The first public carriages, according to a statement made to Taylor, the “water poet,” by Old Parr, the centenarian, were the “hackney-coaches,” established in London in 1605. “Since then,” says Taylor, writing on the subject at different times between 1623 and 1635, “coaches have increased with a mischief, and have ruined the trade of the watermen by hackney-coaches, and now multiply more than ever.” The “watermen” were, of course, those who plied with their boats and barges for hire upon the Thames, chiefly between London and Westminster, the river being then, and for long after, the principal highway for traffic in the metropolis. So greatly, indeed, was the river traffic for the time affected, that the sprack-witted Taylor relinquished his trade of waterman and embarked upon the more promising career of pamphleteering.
“Thirty years ago,” he says, in one of these outbursts, “The World runnes on Wheeles,” “coaches were few”:--
Then upstart helcart coaches were to seeke, A man could scarce see twenty in a weeke, But now I thinke a man may daily see More than the whirries on the Thames can be. Carroches, coaches, jades and Flanders mares Doe rob us of our shares, our wares, our fares; Against the ground we stand and knock our heeles, Whilest all our profit runs away on wheeles.
“This,” we find him saying, on another occasion, “is the rattling, rowling, rumbling age, and the world runnes on wheeles. The hackney-men, who were wont to have furnished travellers in all places with fitting and serviceable horses for any journey, are (by the multitude of coaches) undone by the dozens.”
The bitter cry of Taylor and the Thames watermen may or may not have been hearkened to, but certainly hackney-coaches were prohibited in 1635. This, however, was probably due rather to Royal whim or prejudice than to any consideration for a decaying trade.
It was an arbitrary age, and it only needed a Star Chamber order for public carriages, considered by the Court to be a nuisance, to be suppressed. The reasons advanced read curiously at this time: “His Majesty, perceiving that of late the great numbers of hackney-coaches were grown a great disturbance to the King, Queen, and nobility through the streets of the said city, so as the common passage was made dangerous and the rates and prices of hay and provender and other provisions of the stable thereby made exceeding dear, hath thought fit, with the advice of his Privy Council, to publish his Royal pleasure, for reformation therein.” His Majesty therefore commanded that no hackney-coaches should be used in London unless they were engaged to travel at least three miles out of town, and owners of such coaches were to keep sufficient able horses and geldings, fit for his Majesty’s service, “whensoever his occasion shall require them.”