48 DRIVING. 



About 1842 or 1843, Mr. Lovell, coach-builder of Amers- 

 ham, Bucks, built what is now so generally known as a 

 waggonette for Lord Curzon, and Mr. Holmes, of Derby, built 

 one for the Earl of Chesterfield, and in the year 1845 one was 

 made under the superintendence of the late Prince Consort 

 for the use of Her Majesty and the Royal family, by the late 

 Mr. George Hooper, of London. The new vehicle proved a 

 rival to the phaeton, though there are many persons who 

 object to riding sideways, and in the waggonette proper the 

 passengers in the body of the carriage have their backs to the 

 wheels. Fitted with a movable hood the waggonette becomes 

 a closed carriage, and though lacking the style of the phaeton, 

 there is much to be said in favour of waggonettes for country 

 use. 



A few years afterwards, in the summer of 1850, another 

 royal carriage, which has since attained great popularity, was 

 first introduced into England, though the vehicle was not quite 

 a novelty to those who were familiar with the summer street 

 cabs of Paris. This was the Victoria, not precisely it may be 

 the vehicle which the reader will first picture to himself, for 

 the Victoria with a seat in front for the driver came after- 

 wards. The earliest example, now in question, was a pony 

 phaeton to hold two, one of whom drove. The builder was 

 Mr. Andrews, then Mayor of Southampton. When taken to 

 Osborne the vehicle was warmly approved, and it is on record 

 that ' the Queen and Prince expressed to the Mayor their entire 

 satisfaction with the style, elegance, and extraordinary lightness, 

 and construction of the carriage, which scarcely weighed three 

 hundredweight.' The fore wheels were 18 inches in height, the 

 hind 30 inches, the body was of cane a fashion which is not 

 universally approved. Very similar park phaetons were, how- 

 ever, in use in the royal establishments at Windsor in the time of 

 King William IV. consequently before 1837. King George IV. 

 used to drive one. Except for the absence of a movable hood 

 and the canework body, this Victoria was much like the low 

 park phaeton of to-day. In course of time this developed into 



