The development and history of carriages have intersected with and reflected changing British society, notably in relation to social classes, gender, and the treatment of horses.
While horse-drawn vehicles have been used for thousands of years, it was during the early 19th century that carriages became more commonly used across social classes, with many distinct designs and styles emerging.
Timeline of British Carriages: Reflecting Social Classes through Carriages
Science Museum Group
Before the 19th century ownership of carriages was a privilege of the wealthy and was inaccessible to almost anyone else due to their expensive and complex production. Until the mid-19th century, most carriages were designed for leisure and entertainment, rather than for practical purposes, reflected in their luxurious designs.
Science Museum Group
An example of these luxurious carriages in the Science Museum’s collection is the Curricle built by Barker and Company in London. Curricles were popular up until the early 19th century for their stylish, open-topped design. Carriages like curricles would have been driven slowly around parks, city streets and country estates, offering their passengers a comfortable ride whilst also being overt displays of wealth and status. Barker and Company specialised in the production of luxury coaches (and later building Rolls-Royce car bodies) for the upper class and the Royal Family.
Luxury carriages were also used in ceremonial events at the highest levels of British society, a notable example at the Science Museum being the ‘Russian sociable’ donated by King Edward VIII in 1936. It was built by Hoopers and Company who received a royal warrant in 1830 making them one of only a few official royal coachbuilders. This carriage was built in 1898 and has been used in more recent ceremonial events by Queen Elizabeth II during the 1990s.
Science Museum Group
Carriages were sometimes used for more action-packed entertainment by the upper class. The Hooded Mail Phaeton, is an example of a Phaeton likely designed for racing. It has sturdier grasshopper springs intended for vehicles that are driving fast on rougher country roads such as mail coaches. The maker, Holland and Holland, was famous for transforming and retrofitting carriages for sporting aficionados and racing clubs which became increasingly popular during the 19th century, especially among wealthy young men.
Carriages for the Business and Middle Class
The 19th century saw significant developments in the carriage-making industry that made carriages cheaper to build, and the Victorian era in particular saw a wide range of new carriage designs and styles develop and become popular, leading to a diversification of the uses of carriages across social classes.
Carriages became a convenient form of travel for the burgeoning Victorian professional middle class. Broughams were a type of carriage designed with a compact frame which could be pulled by a single horse, allowing the vehicle to dodge and manoeuvre around busy city streets like those in London. Broughams quickly became a popular carriage for working professionals and are referenced throughout Victorian literature such as The Picture of Dorian Grey. A notable owner of Broughams, Charles Dickens described them as being “for members of the prosperous middle classes”. The original Brougham prototype designed by the Lord Chancellor in 1838 is on display at the Science Museum in London.
Another example of a businessman's carriage was The Hansom cab, which was developed in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, and which became one of the most common carriages in the UK by the end of the 19th century.
Science Museum Group
In the early 20th century, more than half of all cabs in London were Hansoms, used as public transport extensively by professionals in the middle and upper class. The Hansom is easily identified by its unique design which features an elevated seat at the back of the carriage, making the carriage speedy and agile. Hansoms are prominently featured in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and were the preferred mode of transportation for detective Sherlock Holmes.
Carriages for the Working Class
Wagons were used for transporting goods across the UK for centuries but were not commonly used as public transportation. This changed as carriages became increasingly cheaper to produce, rent, and drive across better-quality roads and infrastructure.
Science Museum Group
A great example of a working-class carriage in the Science Museum’s collection is the Irish jaunting car , which was introduced to Ireland in the early 19th century as a form of cheap, simple and sturdy public transportation across country roads for field, mine and factory workers. Whilst they lacked the finery and more expensive features of other carriage designs (such as more complex suspension or often hoods), some jaunting cars were given fancier cushioning and painted in bright colours so they could be used for leisurely drives around the countryside. Jaunting cars were so popular in Ireland that a song was written and dedicated to them, opening with the verse:
My name is Larry Doolan, I'm a native of the soil,
If you want a day's diversion, I'll drive you out in style,
My car is painted red and green, and on the door a star,
And the pride of Dublin City is my Irish jaunting car.
