THE BROUGHAM - named after the first Lord
Brougham who designed the carriage 1838-39, a
foure-wheeled close carriage adapted to either two
or four persons having a curved opening
underneath the driver's seat in fron, able to turn in
a narrow space. It is a one horse vehicle with
varieties "single", "double" and "bow front"

THE COCKING CART - A high seat two
wheeler with a small box body for the carrying of
fighting cocks. This style and that of the dog
cart, became the basis for many of the
commercial cars used from Georgian through to
Victorian Britain

THE DOG CART - It was made with a ventilated
compartment used to carry sporting dogs such as greyhounds
to a coursing event. Again as in the case of the Cocking-
Cart, these carriages developed into pleasure carts and were
rearely used to transport etiher cocks or hounds.

This kind of vehicle would normally have been driven in
tandem and that's the reason for its height. This
characteristic also makes it a difficult carriage to drive and it
could easily have been thrown out of balance by any sudden
movement of the groom in the rear.

THE GEORGE IV PHAETON - Various phaetons, termed
George IV Phaetons were manufactured by many builders
in both England and America. The basic design was
copied from a carriage that was originally made for King
George IV of England in 1824. The King was then elderly
and grown very heavy. He still wanted to drive his own
carriage on occasion and asked that one be built that would
allow him easy entry. As ladies began to drive more
commonly this design appealed to them because of this
ease of access. After a time, carriages of this design-type
were often referred to as Ladies Phaetons

THE PARK DRAG - A large private coach with a seat for
two footmen at the rear used for traveling or formal
occasions. The Park Drag is a derivative of the earlier
English Mail Coach and Road Coach which crisscrossed
Britain by the hundreds, carrying passengers and mail in
the late 18th and early 19th century. The mail coach so
captured the imagination of people of the time that the
coach, coachman, and Mail Guard became celebrities. It
became fashionable for young men to buy up coaches to
drive for sport and play. After the Mail Coach was
replaced by the railroad even more people acquired the
out of use Mail Coaches.

THE LANDAU - A closed carriage of German origin.
A coach with two seats and a head in two sections
which may be opened and folded back, drop windows
to make it an open carriage in good weather.

The necessity of expeditious and cheap locomotion in the streets of London has called forth a
variety of methods of travelling. The cheapest, simplest, oldest, and most natural of them is
walking. In the narrow and crowded streets of the City, where conveyances make but little
progress, this method is certainly the safest, and withal, the most expeditious. Strangers in
London are not fond of walking, they are bewildered by the crowd, and frightened at the
crossings; they complain of the brutal conduct of the English, who elbow their way along the
pavement without considering that people who hurry on, on some important business or other,

cannot possibly stop to discuss each kick or push they give or receive. A Londoner jostles
you in the street, without ever dreaming of asking your pardon; he will run against you, and
make you revolve on your own axis, without so much as looking round to see how you feel
after the shock; he will put his foot upon a lady's foot or dress, exactly as if such foot or dress
were integral parts of the pavement, which ought to be trodden upon; but if he runs you down,
if he breaks your ribs, or knocks out your front teeth, he will show some slight compunction,
and as he hurries off, the Londoner has actually been known to turn back and beg your pardon.

ROAD STEAM TRAVEL

" It was not far from Old Kent Road toll that I saw my first road-steamer or motor-car.
Close to the Bricklayers' Arms Station there stood, and stands still, a tavern called The
World Turned Upside Down, with a pictorial sign to that effect on the top of a post, and (in
those days) a water-trough for horses in front. One afternoon in 1857, or perhaps 1858, I
was in a shop opposite with our maternal parent when a commotion arose in the Street
and I saw through a window a strange machine come along and stop alongside the water-
trough. A crowd instantly surrounded it, but I made out that a man in a white jacket had
got off and was putting a hose-pipe in the trough. The machine had a smoking chimney
and a big wheel and I recognised it as a locomotive with rails. In some ten minutes the
man got on the engine, the crowd made way and then, strongly puffing, the steamer
started eastward it immediately attained a good speed, for a tail of cheering boys who ran
after it was at once left behind.

The injudicious law which restricted the speed of road steamers to four miles an hour and
prescribed that a man displaying a red flag should walk in front, was not yet enacted, and
although such steamers were few in the 1850's they were not handicapped like that. That
law proved an effective block to British invention and enterprise, and when the
practicable motor-car did come along, it was France and not the real land of its origin that
got both the credit and profit".

