A Novice's Introduction to Victorian Carriages, Part 4

Tim Prasil

February 1

GO TO VICTORIAN CARRIAGES, PART 1
GO TO VICTORIAN CARRIAGES, PART 2
GO TO VICTORIAN CARRIAGES, PART 3

Variations on a Vehicle

The forms of carriages as now built are so numerous as to almost defy classification, and they altogether baffle detailed description.

This passage comes from the entry for "Carriage," sub-section "Modern Carriages," in the 1876 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and -- as if to prove the point -- it's followed by this chart of carriages and their countries of origin:

That article goes on to say that the list excludes "numberless forms of fancy carriage" resulting from "the misdirected ingenuity of coach-builders," who combine bits and pieces of various vehicles yet fail to build a better mousetrap. My efforts to focus only a handful of Victorian carriages in these posts led me to the same conclusion: it's really hard to nail down any reliable characteristics that differentiates, say, a dog-cart from a gig, a hansom from a cabriolet, or a sociable-landau from, well, a reclusive one.

Nonetheless, I still want to glance at two more vehicles that pop up in Victorian literature. After all, this series of posts was inspired by my urge to better envision what would have been easily envisioned by Victorian readers. Unlike the carriages I've discussed so far, which were built to comfortably accommodate two or four passengers, the wagonette and the omnibus could handle a group of passengers, perhaps eight or more.

Piling into a Wag(g)onette

This wagonette illustration appears in William N. Fitz-Gerald's The Carriage Trimmers' Manual and Guide Book (1881). There's a fun photo of none other than Queen Victoria looking more amused than regal in the back of one here.

Disagreeing with the Britannica's suggestion that cobbling together features from various carriages is "misdirected," George S. Sidney says the wagonette "is a combination of all the best parts of the Irish inside car, the French sportsman's char à banc, the English brake, and the modern stanhope phaeton." He concludes that it "is, in fact, the perfection of a family country carriage." Presumably, this is because several passengers can ride in it -- some of them traveling sideways, but not backwards, on benches along both sides of the main passenger area -- and yet it can be pulled by only one or two horses.

Given the passenger capacity of a wagonette, it makes sense that one carries the unwary Otis family to haunted Canterville Chase in Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost" (1887). These carriages also roll into view in L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace's A Master of Mysteries (1897-99), which is fitting since this introduction to Victorian carriages was nudged by my editing the first Curated Crime Collection volumes, and Meade and Eustace's The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings (1898) and The Sorceress of the Strand (1902-03) are part of that. Yet another waggonette figures into H.G. Wells's The Food of the Gods (1904).

Squeezing into an Omnibus (a.k.a. a 'Bus)

From Henry Charles Moore's Omnibuses and Cabs: Their Origin and History (1902)

Of all the public conveyances that have been constructed since the days of the Ark — we think that is the earliest on record — to the present time, commend us to an omnibus.

This according to Charles Dickens. His buddy Wilkie Collins seems to have liked omnibuses, too, since he has the title character of his novel Basil (1852) praise the "perambulatory exhibition-room of the eccentricities of human nature" afforded by them. Fortuné du Boisgobey opens Le Crime de l'omnibus (1881, an English translation being titled "An Omnibus Mystery") with an interesting scene involving the frustrations of missing the last omnibus of the night, and from there, he transports readers to a murder case.

It strikes me that an omnibus might be the easiest of the Victorian carriages for 21st-century readers to visualize. Despite the transition from horse (and, in some cases, steam) power to fossil fuel -- despite over a century of modification -- buses look roughly the same. Well, very roughly. At least, we understand the basic principle: a driver in front with plenty of seating behind. Come to think of it, wagonettes are pretty easy to grasp, too. They're basically wagons with a couple of bleacher seats.

Regardless, I'm now better at picturing these and the other carriages I've discussed, and I find myself excitedly trying to identify them in movies and TV shows set in Victorian times. I certainly hope I've helped others who enjoy Victorian fiction or period drama, too. As I've said at the end of the previous three posts, feel very free to correct or add to the discussion in the comments.

-- Tim