The Coaching Era 63 



Humpherus, author of the " History of the Origin and Progress 

 of the River Thames/' has been unable to find that any report 

 was made thereon. Soon after this the number of hackney 

 coaches was increased (14 Chas. II., c. 2) to 400. In 1666, more 

 complaints coming from the watermen, the House of Commons 

 appointed a committee of inquiry. 



In the winter of 1683-4 the disconsolate watermen had to 

 suffer the indignity of seeing the Thames itself their own 

 special province invaded by the drivers of hackney coaches ! 

 So severe was the frost that, as told by John Evelyn in his 

 " Diary," the Thames was frozen over " so thick as to bear, 

 not only streets of booths in which they roasted meat, and 

 had divers shops of wares, quite across as in a town, but 

 coaches, carts and horses," so that " coaches plied from 

 Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs to 

 and fro, as in the streets." 



By 1685 the hackney coaches seem to have established their 

 position as successful competitors of the watermen, an Act 

 of Parliament which placed them on a recognised and regulated 

 footing being passed in that year, while the number to be 

 licensed was increased in 1694 to 700, in 1711 to 800, and in 

 1771 to 1000. 



A still further blow was given to the interests of the water- 

 men by the introduction from Paris, in 1820, of the " cabri- 

 olet," or " cab " as it came to be called ; and yet another 

 was dealt to them when, on July 4, 1829, Mr Shillibeer, the 

 coach proprietor, ran the first omnibus from the Yorkshire 

 Stingo, Paddington, to the City, and thus began a further new 

 era in urban locomotion, supplanting, thereby, a good many 

 of the hackney coachmen, just as they themselves had to so 

 considerable an extent already supplanted the Thames 

 watermen. 



