Vehicle    From 1834 

Hansom cab

Categories: Transport

Invented and patented by Joseph Hansom. This horse-drawn carriage, or cabriolet, had larger wheels and a lower cab,with the driver sitting behind, giving it greater stability and increased speed, with safety. Small and light it required just one horse and was ideal for London's crowded streets. Its popularity spread across Europe and to the US.

In his 1875 ‘The Way We Live Now’ Anthony Trollope describes an assignation reluctantly attended by Paul Montague, who travels there by Hansom cab:

“How quick that cab went! Nothing ever goes so quick as a Hansom cab when a man starts for a dinner-party a little too early; - nothing so slow when he starts too late. Of all cabs this, surely, was the quickest. Paul was lodging in Suffolk Street, close to Pall Mall, - whence the way to Islington, across Oxford Street, across Tottenham Court Road, across numerous squares north-east of the Museum, seems to be long. The end of Goswell Road is the outside of the world in that direction, and Islington is beyond the end of Goswell Road. And yet that Hansom cab was there before Paul Montague had been able to arrange the words with which he would begin the interview. … Paul .. paid the cabman, - giving the man half-a-crown, and asking for no change in his agony….” (p.371-2, vol.1, Penguin 2001)

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Hansom cab

Commemorated ati

Joseph Hansom

Joseph Aloysius Hansom, 1803 - 1882, architect, founder-editor of The Builder...

Read More

Other Subjects

Homerton Footpath Bridge

Homerton Footpath Bridge

Also known as the Parnell Road Bridge. Opened in conjunction with the Hertford Union Canal (now part of the Grand Union Canal), which it spans.

Place, Transport

1 memorial
Battersea Bridge

Battersea Bridge

In 1771 a ferry was replaced with a wooden toll bridge designed (badly, apparently) by Henry Holland - shown in our image. The replacement bridge was begun in 1887 and opened in 1890.

Building, Transport

1 memorial
White Horse Cellars at Hatchett's Hotel

White Horse Cellars at Hatchett's Hotel

This building is still at 66-68 Piccadilly, on the north-east of the junction with Dover Street.  Architect: Weatherley and Jones. From British History (written in 1878, just 10 years before Selby...

Building, Commerce, Food & Drink, Transport

1 memorial