Carriages and Modern Representations of Gender
Until the late 16th century, carriages were mostly reserved for aristocratic women who rode as passengers, whilst men primarily rode horses. During this period, it was not common for women to drive themselves, and it wasn’t until the 17th century that carriage riding started to become popular with gentlemen.
The 18th century saw an important shift in the use of carriages, as it became increasingly common and fashionable for upper-class women to go out by themselves and drive carriages themselves. In France, Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, reminisced that Queen Marie Antoinette enjoyed taking the reins of her carriage in a carefree manner while courtiers fretted about her safety. In England, illustrations of elaborately dressed aristocratic women driving four-wheeled carriages by themselves began to emerge, such as the one below from 1776:
Yale University Library
Image source
for Phaaetona or Modern Female Taste, Published by M. Darly. In Nov. 6, 1776.
In the 17th and 18th century, French chaises were popular among the fashions of French and English ladies, notably going out in a ‘chaise de promenade’ became a favoured pastime amongst wealthy Parisian women until the French Revolution.
Science Museum Group
The 19th century saw an explosion of diverse carriage designs and styles. Gender played an important role in shaping these styles, tastes and trends, and it was common to find carriages designed to have more masculine or feminine features. For example, Sir Walter Gilbey mentions in his 1905 book ‘Modern Carriages’ that certain types of carriages such as Victorias and the Lady’s Phaeton were seen to have feminine attributes, whilst carriages such as the Beaufort Phaeton were designed strictly for men.
A notable trendsetter for fashion and style throughout the Victorian era was Queen Victoria herself, who was known to be an aficionado of many types of carriages and coaches during her long reign. She was especially fond of Victorias (which were named after her), Broughams and Phaetons, and was known to enjoy riding in carriages almost everyday. Her tastes in carriages shaped the wider fashions of upper-class women in the UK and Europe more broadly, and many wealthy and privileged families attempted to emulate her lifestyle by buying similar carriages. The Victoria carriage was especially popular towards the end of the 19th century; Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake, a fellow carriage enthusiast and benefactor of carriage museums, recalled that “In my youth, between about 1880 and 1914, [the Victoria] was the most popular open lady’s carriage... Queen Alexandra regularly used one for drives in the park...”.
Science Museum Group
But what about non-binary, trans, or non-conforming genders in society? During both the 18th and 19th century, there were stories of people who didn’t conform to established gender norms and similarly didn't conform to traditional norms in carriages.
For example, Chevalier d'Éon/Chevalière d'Éon, famous and formidable 18th-century French spy and diplomat lived as both a man and a woman at different stages of their life. At one point, after having lived and worked in London as a man, they were officially declared by the French king as a woman and came back to London in female clothing. It was then observed by their contemporaries that d'Éon still climbed in and out of carriages without assistance from a man, and therefore broke gender norms.
In the 19th century, renowned Yorkshire landowner Anne Lister, a.k.a. ‘Gentleman Jack’, also broke with established gender norms of her time. Sometimes described as one the world’s first openly gay modern women, Anne Lister was known to dress only in black, a norm typically exclusive to gentlemen, and on some occasions would include men’s accessories as part of her fashion. She also engaged in pursuits not typical of Victorian women, such as interests in mining, railways and canals, and purchasing, owning and riding her own collection of carriages.
Over the course of the 19th century, access to carriages became increasingly widespread to women across all social classes.
An article published in 1875 by feminist newspaper Women and Work, titled ‘Cab-driving is certainly an original employment for women’ highlights how some Victorian women had turned to cab driving for both enjoyment and money. By 1897, it was considered increasingly normal to see women as employed cab drivers, even of iconic Victorian Hansom cabs as shown in the illustration below:
The British Museum Archive
Image source
for A black and white illustration of a female cab driver causing a scene in Piccadilly.
