A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



for talent, ingenuity, and taste in devising 

 a safe, comfortable, shapely, and artistically 

 decorated conveyance. For the decoration of 

 the panels the services of artists of the highest 

 rank were engaged. Smirke, the Royal 

 Academician, served his time to Bromley the 

 heraldic carriage painter of Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields. Monamy, the marine painter of the 

 latter part of the i8th century, painted the 

 carriage of the ill-fated Admiral Byng ; and 

 Charles Cotton, R.A., decorated coaches with 

 armorial bearings. 1 



Hackney coaches came into use in 1605. 

 At first they stood about in the yards of the 

 principal inns, but in 1634 Captain Bailey 3 

 f created according to his ability some four 

 hackney coaches, put his men in livery and 

 appointed them to stand at the " Maypole " in 

 the Strand,' where St. Mary's Church now is. 

 A patent (No. 3) was granted to Edward 

 Knapp on 7 January 1625 'for hanging the 

 bodies of carriages by springs of steel ; ' 

 another patent (No. 244) was taken out by 

 John Bellingham on 7 January 1685 'for 

 making square window glasses for chaises 

 and coaches.' On 13 May 1740 John Tull 

 was granted a patent (No. 570) for a sedan- 

 chair fixed on a wheel carriage for horse 

 draught. Many years earlier (in 1691) John 

 Green obtained a patent for coach springs, 

 but these did not come into general use until 

 the latter half of the i8th century. 



William Felton,coach-maker, of 36, Leather 

 Lane, Holborn, in his Treatise on Carriages, 

 published in 1794, says ' the principal improve- 

 ments that have been made in carriages for 

 these last twenty years are originally the 

 invention of Mr. John Hatchett of Long Acre, 

 whose taste in building has greatly contributed 

 to the increase of their numbers, and enhance- 

 ment of their value. To him every coach 

 maker is highly indebted, as at present they 

 seldom build without copying his designs.' 

 The famous state-coach of the Irish Lord 

 Chancellor was built in 1790 either by this 

 firm or by that of Baxter. 3 



In 1769 T. Hunt received sixty guineas 

 from the Society of Arts for improvements in 

 tyring wheels. The well-known firm of 

 Barker & Co. possesses drawings of coaches built 

 for the Duke of Bedford and others between 

 1780 and 1800. At a later time their cus- 

 tomers included Count D'Orsay, Lord 



1 J. H. Pollen, Anct. and Modern furniture In the 

 S. Kens. Mus. (1874), Introd. 



' From a letter written by Lord Strafford in 1 634. 

 Quoted by Sir W. Gilbey, Early Carriages, 27. 



1 G. A. Thrupp, Hist, of the Art of Coach-Building 

 (1876), 89. 



Chesterfield, and Charles Dickens. The most 

 famous coach-builders in London in 1 8 1 5 were 

 Rowley, Mansell, and Cook, a large firm in 

 Liquorpond Street, Windus in Bishopsgate 

 Street, Barker in Chandos Street, Hatchett of 

 Long Acre, Houlditch and Hawkins, and Luke 

 Hopkinson of Holborn. 



Great improvements in the manufacture of 

 English carriages were made in 1820 by 

 Samuel Hobson. He reduced the height of 

 the wheels, lengthened the coach body and 

 hung it lower, substituting a double step to the 

 door instead of a three-step ladder. Hobson 

 traded in the firm of Barker and Co. of Chan- 

 dos Street and later rose to be a partner. 

 About the year 1815 he set up for himself in 

 Long Acre, and removed later to the large 

 premises previously occupied by Messrs. 

 Hatchett. In his improvements he was assisted 

 by his experience gained at Messrs. Barker's, and 

 his methods were copied in turn by the prin- 

 cipal members of the trade, in the same way 

 that he had copied his predecessor, Mr. Hat- 

 chett, in 1780. 



James Bennett, of Finsbury, was the in- 

 ventor of a two-wheeled carriage called the 

 Dennett, which was a great improvement on 

 the whisky or gig of 1790. Tilbury, the 

 originator of an easy vehicle known by that 

 name, was also the builder of the ' Stan- 

 hope,' under the superintendence of the Hon. 

 Fitzroy Stanhope, brother of Lord Peter- 

 sham. 



The dog-cart dates from the beginning of 

 the igth century, one variety being known as 

 the Whitechapel. This became the favourite 

 vehicle of the commercial travellers, to whom 

 about 1830 one coach factory in London 

 supplied ^several hundreds of these vehicles at 

 an annual rental. The introduction of rail- 

 ways gave the commercial traveller a more 

 expeditious method of showing his samples, 

 and the chief users of the dog-cart have since 

 been the tradesman and the farmer. 



David Davies, of Albany Street, and after- 

 wards of Wigmore Street, was a coach-builder 

 of considerable inventive faculties. Among 

 many other of his inventions was the Pilen- 

 tum phaeton, which he designed about the 

 year 1834. The Pilentum was an open car- 

 riage with the doorway very near the ground, 

 built of different sizes, to carry four or six 

 persons, and adapted for one or two horses. 

 He is also the reputed inventor of the cab 

 phaeton, which was soon generally adopted as 

 a popular pleasure carriage. This became a 

 fashionable conveyance not only in England, 

 but also on the Continent, until 1850, about 

 which time it came into use as a hackney car- 

 riage, and so lost favour with the gentry. It 



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