THE HISTORY OF COACHES. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 37. PROBABLY THE FIRST SOCIABLE. THE PROPERTY OF THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY. A CHILD’S CARRIAGE OF THE DATE OF 1700.] THE HISTORY OF COACHES BY G. A. THRUPP. “O, then, I see Queen Mab has been with you, Drawn with a team of little atomies, Her Waggon spokes made of long spinners’ legs; Her Chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out o’ mind the Fairies’ Coachmakers.” _Romeo and Juliet_, Act I. Scene 4 _WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS._ LONDON: KERBY & ENDEAN, 190 OXFORD STREET. NEW YORK: THE “HUB” PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1877. LONDON: KERBY & ENDEAN, 190 OXFORD STREET, _Printers and Publishers_. [Illustration] PREFACE. “Chi va piano, va sano.”[1] _Italian Proverb._ In the spring of 1876 I was requested by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce to prepare a series of Lectures upon Coachbuilding. I chose as my subject the History of that Art, as likely to be more interesting than a merely technical description of the method of constructing vehicles. I was desirous of enlisting the sympathies of the Public in general in an Art so important to the requirements of the age, as well as of calling the attention of the artisans of our trade to the principles which govern the construction of Carriages. I need hardly add that I received from the Society of Arts all the assistance in its power towards composing the substance of the Lectures, and also in the preparation of the numerous diagrams by which they were illustrated; they further aided in procuring a very large attendance of artisans, employers, and others interested in Coachbuilding, at the time of my delivering the lectures in November and December last, in their great room at John Street, Adelphi. It is deemed desirable that these Lectures should be re-issued in their present form. I found it very difficult to arrive at the shape of the vehicles used by our forefathers on account of the absence of any connected history, and also from the very vague descriptions contained in books on the subject, but which were not always written for technical purposes. It was not therefore without considerable search in books and examination of paintings and old engravings, that I could at all ascertain the shapes of the earlier Coaches, and of course both my time and opportunities were limited to a few months.