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Mara
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 3:59 pm: |       |
Any idea where to get specific information on hansom cabs, such as detailed photographs? Hansoms seated two, right? Could three people ostensibly squeeze in? What is the top speed a hansom can go? Do they turn over easily if they go too fast? |
Monty
Chief Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 831
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2004 - 6:52 am: | |
Mara,
Not what you asked but.....
http://www.speel.demon.co.uk/arch/hansom.htm
....oooh Leicester connection !!
Monty
(Message edited by monty on March 03, 2004) |
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 249
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 7:01 pm: | |
Hi, Mara
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, with notes by Williams S. Baring-Gould, has a tidbit about hansom cabs on page 147. There's also a very good illustration, but unfortunately I don't have a scanner.
"The gondolas of London" was the felicitous title conferred upon the hansom cabs by the great Benjamin Disraeli. Named for Joseph Aloysius Hansom, 1803-1882, redesigned by John Chapman, a rival carriage maker, made fashionable by Forder, whose luxurious hansom, constructed especially for the Prince of Wales, carried off first prize at the Carriage Exhibition of 1872, the hansom cab was in all probability the fastest vehicle devised up to that time for negotiating the narrow and congested streets of London at high speeds. The top-hatted driver sat high up at the back of the hansom, with the reins passing through a support on the front of the roof. The front of the hansom was open, except for two folding doors which came about half-way up and protected the traveler's feet and legs against the weather. To ride in this type of cab, with its brightly polished lamps and brasswork, its jingling harness and smartly trotting horse, was a highly pleasant experience, as both Holmes and Watson knew well. In their day there were more than 8,000 of the cabs circulating through London; in 1933, their centennial year, there were only three hansom cabs left in the entire city. The minimum hansom cab fare for one or two passengers was a shilling for two miles (25 cents)and sixpence (12 1/2 cents) a mile over that, but a cabman was not obliged to drive over six miles even if he could charge more when he got beyond the "Four Mile Radius"--a circle drawn with Charing Cross as the center."
I believe the monetary conversions are circa 1967.
Jeffrey Bloomfield (I believe it was you)--thanks very much for the book recommendation. I'm loving Baring-Gould (and Conan Doyle, of course).
Best,
Dave
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Natalie Severn
Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 485
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 19, 2004 - 2:45 pm: | |
The cabman"s shelters are all around Notting hill and Knightsbridge.They are under listed buildings
and have been very well kept,looking as though they were built 30 years ago whereas they have been there yearssince before the ripper! They still provide refreshments to cabbies!
The one where the well dressed man took shelter and told the shocked cabbies that he was the ripper is there too large as life and painted up like a dog"s dinner!
Natalie |
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