precise
account. The Rev. Mr. Garrard, writing to Lord Stafford in 1638, says,
“Here is one Captain Baily, he hath been a sea-captain but now lives
on land, about this city, where he tries experiments. He hath erected,
according to his ability, some four hackney-coaches, put his men in
livery, and appointed them to stand at the Maypole in the Strand,
giving them instructions at what rate to carry men into several parts
of the town, where all day they may be had. Other hackney-men, seeing
this way, they flocked to the same place, and perform the journeys at
the same rate. So that sometimes there is twenty of them together,
which disperse up and down, that they and others are to be had
everywhere, as watermen are to be had at the water-side. Everybody is
much pleased with it.” The site of the Maypole that once “o’erlooked
the Strand,” is now occupied by St. Mary’s church.
There were after this many regulations passed for the better management
of hackney-coaches. In 1652 their number was ordered to be limited
to 200; in 1654, to 300; in 1661, to 400; in 1694, to 700. These
limitations, however, seem to have been but little regarded. Garrard,
writing in 1638, says, “Here is a proclamation coming forth about the
reformation of hackney-coaches, and ordering of other coaches about
London. One thousand nine hundred was the number of hackney-coaches of
London, bare lean jades, unworthy to be seen in so brave a city, or to
stand about a king’s court.” As within the last twenty-seven years,
when cabs and omnibuses were unknown, the number of hackney-carriages
was strictly limited to 1200, it seems little likely that nearly two
centuries earlier there should have been so many as 1900. It is
probable that “glass” and “hackney-coaches” had been confounded somehow
in the enumeration.
It was not until the ninth year of Queen Anne’s reign that an Act was
passed appointing Commissioners for the licensing and superintending of
hackney-coachmen. Prior to that they seem to have been regulated and
licensed by the magistracy. The Act of Anne authorised the number of
hackney-coaches to be increased to 800, but not until the expiration of
the existing licenses in 1715. In 1771 there was again an additional
number of hackney-coach licenses granted--1000; which was made 1200 in
1799. In the last-mentioned year a duty was for the first time placed
on hired carriages of all descriptions. It was at first 5_s._ a-week,
but that sum was not long after raised to 10_s._ a-week, to be paid in
advance; while the license was raised from 2_l._ 10_s._ to 5_l._ The
duties upon all hackney-carriages is still maintained at the advanced
rate.
The hackney-carriages, when their number became considerable after
the Restoration, were necessarily small, though drawn by two horses.
The narrowness of the streets before the great fire, and the wretched
condition of the pavement, rendered the use of large and commodious
vehicles impossible. Davenant says of hackney-carriages, “They are
unusually hung, and so narrow that I took them for sedans on wheels.”
The hackney-coachman then rode one of his horses, postilion-fashion;
but when the streets were widened, he drove from his seat on the
box. In the latter days of London hackney-coaches they were large
enough without being commodious. They were nearly all noblemen’s and
gentlemen’s disused family coaches, which had been handed over to the
coachmaker when a new carriage was made. But it was not long that these
coaches retained the comfort and cleanliness that might distinguish
them when first introduced into the stand. The horses were, as in
the Rev. Mr. Garrard’s time, sorry jades, sometimes cripples, and
the harness looked as frail as the carriages. The exceptions to this
description were few, for the hackney-coachmen possessed a monopoly and
thought it unchangeable. They were of the same class of men--nearly all
gentlemen’s servants or their sons. The obtaining of a license for a
hackney-coach was generally done through interest. It was one way in
which many peers and members of Parliament provided for any favourite
servant, or for the servant of a friend. These “patrons,” whether peers
or commoners, were not uncommonly called “lords;” a man was said to be
sure of a license if he had “a great lord for his friend.”
The “takings” of the London hackney-coachmen, as I have ascertained
from some who were members of the body, were 10_l._ 10_s._ a-week the
year through, the months of May, June, and July, being the best, when
their earnings were from 15_l._ to 18_l._ a-week. Out of this three
horses had to be maintained. During the war times the quality of oats
which are now 18_s._ a quarter were 60_s._, while hay and the other
articles of the horses’ consumption were proportionately dear. The
expense of repair to the coach or harness was but trifling, as they
were generally done by the hackney-man himself, or by some hanger-on at
the public-houses frequented by the fraternity.
