invented until 1844. In this carriage the driver’s seat was at the back
on a level with the roof, and the door to his left at the back—the
reason of this being that the driver could open or close it without
leaving his seat. Another peculiarity was the presence of five windows,
two in front, one at either side, and a fifth at the back underneath
the driver’s seat. The _tribus_ was the invention of Mr. Harvey,
who also built a _curricle tribus_, for two horses, but neither was
successful. The _quartobus_ (1844) of Mr. Okey, a four-wheeled vehicle
to hold four inside passengers, was likewise withdrawn after a short
trial.
[Illustration: _Roch’s Patent Dioropha, 1851_]
[Illustration: _Brougham, 1859_]
A word may here be said of the _omnibus_, which had been introduced in
1819 into Paris, though not under that name, by M. Jacques Laffitte. It
was a modern outcome of the old _gondola_. Nine years later the modern
name was given to it by M. Baudry, a retired military officer. Laffitte
had rivals, and ultimately determined to triumph over them by building
a superior vehicle. At this time one of the most celebrated
coachbuilders in Paris was an Englishman, once in the Navy, named
George Shillibeer. To him came Laffitte, and Shillibeer, whilst at work
on the new conveyance, conceived the idea of starting a similar one
in London. Accordingly he shipped one over and ran it from Paddington
to the Bank. This first omnibus of his was a long, much be-windowed,
four-wheeled carriage with a door at the back, and not unlike a private
omnibus of to-day. A top-hatted coachman sat on a high seat in front
and drove three horses abreast. This was in 1819, and from that time,
in spite of the usual opposition, these new and rather unsightly
vehicles increased in numbers until there were forty or fifty routes in
London alone upon which they were to be hourly seen. A song sung with
great success at a time when Shillibeer was extending his operations,
particularly in the direction of Greenwich, whither it was proposed to
run one of the new railroads, may be quoted:—
“By a Joint-Stock Company taken in hand,
A railroad from London to Greenwich is plann’d,
But they’re sure to be beat, ’tis most certainly clear,
Their rival has got the start—George Shillibeer.
“I will not for certainty vouch for the fact,
But believe that he means to run over the Act
Which Parliament pass’d at the end of last year,
Now made null and void by the new Shillibeer.
“His elegant _omnis_, which now throng the road,
Up and down every hour most constantly load;
Across all the three bridges how gaily appear
The _Original Omnibus_—George Shillibeer.
“These pleasure and comfort with safety combine,
They will neither blow up nor explode like a mine;
Those who ride on the railroad might half die with fear—
You can come to no harm in the new Shillibeer.
“How exceedingly elegant fitted, inside,
With mahogany polished—soft cushions—beside
Bright brass ventilators at each end appear,
The latest improvements in the new Shillibeer.
“Here no draughts of air cause a rick in the neck,
Or huge bursting boilers blow all to a wreck,
But as safe as at home you from all danger steer
While you travel abroad in the gay Shillibeer.
“Then of the exterior I safely may say
There never was yet any carriage more gay,
While the round-tire wheels make it plainly appear
That there’s none run so light as the smart Shillibeer.
“His conductors are famous for being polite,
Obliging and civil, they always act right,
For if just complaint only comes to his ear,
They are not long conductors for George Shillibeer.
“It was meant that they all should wear dresses alike,
But bad luck has prompted the tailors to strike.
When they go to their work, his men will appear
_A la Française, Conducteur à Mons. Shillibeer_.
“Unlike the conductors by tailors opprest,
His horses have all in new harness been drest:
The cattle are good, the men’s orders are clear,
Not to gallop or race—so says Shillibeer.
“That the beauties of Greenwich and Deptford may ride
In his elegant omni is the height of his pride—
So the plan for a railroad must soon disappear
While the public approve of the new Shillibeer.”
_Chapter the Tenth_
_MODERN CARRIAGES_
“Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or urge the rapid car;
Or on wide waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the realms of air.”
