Posts Tagged ‘1866’

The frame is then covered with thin panels of mahogany, blocked, canvased, and the whole rounded off. After a few coats of priming, the upper part is covered with the skin of an ox, pulled over wet. This tightens itself in drying, and makes the whole construction as taut as a drum-head, the joints impervious…

The International Exhibition of 1851 left an indelible scratch — to use the phrase of one of our greatest engineers — on the history of carriage-building, especially in the large class of cheaper vehicles, which good roads, suburban villas, railroad stations, and the repeal of the penal taxes on the owners of more than one…

The age of Tom and Jerry bucks drove fast trotters in gigs, or dashed along in tandems — tandems which are nearly abandoned by under-graduates, and almost confined to headstrong shop-keepers on Sundays, and the long journeys of young Norfolk farmers on market-days. The Brougham, invented in 1839, gave a fatal blow to the cabriolet,…

The curricle with its silver bar flourished in its most expensive shape with two grooms attendant, in the time of George the Regent. The little boot which in later days carried the grooms, was an economical compromise; four horses and two servants to carry two persons in a carriage only fit for day-work, was surely…