Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their EvolutionStraus, Ralph
History
Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their Evolution
Straus, Ralph
Carriages and carts
A similar movement in France gave rise to the _fiacres_, so called
from the sign of St. Fiacre, which adorned one of the principal inns
in Paris, in front of which the public coaches stood. In Scotland,
too, one Henry Andersen, a native of Pomerania, had in 1610 been
granted a royal patent to provide public coaches in Scotland, and for
some years ran a service between Edinburgh and Leith. England had yet
to follow Andersen’s example, but the hackneys were increasing so
rapidly in London that in 1635 a proclamation was issued to suppress
them. And it is to be noticed that Taylor’s diatribes were directed
more particularly against these public conveyances than against the
privately owned carriages, which, after all, could hardly affect his
trade. The proclamation was as follows:—
“That the great numbers of Hackney Coaches of late time seen
and kept in London, Westminster, and their Suburbs, and the
general and promiscuous use of Coaches there, were not only
_a great disturbance to his Majesty, his dearest Consort the
Queen, the Nobility, and others of place and degree, in their
passage through the Streets_; but the Streets themselves
were so pestered, and the pavements so broken up, that the
common passage is thereby hindered and more dangerous; and the
prices of hay and provender and other provisions of stable,
thereby made exceeding dear: Wherefore We expressly command
and forbid, That, from the feast of St. John the Baptist
next coming, no Hackney or Hired Coach, be used or suffered
in London, Westminster, or the Suburbs or Liberties thereof,
excepting they be to travel at least three miles out of London
or Westminster, or the Suburbs thereof. And also, that no
person shall go in a Coach in the said Streets, except the
owner of the Coach shall constantly keep up Four able Horses
for our Service, when required.”
It is dated January 19th, 1635/6, and must have had a considerable, if
temporary, effect, for as Samuel Pegge points out in his unfinished
manuscript on the early use of coaches[25] it could not “operate much
in the King’s favour, as it would hardly be worth a Coach-master’s
while to be at so great a contingent charge as the keeping of four
horses to be furnished at a moment’s warning for His Majesty’s
occasional employment.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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