_Erasmus Darwin._
The year of Queen Victoria’s Coronation saw the successful opening
of the London and Birmingham Railway, and from that time all but a
few obstinate folk recognised the fact that the horse as a necessary
adjunct to cross-country travelling was doomed. For some time,
indeed, certain ingenious gentlemen had been carrying out a number
of experiments with self-propelled carriages. Fifteen years before,
several inventors had produced cumbrous machines which, without
requiring rails, were able to progress along the roads at speeds which
compared favourably with those attained by the ordinary coaches. Sir
Goldsmith Gurney—to mention, perhaps, the most prominent of these
men—had patented a steam-carriage in 1827 which, in spite of attacks
from an irate populace who feared machinery as they feared the devil,
was quite successful enough to lead the enterprising Mr. Hanning to
ask for, and obtain, permission to run similar machines on many of the
principal roads of England. Indeed, for a short while, there seems
to have been a regular service of these primitive automobiles. Many
people, it is true, fought shy of Gurney’s boilers, which in spite of
the fact that they had been “constructed upon philosophical principles”
occasionally exploded. It was after such an explosion at Glasgow that
Tom Hood seized the opportunity to write the following lines:—
“Instead of _journeys_, people now
May go upon a _Gurney_,
With steam to do the horses’ work
By power of attorney:
“Tho’ with a load it may explode
And you may all be undone;
And find you’re going up to Heaven
Instead of up to London.”
Similarly, many people declared their intention of never patronising
the railroads. Steam, however, had come to stay, and the days of
coaching were already numbered.
The net result of the new state of things, so far as private
carriages were concerned, seems to have been that the coachbuilders
set themselves to perfect the urban vehicles, which became lighter,
soberer, and more various. New and less conventional “models” were
constantly being exhibited, while for those who could not afford more
than a single carriage adaptable bodies were devised. So you might
order a vehicle which with small trouble could be entirely changed in
appearance. The older dignity, moreover, was giving place to a new
smartness. “Carriage people” still formed a class, but families which
before had been satisfied to use such public conveyances as there had
been, now drove forth in one or other of the cheaper private carriages
which were being constructed particularly for their convenience. The
dog-cart, for instance, had become common and was undergoing various
metamorphoses, and the brougham was rapidly becoming the most popular
of all town vehicles. In country lanes, too, appeared the waggonette
and its kind. Nothing, indeed, was quite so light as the American buggy
with its shallow dish of a body and its extraordinarily thin wheels,
but there was no longer that heaviness of line which gives to the older
carriages what is to modern eyes such an uncomfortable appearance.
So in 1860 a London coachbuilder could write to the American author of
_The World on Wheels_:—
“Ten years have completed a total revolution in the carriage
trade in England. Not only have the Court and the nobility
adopted economical habits, and insisted on cheap carriages,
but they carry no luggage, as was formerly the case when
carriages had to sustain great weight, both of passengers
and luggage. The cumbrous Court carriages of former times
are being gradually abolished, and instead of the rich
linings, laces, fringes, and elaborate heraldry usual to the
carriages of the nobility, light vehicles, furnished only
with a crest, are used. The changes in construction, and
consequent depreciation of stock, were a heavy blow to the
master coachbuilders; many of the large houses must have
lost, in this manner, from ten to twenty thousand pounds. The
trade, having recovered from this blow, is in a more healthy
state. The favourite carriages in England at this time were
waggonettes, sociables, Stanhope and mail phaetons, basket
phaetons and landaus.”
I may speak first of the state or “dress” carriages. “These
vehicles,” says Thrupp, “had long passed the period in which
beautiful carving and elegant painting had been used to
disguise, as far as possible, the clumsy state carriages of
the eighteenth century. Ever since the building of the Irish
Lord Chancellor’s state coach by Hatchett or Baxter in 1790,
coachbuilders had endeavoured to produce a graceful outline
of body, of a fair size no larger than was necessary; the
C-springs had been made of a perfect curve, the perch followed
the sweeps of the body, the carving was reduced to a moderate
amount, the ornamental painting was confined to the stripes
upon the wheels, and the heraldic bearings of the owners of
the carriages were beautifully emblazoned on the panels. For
further ornament they relied on plated work in brass or silver
round the body and on loops and wheel hoops. In every capital
of Europe such carriages had superseded the old style, and
London and Paris had supplied other countries with most of
these state carriages.”