Of the personal expenditure of hackney-coachmen when “out for the day”
I had the following statement from one of them:--“We spent regular
7_s._ a-day when we was out. It was before coffee-shops and new-fangled
ways came in as the regular thing that I’m speaking of; breakfast
1_s._, good tea and good bread-and-butter, as much as you liked always,
with a glass of rum in the last cup for the ‘lacing’ of it--always rum,
gin weren’t so much run after then. Dinner was 1_s._ 6_d._, a cut off
some good joint; beer was included at some places and not at others.
Any extras to follow was extras to pay. Two glasses of rum-and-water
after dinner 1_s._, pipes found, and most of us carried our own
’baccy-boxes. Tea the same as breakfast, and ‘laced’ ditto. Supper
the same as dinner, or 6_d._ less; and the rest to make up the 7_s._
went for odd glasses of ale, or stout, or ‘short’--but ‘short’ (neat
spirits) was far less drunk then than now--when we was waiting, or to
treat a friend, or such-like. We did some good in those days, sir. Take
day and night, and 1200 of us was out, and perhaps every man spent his
7_s._, and that’s 1200 times 7_s._” Following out this calculation we
have 420_l._ per day (and night), 2940_l._ a-week, and 152,880_l._
a-year for hackney-coachmen’s personal expenses, merely as regards
their board.
The old hackney-coachmen seem to have been a self-indulgent,
improvident, rather than a vicious class; neither do they seem to
have been a drunken class. They acted as ignorant men would naturally
act who found themselves in the enjoyment of a good income, with the
protection of a legal monopoly. They had the sole right of conveyance
within the bills of mortality, and as that important district comprised
all the places of public resort, and contained the great mass of the
population, they may be said to have had a monopoly of the metropolis.
Even when the cabs were first established these men exhibited no fear
of their earnings being affected. “But,” said an intelligent man, who
had been a hackney-coachman in his younger days, and who managed to
avoid the general ruin of his brethren, “but when the cabs got to the
100 then they found it out. The cabs was all in gentlemen’s hands at
first. I know that. Some of them was government-clerks too: they had
their foremen, to be sure, but they was the real proprietors, the
gentlemen _was_; _they_ got the licenses. Well, it’s easy to understand
how 100 cabs was earning money fast, and people couldn’t get them
fast enough, and how some hundreds of hackney-coachmen was waiting and
starving till the trade was thrown open, and then the hackney-coachmen
was clean beat down. They fell off by degrees. I’m sure I hardly know
what became of most of them, but I do know that a many of them died
in the workhouses. They hadn’t nothing aforehand. They dropped away
gradual. You see they weren’t allowed to transfer their plates and
licenses to a cab, or they’d have done it--plenty would. They were a
far better set of men than there’s on the cabs now. There was none
of your fancy-men, that’s in with women of the town, among the old
hackney-coachmen. If you remember what they was, sir, you’ll say they
hadn’t the cut of it.”
The hackney-coachmen drove very deliberately, rarely exceeding five,
and still more rarely achieving six miles an hour, unless incited
by the hope or the promise of an extra fare. These men resided very
commonly in mews, and many of them I am assured had comfortable homes,
and were hospitable fellows in their way, smoking their pipes with one
another when “off the stones,” treating their poorer neighbours to a
glass, and talking over the price of oats, hay, and horses, as well
as the product of the past season, or the promise of the next. The
majority of them could neither read nor write, or very imperfectly,
and, as is not uncommon with uninformed men who had thriven tolerably
well without education, they cared little about providing education
for their children. Politics they cared nothing about, but they prided
themselves on being “John-Bull Englishmen.” For public amusements they
seem to have cared nothing. “Our business,” said one of them, “was with
the outside of play-houses. I never saw a play in my life.”
As my informant said, “they dropped away gradual.” Eight or ten years
ago a few old men, with old horses and old coaches, might be seen at
street stands, but each year saw their numbers reduced, and now there
is not one; that is to say, not one in the streets, though there are
four hackney-coaches at the railway-stations.
