THE CARRIAGE FOUNDATION
borrowed from Butler’s Brewery for the purpose, played up and the earl had to find alternative transport. For less formal activities the earl had a
brougham built by Barker & Co of London. Te brougham was first produced to the order of Lord Brougham, who sought “a refined and glorified street cab which would make a convenient carriage for gentlemen and especially for a man of such ideas as one who carried his own carpet bag on occasions when time was important and his own servants otherwise employed.” Drawn by a single horse or a pair, the design opened the way for professional and middle class families to own a closed carriage. It also proved popular with the upper echelons as a workaday vehicle, particularly for town journeys. Tis example is trimmed in maroon morocco leather and wool cloth. In keeping with the earl’s general taste, it is of high quality and well suited for its purpose, with a shelf for parcels and roller blinds for privacy but eschews unnecessary elaborations to be found on some examples. For informal and country pursuits the earl
maintained a large private omnibus or station bus capable of carrying eight passengers inside. He may well have driven this himself to a team of four if fully laden. For more style in town, and especially in
Hyde Park, he would have driven his spider phaeton. Tis is an unusual example and may have been custom built to the earl’s specifications, as the axle caps are engraved with his crest and show no builder’s name. It is more substantial than the usual lightweight show vehicle so loved by Hyde Park dandies, but has additional springs to compensate for the extra weight. Te wide grooms’ bench has room for two
attendants and the unusual swingletrees and lack of a splinter bar suggest the use of a team of four in continental style breast collars, rather than the English norm of neck collars. While his choice of carriages shows him to have a sound appreciation of quality, he was not afraid of setting his own style –as his somewhat scandalous private life (eloping with a married woman) further testifies.
Below: Hansom cab by Forder Ltd of Wolverhampton and London.
We cannot leave the earl without noting
his commercial activities represented at Shugborough by this hansom cab, which was almost certainly one of his commercial fleet run under the business name of Shrewsbury & Talbot. Te cab follows the 1836 reworked design by John Chapman on the basis of J A Hansom’s 1834 patent. It is a royal hansom, built in the late 19th century by the leading hansom manufacturers. Te Shrewsbury & Talbot cabs had a reputation for quality and this shows in the brown morocco leather and matching wool cloth and the solid rubber tyres. Tere is a speaking tube to communicate with the driver who controlled the doors and windows from
Te 20th Earl of Shrewsbury: Vanity Fair 17 July 1880.
his perch behind the cab. Mirrors, ash trays and roller blinds catered to the needs of passengers.
To be continued in the next issue.
• The Carriage Foundation’s next visit is to Poland in April 2012.
• For further information contact The Hon Secretary, Caroline Dale- Leech, Red House Stables Carriage Museum, Old Road, Darley Dale, Matlock, Derbyshire. DE4 2ER. Email:
redhousestables@hotmail.co.uk. Tel/Fax: 01629 733583
38 Carriage Driving
January 2012
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