Horse traction in Victorian London

Journal of Transport History, The, Sep 2005 by Turvey, Ralph

Work horses have not received the attention they deserve in studies of transport history. Nor did contemporary descriptions of life pay much attention to them, for, like the cars that line the streets today, they were too ubiquitous and too much a part of everyday experience to be worth writing about. Traffic congestion, the loud clatter of horseshoes and ironrimmed wheels and the smell of manure did attract occasional mention, but most references to horses in newspapers and other periodicals related to saddle horses. This article is concerned with the economics of harness horses, what they were used for, how numerous they were and how much they cost to buy and to maintain.

To the economist, and to most owners of the period, such horses were simply depreciable capital goods, used in fairly fixed proportions with stables, vehicles, harness, labour and provender (i.e. fodder and bedding) to transport goods and people and, incidentally, to produce manure.1 They had certain special characteristics, however. Being mobile, they had a ready second-hand market. Being animals, they required attention seven days a week, whether or not they were working; they could fall ill; they had a working life that varied considerably and unpredictably, and, finally, being sentient creatures, some were stubborn or vicious and some could be mistreated in a way which upsets us today and upset many Victorians at the time.

Major horse owners

Major horse owners bought almost all their horses first-hand, usually at five years old. When their horses became lame or lost their strength, they were sold, generally at auction, and passed on to a second owner. For 1875 we have a list of major horse owners which shows what kinds of business owned large numbers. It comes from the minutes of the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC). Other data for this company come from its six-monthly reports to shareholders (Table 1).

Carnage horses

Carriage horses ranged from the splendid to the merely ordinary, but were generally superior to cab horses. Some people kept their own, some hired horses and vehicles from jobmasters - the Victorian equivalent of Hertz or Avis. Anthony Trollope relates in Barchester Towers how Dr Grantly, who was rich:

kept a separate pair of horses for the exclusive use of his wife since the day of his marriage; whereas Mrs Proudie had hitherto been jobbed about the streets of London at so much a month during the season; and at other times had managed to walk, or hire a smart fly from the livery stables.2

According to Mayhew in 1850, the Post Office Directory showed 154 jobmasters located in London, fifty-one also being cab proprietors and twenty-eight also owning omnibuses. 'The number of job-horses kept for chance work in the metropolis may be estimated at about 1,000, in addition to the cab and omnibus horses, many of which frequently go out in flies.' Most horse pairs drawing splendid carriages belonged to jobmasters, as very few noblemen brought their carriage horses into London.3

Omnibus and tram horses

When George Shillibeer initiated a London omnibus service in 1829, three horses were used, as in Paris, but after some years most London omnibuses were drawn by two horses. By 1901 almost the only three-horse buses remaining were the red 'Favourites' from Highgate and Islington to the City. The LGOC had studs of ten or eleven horses, eleven for omnibuses that did four full trips plus a short one in a day. A full trip averaged three and a half hours, so without the extra short trip the day's work employed eight horses, giving each pair in turn a day's rest. An extra short trip meant an extra horse and a different system of relief.4 The horses did sixteen miles a day; while London Road Car horses did fourteen.5 These horses had to be strong, but they did not have to be handsome. They were similar to the horses used for light carts and tradesmen's carts. They formed a major proportion of omnibus company assets, and were treated accordingly.

The same kind of horse was used for trams as for omnibuses. North Metropolitan Tramways, started in 1871, hired its horsepower from the LGOC until mid-1878, at 63Ad per mile run. Each car on duty generally ran seventy miles a day, requiring an active stud of eleven horses, one spare and five pairs on duty, each pair doing fourteen or fifteen miles during three and a half to four hours, the contract providing that each pair of horses worked at least fourteen but not more than sixteen miles a day/ London Tramways was also supplied with horses until the middle of 1873 by the LGOC, except for two lines, but by the second half-year of 1876 owned an average of 1,031 horses.7 By 1890 North Metropolitan Tramways had 3,346 horses, London Tramways had 3,211 horses and London Street Tramways, the third largest, had 1,127.8

Cab horses

Some cabs worked with one horse, especially those driven by owner-drivers, and some had three horses, but two horses, changing once in the day, was usual. Each horse might be out for six to seven hours, in which case the driver would work twice as long as that, sometimes up to eighteen hours per day, sometimes less than twelve hours a day.9 One proprietor explained that he let on the two-horse system to younger men, who worked longer hours than the older men.10