At the Queen’s Coronation in 1838, Londoners had a good opportunity
of seeing these dress carriages, a number of which early in the day
were lined up in Birdcage Walk. Most of these belonged to the various
ambassadors. The one which excited the widest admiration belonged to
Marshal Soult—a French-built carriage, originally built for one of the
Royal family. Thrupp describes it. “The body had four upper quarter
glasses, with a very elegant deep and pierced cornice of silver round
the roof; there were four lamps with large coronets on the tops,
and the coach bore a coronet on the roof also. The colouring of the
painting was a lovely blue, such as was then called Adelaide blue;[55]
this had been varnished with white spirit varnish, and seemed almost
transparent in lustre. The whole coach was ornamented with silver and
was finished in great taste.” Other particulars of these carriages are
to be found in the contemporary newspaper reports. We are told of the
enormous prices paid. Count Strogonoff purchased for £1600 the carriage
which had originally been built at a cost of £3000 by the Duke of
Devonshire for his state visit to St. Petersburg. Another ambassador,
finding that it was too late to buy a carriage, hired one from one of
the Sheriffs at a cost of £250 for the occasion, which strikes one as
an excessive price even for Coronation Day.
[Illustration: _Edward VII’s Coronation Landau_
(_From Sir Walter Gilbey’s “Modern Carriages”_)]
Modern state carriages retain all their former magnificence with little
if any of the old cumbersome and unnecessary ornament. One of the
finest examples of this kind of carriage is the state landau built for
King Edward and used by him in the Coronation procession.
“This magnificent example of the coachbuilder’s art,” says
Sir Walter Gilbey, “is over eighteen feet long. The body is
hung upon C-springs by strong braces covered with ornamentally
stitched morocco; each brace is joined with a massive gilt
buckle with oak leaf and crown device. Between the hind
springs is a rumble for two footmen; there is no driving seat,
as the carriage is intended to be drawn only by horses ridden
postilion. The panels are painted in purple lake considerably
brighter than is usual in order to secure greater effect;
marking the contours of the body and the outlines of the
rumble are mouldings in wood carved and gilt, the design being
one of overlapping oak leaves.
“The door panels, back and front panels, bear the Royal Arms
with crown, supporters, mantle, motto, helmet, and garter.
On the lower quarter panel is the collar of the Order of the
Garter, encircling its star and surmounted by the Tudor crown.
Springing in a slow, graceful curve from the underpart of the
body over the forecarriage is a ‘splasher’ of crimson patent
leather. Ornamental brass lamps are carried in brackets at
each of the four corners of the body.
“As regards the interior of this beautiful carriage, it is
upholstered in crimson satin and laces which were woven in
Spitalfields; the hood is lined with silk, as better adapted
than satin for folding. The rumble is covered with crimson
leather. It is to be observed that with the exception of the
pine and mahogany used for the panels, English-grown wood and
English-made materials only have been used throughout.
“While less ornate than the wonderful ‘gold coach’ designed
by Sir William Chambers and Cipriani in 1761, the new state
landau, in its build, proportions, and adornment, is probably
the most graceful and regal vehicle ever built.”
[Illustration: _Dress Coach_]
[Illustration: _George V’s State Carriage_
(_From a Photograph_)]
Other English state carriages hardly less successfully designed have
been made for the Lord Mayor of London (1887), for Sir Marcus Samuel,
when holding that position in 1902-3, for the Sheriffs, and for
various Indian Princes.
Coming to less pretentious vehicles, we may briefly consider in
the first place the coach proper. At the time of Queen Victoria’s
Coronation, coaches of the old pattern were, of course, still being
constructed. There is in possession of Messrs. Holland and Holland a
mail-coach built by Waude, one of the best-known coachbuilders of that
time, which is typical of the period. This, says Mr. Charles Harper,
“is substantially and in general lines as built in 1830.