MOTOR TRAVEL

There can be no doubt of it. Everyone has read and heard about "automotors" by this time, or
seen pictures of them in the illustrated magazines, but somehow these have got mixed up with
engravings of submarine boats or flying machines, and all have stood still. One has looked like
any vehicle in Long Acre and the other suggested a new patent reaping mahchine. It is not till
you have been on the box of a phaeton and been for a spin along a dusty road at the rate of
some ten miles an hour without whip, reins or anything to drive in front of you, that you can
realise, however faintly, the future of a "horseless carriage ." I have just returned from a short
excursion in one of them, but the length of the trip has nothing to do with its effect upon the
passenger sitting on the box with no animal trotting before him below the splashboard "It
takes two gallons for eighty miles, remarked the coachman by my side, as he whisked round
one of the corners of the road. He spoke of them as if they were a seasoned "pair" safe to do
so long a day's work but they were harnessed somewhere "inside", in the rumble, and they
certainly made themselves felt there to some extent, especially when we stopped for a moment
to pick up a man at the roadside. Then they gave the vehicle a pulsation not unlike that
communicated to a gig by a blown horse when pulled up after a sharp trot. But our motive
power came from senseless petroleum instead of sinews, and a "relay" was ready in a can,
rather than a wayside stable, and was fed with fire, not oats from the "Leisure Hour" 1896

Motoring within the last few years England, and especially London, has gone through the throes
of a revolution. Some of us wish we could say it was a silent one, but when the noise of
cumbrous motor buses reaches one in the crowded streets, and the odours from the pale blue
smoke that follows in their wake touch up the olfactroy nerve, it is no wonder that they are not
hailed as blessings in disguise, and that we are face to face with a change that is simply, from a
traffic point of view, overwhelming. Of the vehicles that have come upon us with their motor
power, we admit that these buses are the worst, and yet, that so great is the love of quick motion
in the English race, that almost invariably you see the passenger, for choice, mount the speedier
conveyance. When we hear the murmurs from the countryside, and unfortunately, of the far too
many accidents from reckless speed which the law is endeavouring to and must check, we can
only say that motor power has woke up England in a way that the old country was not prepared
for, and which we shall all have to try and get used to, because there seems no manner of doubt
whatever, that these disturbers of the public peace have come to stay and that in the future we
shall have developments that will be likely to still further utilise the power which set them going.

Charles Dickens Dictionary 1908

THE RAILWAY

ADVICE TO TRAVELLERS

The existing railway arrangements render it imperative that you should provide yourselves
with a large stock of philosophy to enable you to put up with certain inconveniences, which
you will be sure, to a great or less extent, to encounter on most lines, and whereof a
classification is hereby appended for your benefit

FIRST CLASS

The chief inconvenience peculiar to this class, is, that your fare will be about twice as much
as you ought in fairness to pay. You run prhaps, rather less risk in this class than in the
others, of having your neck broken, but you must not be unprepared for such a
contingency.

SECOND CLASS

In travelling by the second class, you will do well to wear a respirator, unless you wish to be
choked with dust and ashes from the engine close in front of you. Also if you are going far
you are recommended to put on a diving-dress, like that used at the Polytechnic; because,
if it should rain much during your journey, the sides of the carriage being open, you will
have to ride in a pool of water. Your dignity must not be hurt, should you have for your
next neighbour a ragamuffin in handcuffs, with a policeman next him. The hardness of your
seat is a mere trifle; that is the least of the annoyances to which you are judiciously
subjected, with the view of driving you into the first class train.

THIRD CLASS

Make up your mind for unmitigated hail, rain, sleet, snow, thunder and lightning. Look out
for a double allowance of smoke, dust, dirt, and everything that is disagreeable. Be
content to run a twofold risk of loss of life and limb. Do not expect the luxury of a seat. As
an individual and a traveller, you are one of the lower classes; a poor, beggarly,
contemptible person, and your comfort and convenience are not to be attended to.

