Chairs
At least sedan chairs, defined by Dr Johnson as `a kind of portable coach', made no noise.
`Chairs are very convenient
and pleasant for use, the bearers going so fast that you have some difficulty in keeping up with them on foot ... these
chairs are allowed to be carried on the footpaths ... the bearers
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go so fast and cannot turn aside with their burden.’
The writer, a young Frenchman, was not quick enough to move out of the way and was knocked over four times, perhaps
because he didn't understand the warning shout of 'By your leave, sir'.
For the user, chairs were certainly convenient.
You could get into one in the privacy of your own home, and be carried into your host's home through rain and snow and dirt.
This was why chair-men disapproved so violently of the new-fangled umbrellas, alternative ways of keeping dry in the rain.
Royalty sometimes preferred chairs to their state carriages. Perhaps the. journey was quicker than in a ponderous state
coach with six horses.
The Gentleman's Magazine of November 1750 reported that the Prince and Princess of Wales went from
their home in Leicester Fields to St James's Palace to congratulate his father King George II on his birthday, `in their chairs', followed by a coach full of children, three princes and a princess. Queen Charlotte, George III's wife, sometimes went about London by chair, and on one occasion offended the always touchy- rabble by keeping one of the windows shut. She and her royal husband took their chairs to Drury Lane theatre six days after her wedding. They presumably had the usual guard of Yeomen, who had specially designed partisans (which we would inaccurately call pikes) `of a shorter and less size being more commodious to be used by our aforesaid Guard when they attend the Royal Chair'. The rest of the royal family went in coaches, attended by the Horse Guards. `The crowd pressed so violently upon Her Majesty's chair that she discovered [showed] some signs of fear, but upon entering the playhouse she presently collected herself and behaved with great gaiety the whole night after.' Poor girl, what an introduction.
Chairs can't have been comfortable for women. The hoop petticoat had to be squeezed in by bending it up on each side,
so that the occupant looked like a captive swan. It was easier for men. ‘No man of fashion would cross the street to
dinner without the effeminate covering and conveyance of an easy Chair.’ But he was wise not to think of walking.
Casanova found that `a man in court dress cannot walk the streets of London without being pelted with mud by the mob
while the gentlemen look on and laugh’, so he took a chair.
Their construction was ingenious. The roof was hinged so that you could walk in from the front without stooping,
and sit down. Then the roof was closed, and you shut and perhaps locked the door in the front. In cold weather you
might have a foot-warmer ready on the floor. Wits did say that when the fashion for immensely tall coiffures came in,
their wearers had to sit on the floor, but I don't think this would have been possible; more probably the crowning
glory poked out through the roof.
The chairs that have survived in stately homes are often elaborately decorated. Like `best' clothes preserved in
museums, these beautiful objects were not necessarily in everyday use. The Duke of Bedford owned several, but his
household often hired chairs, and always hired the chair-men.’ A foreign visitor noted more than 300 chairs for
hire near St James's Palace. They were all registered and licensed, the licence fee being five shillings a year.
Charges were controlled, at two-thirds of hackney- coach fares, and depending on distances."
Extract from “Dr Johnson’s London Life in London 1740-1770”, written by Liza Picard. Weidenfeld & Nicolson London: 2001.
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