The wheels have been renewed, the hind boot has a door at
the back, and the interior has been relined; but otherwise
it is the coach that ran when William IV was King. It is a
characteristic Waude coach, low-hung, and built with straight
sides, instead of the bowed-out type common to the productions
of Vidler’s factory. It wears, in consequence, a more elegant
appearance than most coaches of that time; but it must be
confessed that what it gained in the eyes of the passers-by
it must have lost in the estimation of the insides, for the
interior is not a little cramped by those straight sides. The
guard’s seat on the ‘dickey’—or what in earlier times was
more generally known as the ‘backgammon-board’—remains, but
his sheepskin or tiger-skin covering, to protect his legs
from the cold, is gone. The trap-door into the hind boot can
be seen. Through this the mails were thrust and the guard sat
throughout the journey with his feet on it. Immediately in
front of him were the spare bars, while above, in the still
remaining case, reposed the indispensable blunderbuss. The
original lamps in their reversible cases remain. There were
four of them—one on either forequarter, and one on either
side of the fore boot, while a smaller one hung from beneath
the footboard, just above the wheelers. The guard had a
small hand lamp of his own to aid him in sorting his small
parcels. The door panels have apparently been repainted since
the old days, for although they still keep the maroon colour
characteristic of the mail-coaches, the Royal Arms are gone,
and in their stead appears the script monogram in gold, V.R.”
It is the coach which of all vehicles has least changed its appearance
in the last hundred years. The drag of to-day and the old coach
just described differ from one another only in a few minor details
of construction. The reason for this is not far to seek. “The brief
‘Golden Age,’” says Sir Walter Gilbey, “of fast coaching saw the
vehicle, of which such hard and continuous work was required, brought
as near perfection as human ingenuity and craftsmanship was capable of
bringing it. No effort was spared to make the mail or road-coach the
best possible conveyance of its kind, and in retaining the model of a
former age the modern coachbuilder confesses his inability to improve
upon the handiwork of his progenitors.”
It is curious to note, by the way, that for a short time such coaches
were hardly made at all, and the Report on the carriages shown at the
London Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the “revival of an almost obsolete
carriage, the four-in-hand coach, which had taken place within a
few years.” This was undoubtedly due to the founding in 1856 of the
Four-in-Hand Driving Club.
Nor was this revival confined to England. In the official _Reports
upon Carriages_ at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, Mr. G. F. Budd draws
attention to the fact that “the French have closely adhered to the
English styles in the general design and shape of the bodies of their
vehicles, especially in broughams ... landaus ... and drags. In the
latter description of carriage, which has become so popular during
the last few years, though it is peculiarly an English carriage, the
style has been closely followed, and with such considerable success,
that the French builders now appear as our formidable rivals in this
branch of the manufacture.” “A novelty,” he continues, “in the design
... consists in the roof being so constructed as to admit of being
opened in the centre ... a cover is placed on the top of the two
portions of the head thus opened, and so forms, to all appearance, an
ordinary luncheon-case with the ends open: it thus serves the purpose
of a table when required ... and affords an increase of ventilation to
those riding inside the vehicle.” Similarly in America drags began to
be built after the establishment of a driving club. These are identical
with the English models.
With regard to the other four-wheeled carriages, we have now arrived
at a period when it is almost impossible to speak at any length of
each particular kind.[56] For in the first place such a classification
as I have used to describe the older vehicles must to a large extent
break down, and in the second place, from the time when the great
exhibitions did so much to make the manufacturers of all nations
familiar with each other’s work, nearly every coachbuilder of standing
has produced one model, if not more, peculiar to itself. So, in the
middle of last century, you had carriages which approximated to the
barouche, yet which had been evolved indirectly from so different a
vehicle as the phaeton. You saw carriages, obviously dissimilar in
appearance, yet bearing, to the layman, the same name. You had new
combinations of perches and springs. And carriages were being exported
from one country to be improved upon the lines most suitable to the
roads and tastes of another.
Of all these carriages perhaps the two which deserve most mention are
the _landau_ and the _victoria_, both open carriages, which can be
closed at will.
The _landau_, as I have said, had originally been a coach made to open.