One of the old fraternity of hackney-coachmen, who had, since the
decline of his class, prospered by devoting his exertions to another
department of business, gave me the following account:--
“My father,” said he, “was an hackney-coachman before me, and gave
me what was then reckoned a good education. I could write middling
and could read the newspaper. I’ve driven my father’s coach for him
when I was fourteen. When I was old enough, seventeen I think I was,
I had a hackney-coach and horses of my own, provided for me by my
father, and so was started in the world. The first time I plied with
my own coach was when Sir Francis Burdett was sent to the Tower from
his house in Piccadilly. Sir Francis was all the go then. I heard a
hackney-coachman say he would be glad to drive him for nothing. The
hackney-coachmen didn’t like Pitt. I’ve heard my father and his mates
say many a time ‘D----n Pitt!’ that was for doubling of the duty on
hackney-carriages. Ah, the old times was the rackety times! I’ve often
laughed and said that I could say what perhaps nobody, or almost nobody
in England can say now, that I’d been driven by a king. He grew to be
a king afterwards, George IV. One night you see, sir, I was called
off the stand, and told to take up at the British Coffee-house in
Cockspur Street. I was a lad then, and when I pulled up at the door,
the waiter ran out and said, ‘You jump down and get inside, the Prince
is a-going to drive hisself.’ I didn’t much like the notion on it, but
I didn’t exactly know what to do, and was getting off my seat to see
if the waiter had put anything inside, for he let down the glass, and
just as I was getting down, and had my foot on the wheel, out came the
Prince of Wales, and four or five rattlebrained fellows like himself.
I think Major Hanger was one, but I had hardly time to see them, for
the Prince gripped me by the ankle and the waistband of my breeches,
and lifted me off the wheel and flung me right into the coach, through
the window, and it was opened, as it happened luckily. I was little
then, but he must have been a strong man. He didn’t seem so very drunk
either. The Prince wasn’t such a bad driver. Indeed, he drove very
well for a prince, but he didn’t take the corners or the crossings
careful enough for a regular jarvey. Well, sir, the Prince drove that
night to a house in King Street, Saint James’s. There was another
gentleman on the box with him. It was a gaming-house he went to that
night, but I have driven him to other sorts of houses in that there
neighbourhood. He hadn’t no pride to such as me, hadn’t the Prince of
Wales. Then one season I used to drive Lord Barrymore in his rounds
to the brothels--twice or thrice a-week sometimes. He used always
to take his own wine with him. After waiting till near daylight, or
till daylight, I’ve carried my lord, girls and all--fine dressed-up
madams--to Billingsgate, and there I’ve left them to breakfast at some
queer place, or to slang with the fishwives. What times them was, to
be sure! One night I drove Lord Barrymore to Mother Cummins’s in Lisle
Street, and when she saw who it was she swore out of the window that
she wouldn’t let him in--he and some such rackety fellows had broken
so many things the last time they were there, and had disgraced her,
as she called it, to the neighbourhood. So my lord said, ‘Knock at
the door, tiger; and knock till they open it.’ He knocked and knocked
till every drop of water in the house was emptied over us, out of
the windows, but my lord didn’t like to be beaten, so he stayed and
stayed, but Mother Cummins wouldn’t give way, and at last he went home.
A wet opera-night was the chance for us when Madame--I forget her
name--Catalini?--yes, I think that was it, was performing. Many a time
I’ve heard it sung out--‘A guinea to Portman Square’--and I’ve had it
myself. At the time I’m speaking of hackney-coachmen took 30_s._ a-day,
all the year round. Why, I myself have taken 16_l._ and 18_l._ a-week
through May, June, and July. But then you see, sir, we had a monopoly.
It was in the old Tory times. Our number was limited to 1200. And no
stage-carriage could then take up or set down on the stones, not within
the bills as it was called--that’s the bills of mortality, three miles
round the Royal Exchange, if I remember right. It’s a monopoly that
shouldn’t have been allowed, I know that, but there was grand earnings
under it; no glass-coaches could take people to the play then. Glass
coaches is what’s now called flies. They couldn’t set down in the
mortality, it was fine and imprisonment to do it. We hadn’t such good
horses in our coaches then, as is now in the streets, certainly not. It
was war-time, and horses was bought up for the cavalry, and it’s the
want of horses for the army, and for the mails and stages arter’ards,
that’s the reason of such good horses being in the ’busses and cabs.
We drove always noblemen or gentlemen’s old carriages, family coaches
they was sometimes called. There was mostly arms and coronets on them.
We got them of the coachmakers in Long Acre, who took the noblemen’s
old carriages, when they made new. The Duke of ---- complained once
that his old carriage, with his arms painted beautiful on the panels,
was plying in the streets at 1_s._ a mile; his arms ought not to
be degraded that way, he said, so the coachmaker had the coach new
painted. When the cabs first came in we didn’t think much about it;
we thought, that is, most of us did, that things was to go on in the
old way for ever; but it was found out in time that it was not. When
the clarences, the cabs that carry four, come in, they cooked the
hackney-coachmen in no time.”