Carriages and carts; Communication and traffic; Great Britain -- Social life and customs; Vehicles -- History
An agreement made in 1718 between a Mr. Vanden Bampde and Charles
Hodges, a job-master, is worth noticing. Under this contract Hodges
undertook to maintain for Mr. Bampde “a coach, chariot, and harness
neat and clean, and in all manner of repair at his own charge, not
including the wheels.” If the coachman should break the glass when
the carriage was empty, Hodges was to make good the damage. He was
to supply at a charge of 5s. 6d. a day, a pair of “good, strong,
serviceable, handsome well-matched horses of value between £50 and
£60”; also a “good, sober, honest, creditable coachman,” who, with the
horses, should attend as Mr. Bampde or his lady might require in London
or Westminster. If Mr. Bampde went into the country Hodges was to find
him one or more pairs of horses at half-a-crown per pair per day extra.
DEAN SWIFT ON COACHES AND DRIVERS.
The hackney coachmen appear to have been quite as independent and
offensive a class in Swift’s time as they were in Pepys’. Writing from
Dublin on July 8, 1733, he compares the advantages of residence in that
city with residence in London, and gives prominence to the following
items:—
“I am one of the governors of all the hackney coaches, carts and
carriages round this town; who dare not insult me like your rascally
waggoners or coachmen, but give me the way.”
It may be observed here that there was still plenty of work for the
wherrymen on the Thames in the middle of the eighteenth century. Swift
writes on April 16, 1760, praying Mr. Warburton to leave London and pay
him a visit at Twickenham, and by way of inducement he adds: “If the
press be to take up any part of your time, the sheets may be brought
you hourly thither by my waterman.”
The Dean’s _Humorous Advice to Servants_ contains some sarcastic
observations addressed to the coachman, which shed light upon what we
must suppose was the usual character of that servant. He is advised
that “you are strictly bound to nothing but to step into the box and
carry your lord and lady;” and he is enjoined to take every opportunity
of drinking. The following passage shows how wheels of carriages
suffered from the battering on the roads:—
“Take care that your wheels be good; and get a new set bought as often
as you can whether you are allowed the old as your perquisite or not;
in one case it will turn to your honest profit and on the other it will
be a just punishment on your master’s covetousness, and probably the
coach-maker will consider you too.”
ROADS IN THE 18TH CENTURY.
Every author of the time has something to say about the roads. Daniel
Bourn[17] says:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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