This is especially interesting given that in earlier decades, there was a general understanding that the rough and dangerous reputation of Hansom cabs made them unsuitable for ladies to even travel in, let alone drive. This reflects changing societal norms occurring in the turn of the 19th century, and the changing opportunities for women across social classes to find paid professional employment.
Carriages and Horses
The history of carriages is inseparable from the history of horses, though their stories are often overlooked when considering the development of British road transport.
The incredible expansion of the coachbuilding industry throughout the 19th century corresponded to a rapid growth in the population of horses, within cities. Over the course of the century, working conditions for horses became very poor, especially within urban environments. The life expectancy of many horses working in London halved during this time owing to challenging weather, long hours of work, heavy weights, work accidents, and during the mid-19th century approximately 500 horses died each week in London alone.
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A significant movement for improving the health care and working conditions of horses in the UK was inspired by the novel Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. As a child, Anna injured her ankle which she never fully recovered from, and consequently used horse-drawn carriages heavily throughout her life. A keen observer of the conditions that Victorian horses worked and lived in, she wrote Black Beauty, which depicts the life of a London cab horse. Written and told from the point of view of the titular horse, her novel is praised for being one of the earliest English novels to use a non-human animal point of view.
Whilst the book is now considered a children’s classic, it was also known for challenging Victorian society’s views on gender and class, as well as preconceptions about the conditions of working horses and animal cruelty. For example, one of the practices she challenges in her book is the use of bearing reins: harnesses that force the horse to keep its head high by connecting the ‘bit’ in the horse’s mouth to a fixed point on its back. This practice was used in excess in the 19th century and caused chronic back pain and breathing difficulties. After the publication of Black Beauty, this practice became increasingly unpopular.
In the early 20th century, popular English novelist and poet Ford Maddox Ford provides a vivid account of the lives of horses on London streets: “...surely there is no more monstrous apparition than that of a horse down in the sticky streets with its frantic struggles, the glancing off of its hoofs, the roll of eyes, the sudden apparition of great teeth, and then it's lying still”
Science Museum Group
The worsening conditions of horses in British cities, especially London, were exacerbated by the continuingly growing population of horses in urban areas. By the end of the 19th century, it was estimated that there were at least 200,000 horses in London alone. A horse produced on average 20 pounds of manure a day, and if left alone would attract flies and other vermin that facilitated the spreading of diseases such as typhoid. This led to growing national concern that soon the volume of horse manure and urine would outpace society's ability to manage leading to a serious challenge to public sanitation and health- the so-called ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis’. In the end, a direct solution to the logistical challenge presented by the manure crisis was never actually found; instead, the problem began to disappear as horse-drawn carriages were phased out in favour of motor-powered automobiles (which brought their own challenges and problems).
End of an Era: The phasing out of horse-drawn carriages
The 1890s saw the beginning of an international automobile industry, one which would come to almost completely outcompete and replace the centuries-old coachbuilding industry by the end of the First World War. The first automobiles in the UK were imported in the 1890s or made in the UK with French or German components. The first fully British automobile produced was designed by Herbert Austin in 1900. The UK automobile market rapidly increased, with approximately 800 automobiles in 1900, to approximately 1 million by 1930. The First World War heavily influenced Europe's move away from horse-drawn transport towards automobiles, as it marked one of the single biggest losses of horse life in history leaving the job masters (keepers of boarding stables) and carriage companies without horsepower.
The attraction of automobiles was also how they were marketed and advertised, promising that they would clean the air, be safer, and fix traffic problems, something-that would later be proven to be untrue.
Perhaps, the most lasting impact of carriages was on the styling of automobiles. Many carriage designs and styles were so iconic, that coachmakers would emulate them in automobile designs (Phaetons, Broughams, Victoria's, cabriolets etc.). Carriages themselves didn’t disappear completely and can still be seen in use today: Irish jaunting cars are still used for tours in national parks, hired horse-drawn carriages are used in some weddings and other special occasions, and one can still apply for a horse-drawn Hackney carriage license.