At the beginning of the century it had hardly been so popular as the
_landaulet_, but at this time it underwent several improvements at the
hands of Mr. Luke Hopkinson, a celebrated coachbuilder of Holborn. It
was Hopkinson who first built what was known as a _briska-landau_,
but he chiefly concerned himself not so much with the shape of the
carriage-body as with the hood. He built his new landaus in such a way
as to allow the hood to be folded, so that it lay horizontally at the
back of the seat. At the same time the floor and the seats were raised
so as to make the whole carriage a far more spacious and comfortable
vehicle than had been possible when the hood could not be completely
opened.[57] And with the hood entirely “down” you had practically
the landau of to-day, possibly the commonest carriage on the road.
Nearly every “fly” which so often is to be seen standing rather
forlornly outside the village station as your train thunders past is a
landau modelled on Hopkinson’s designs. He was not, however, the only
coachbuilder whose attention was being given to this useful carriage.
Of one of the new landaus built by other firms a trade journal of the
day observed with some truth that “its graceful outline and roominess”
made it “the very beau-ideal of vehicular luxury.” And as the years
passed the landau in its several varieties increased in popularity.
Improvements tended almost solely in the direction of lightness. The
Report on the carriages at the exhibition of 1862 pays particular
attention to the landau. “The demand for them,” it runs, “has ...
increased. They are well suited to the variable climate of the British
Isles, as they can readily be changed from an open to a closed carriage
and vice versa.” At a later exhibition—in 1885—the landau[58] had
become so popular that there was actually shown one, built for the Earl
of Sefton, suited to the capabilities of a single horse. This was an
important departure from tradition which seems to have shocked some
of the old-fashioned designers. “That an established house with an
aristocratic connection,” lamented one trade paper at the time, “should
exhibit a landau for one horse would have been considered incredible
twenty years ago.” No doubt this was true, but people persisted in
their desire for light carriages, and a one-horse landau was the
natural outcome. At a later date there was a tendency to alter the
shape of the body. Hitherto this had generally been angular; now the
lines became curving, the body, looked at from the side, forming the
arc of a huge circle. Such a carriage was known as the _canoe landau_.
To-day the canoe bodies, both in England and abroad, are made rather
deeper than at the time of their introduction, but the square shape
still persists. If there is one English vehicle which may be called the
favourite carriage it is surely the landau.
[Illustration: _Princess Victoria in her Pony Phaeton_
(_From a Drawing by Lowes Dickinson, 1835_)]
The earlier history of the _victoria_, the landau’s chief rival, is
rather obscure. As I have mentioned, the once popular _cab-phaeton_
was still to be seen in the ’forties in many continental cities as the
_milord_, which from a most aristocratic vehicle had descended into the
realms of hackdom. An English coachbuilder, however, Mr. J. C. Cooper,
saw possibilities in such a vehicle and prepared a series of designs.
His drawings were scornfully treated in England, but “found favour
in the eyes of his continental clients,” who about 1845 constructed
from them a four-wheeled cabriolet with seats for two. This small open
carriage was copied in more than one place, particularly, it would
seem, in Paris and Vienna. Whether these copies were still called
_milords_ I am not sure, but in 1856 they seem to have been described
as _victorias_. In the meantime the pony phaeton had become popular
in England, and in 1851 a new model designed for Her Majesty was,
according to Stratton, also called a victoria.
“In the summer of 1851,” he writes, “a unique little pony
phaeton was built by Mr. Andrews, of Southampton, for the
Queen. The original announcement stated that when the carriage
was delivered in front of the palace in the Isle of Wight,
‘the Queen and Prince expressed to Mr. Andrews their entire
satisfaction with the style, elegance, and extraordinary
lightness and construction of the carriage,’ which scarcely
weighed three hundredweight. The height of the fore wheels
is only eighteen inches, and of the hind ones thirty inches.
The phaeton is cane-bodied, of George IV style, with movable
head; the fore part is iron, but very light and elegant and
beautifully painted. This carriage is known as the victoria,
and has since been much improved in England and America.”