ALL THREE CLASSES

Punctuality may be the soul of business, but suppose not that it is the spirit of railways. If
you do not care whether you keep an appointment or not, make it on the faith of the
Company, by all means: but otherwise by none. Regard starting, or arriving at your
destination, only half an hour too late, as luck. You pay nothing extra to attendants for
civility, so you must not hope for it. Remember that you are at the mercy of the Company
as to where you may stop for refreshments; for which, accordingly, be not surprised if you
have to pay through the nose. Beware if you quit the train for an instant, lest it move on;
you have paid your money, the rest is your own look-out and , you may depend ill be no one
els's. For loss and damage of luggage, and the like little mishaps, prepare yourself as a
matter of course, and if at the end of your journey you find yourself in a whole skin - thank
your stars.

Punch 1844

1863 - THE FIRST UNDERGROUND

Only a few days later, March 14th, 1863, on my thirteenth birthday, I made my first journey on
the Underground - the Metropolitan Railway - which had been opened on the previous
January 10th and was still a public wonder. It had been projected and talked about for many
years, and during construction had kep well in popular view, especially when the Demon of the
Fleet Ditch (in reality the little river Fleet) had broken into and flooded the half-finished
tunnels on more than one vexatious occasion. I had kept my small eye on the proceedings
and read the accounts of the opening with great interest and admiration for the talented
enginerr, Mr. Fowler, later Sir John Fowler, destined to become even more famous in later
years by the share he bore in the design and erection of the great Forth Bridge.

Dickens Dictionery

********************************************

At one time, finding myself near a station, I thought I would make a trip in the Underground
Railway. I go down two or three stairs and find myself suddenly thrown from the daylight into
obscurity, amid feeble lights, people and noise, trains arriving and departing in the dark.
Mine draws up and stops; people jump down and people jump into the carriages, while I am
asking where the second class is, the train is gone. "What does this mean? I say to an
employee 'Never mind,' he answers, 'here is another. ' The trains do not succeed, but pursue
each other. The other train comes, I jump in and away we go like an arrow. Then begins a
new spectacle, we run through the unknown, among the foundations of the city. At first we
are buried in thick darkness, then we see for an instant the dim light of day, and again plunge
into obscurity, broken here and there by strange glowings; then between the thousand lights
of a station which appears and disappears in an instant; trains passing unseen; next an
unexpected stop, the thousand faces of the waiting crowd, lit up as if the reflection of a fire,
and then off again in the midst of a deafening din of slamming doors, ringing bells, and snorting
steam; now more darkness, trains and streaks of daylight, more lighted stations, more crowds
passing, approaching, and vanishing, until we reach the last station, I jump down; the train
disappears, I am shoved through a door, half carried up a stairway, and find myself in daylight.
But where ? What city is this ?

Jottings about London 1883

****************************************************

I had my first experience of Hades today, and if the real thing is to be like that I shall never
again do anything wrong. I got into the Underground railway at Baker Street. I wanted to go
to Moorgate Street in the City. It was very warm - for London, at least. The compartment in
which I sat was filled with passengers who were smoking pipes, as is the British habit, and as
the smoke and sulphur from the engine fill the tunnel, all the windows have to be closed. The
atmosphere was a mixture of sulphur, coal dust and foul fumes from the oil lamp above; so
that by the time we reached Moorgate Street I was near dead of asphyxiation and heat I
should think these Underground railways must soon be discontinued, for they are a menace to
health. A few minutes earlier can be no consideration, since hansom cabs and omnibuses,
carried by the swiftest horses I have seen anywhere, do the work most satisfactorily.

R.D.Blumenfeld, diary, 1887

The success of the first Railway Line - the
Liverpol and Manchester line, which opened in
1830, soon led to plans for the formation of
railways in all parts of the kingdom. After
centuries of the use of the horse for travel with
all its attendant discomforts became a change
to a degree of other discomforts in the interests
of speed and convenience.

Much less excusable is the kicking and pushing of the English public at their theatres,
museums, railway stations, and other places of public resort. Nothing but an introduction to
every individual man and woman in the three kingdoms will save you from being, on such
occasions, pushed back by them. You have not been introduced to them, you are a stanger to
them and there is no reason why they should consult your convenience. The fact is, the
English are bears in all places, except in their own houses, and only those who make their
acquaintance in their dens, know how amiable, kind, and mannerly they really are.

(Max Schlesinger,

Saunterings in and about London. 1853)

VICTORIAN

NUISANCES

The first Cable Tram in 1905

The First Steam and Motor Car c.1900

The Horse Tram arrives

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