A post-chaise is a fast carriage for traveling post built in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It usually had a closed body on four wheels, sat two to four persons, and was drawn by two or four horses.
A postilion rode on the near-side (left, nearest the roadside) horse of a pair or of one of the pairs attached to the post-chaise [1] leaving passengers a clear view of the road ahead.
Hired when long-distance travel at speed was very important, a post chaise would be taken with its own postilions and horses. At the next posting station the postilions would most likely return to their base with their own horses but might continue the journey with fresh horses.
Private posting was expensive and passengers — particularly if the only passenger was a woman — would be accompanied by one or two of their own footmen riding above and behind the body of the post chaise. The footmen would be responsible for making all travel arrangements.
Private individuals did own their own post chaises; some had their light chariots made with the coachman's seat removable. Designed to withstand rapid long-distance travel, the post chaise should have been utilitarian, but private vehicles might be extravagantly decorated and finished. [2]
In a 1967 article in The Carriage Journal, published for the Carriage Association of America, Paul H Downing recounts that the word post is derived from the Latin postis which in turn derives from the word which means to place an upright timber (a post) as a convenient place to attach a public notice. Postal and postage follow from this. Medieval couriers were caballari postarus or riders of the posts. The riders mounted fresh horses at each post on their route and then rode on. Post came to be applied to the riders then to the mail they carried and eventually to the whole system. In England regular posts were set up in the 16th century. [2]
The riders of the posts carried government messages and letters. The local postmasters delivered the letters as well as providing horses to the royal couriers. They also provided horses to other travellers. [2]
The system of ‘’posting’’ was common in France. An artillery officer, John Trull, entered business in England in 1743 hiring out travelling carriages. At first these carriages had two wheels but they were soon replaced by four wheel carriages given the same name, Post-chaise. [2]
The original French design was amended, a conventional pole was fitted, no driver was provided for — leaving a view through the front window for the passengers — and the horses were ridden by postilions or post-boys. The postilions went from post to post, stayed with their own horses and took them back home at the end of that stage. [2]
At that time there was no perfected posting system in America. George Washington’s tour of the South in 1791 had a target (when there were no other commitments) of an average 35 miles (56 km) a day whereas in England an average speed of 8 to 10 miles per hour (13 to 16 km/h) might be achieved right round the clock. [2]
A true chaise is an open two-wheeled carriage with a bench seat for two passengers drawn by one or two horses. Given two more wheels it would have been, if the name had been used then, a phaeton. A phaeton was for the owner to drive and generally drawn by one or two horses. A four-wheeled chaise would be drawn by at least four horses. [2]
Around the time Trull was introducing post-chaises to England Americans began to use the same name for what had been called a four-wheeled chaise. [2]
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are drawn by six horses.
A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping or, on those made in recent centuries, steel springs. Two-wheeled carriages are informal and usually owner-driven.
A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.
A buggy refers to a lightweight four-wheeled carriage, drawn by a single horse, though occasionally by two. Amish buggies are still regularly in use on the roadways of America. The word "buggy" has become a generic term for "carriage" in America.
A phaeton was a form of sporty open carriage popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Drawn by one or two horses, a phaeton typically featured a minimal very lightly sprung body atop four extravagantly large wheels. With open seating, it was both fast and dangerous, giving rise to its name, drawn from the mythical Phaëthon, son of Helios, who nearly set the Earth on fire while attempting to drive the chariot of the Sun.
The Gold State Coach is an enclosed, eight-horse-drawn carriage used by the British royal family. Commissioned in 1760 by Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings for King George III, and designed by Sir William Chambers, it was built in the London workshops of Samuel Butler. It was commissioned for £7,562. It was built for George III's coronation in 1761, but was not ready in time; it was completed in 1762.
A barouche is a large, open, four-wheeled carriage, both heavy and luxurious, drawn by two horses. It was fashionable throughout the 19th century. Its body provides seats for four passengers, two back-seat passengers vis-à-vis two behind the coachman's high box-seat. A leather roof can be raised to give back-seat passengers some protection from the weather.
A curricle was a light two-wheeled chaise or "chariot", large enough for the driver and a passenger and—most unusually for a vehicle with a single axle—usually drawn by a carefully matched pair of horses. It was popular in the early 19th century; its name—from the Latin curriculum, meaning "running", "racecourse" or "chariot"—is the equivalent of a "runabout", and it was a rig suitable for a smart young man who liked to drive himself, at a canter. The French adopted the English-sounding term carrick for such vehicles. The lightweight swept body with just the lightest dashboard hung with a pair of lamps was hung from a pair of outsized swan-neck leaf springs at the rear. For a grand show in the Bois de Boulogne or along the seafront at Honfleur, two liveried mounted grooms might follow.
A chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two- or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage for one or two people with a folding hood or calash top. The name, in use in England before 1700, came from the French word "chaise" through a transference from a sedan-chair to a wheeled vehicle.
A gig, also called chair or chaise, is a light, two-wheeled sprung cart pulled by one horse.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a piece of equipment pulled by one or more horses. These vehicles typically have two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport but are still in use today.
A postilion or postillion is a person who guides a horse-drawn coach or post chaise while mounted on the horse or one of a pair of horses. By contrast, a coachman controls the horses from the vehicle itself.
A tonga or tanga is a two-wheeled cart drawn by a single horse. It is used for transportation in the Indian subcontinent. There is a canopy over the body, one seat faces forward for the driver and one passenger, and one seat faces the rear for a second passenger. Some space is available for baggage below the carriage, between the wheels. This space is often used to carry hay for the horses.
In coachbuilding, a landau is a four-wheeled carriage with a roof that can be let down. It was a luxury carriage. The low shell of the landau provides maximal visibility of the occupants and their clothing, a feature that makes a landau still a popular choice for Lord Mayors in the United Kingdom on ceremonial occasions.
A coach is a large, closed, four-wheeled, passenger-carrying vehicle or carriage usually drawn by two or more horses controlled by a coachman, a postilion, or both. A coach has doors in its sides and a front and a back seat inside. The driver has a raised seat in front of the carriage to allow better vision. It is often called a box, box seat, or coach box. There are many of types of coaches depending on the vehicle's purpose.
Volante is a two-wheeled open carriage with a retractable hood that was popular in Cuba in the mid-1800s. The vehicle was directed by a postilion rider. The large wheels are positioned behind the seat and are over 6 feet in diameter with an 8.5 inch hub. Most of the volantes were imported to Cuba from England, France, or the United States.
A governess cart is a small two-wheeled horse-drawn cart. Their distinguishing feature is a small tub body, with two opposed inward-facing seats. They could seat four, although there was little room for four large adults. The driver sat sideways on one of these seats. The centre rear of the body was lowered, or else had a small hinged door, and there was a step beneath. The wheels were of moderate size, always fitted with mudguards, and usually carried on elliptical springs. The axle was either straight or dropped, giving a low, stable, centre of gravity.
The United Kingdom's 1902 State Landau is a horse-drawn carriage with a flexible leather roof which drops in two exact halves, back and front.
A stage station or relay station, also known as a staging post, a posting station, or a stage stop, is a facility along a main road or trade route where a traveller can rest and/or replace exhausted working animals for fresh ones, since long journeys are much faster with fewer delays when using well fed and rested mounts. Stage is the space between the places known as stations or stops — also known in British English as posts or relays.
A post house, posthouse, or posting house was a house or inn where horses were kept and could be rented or changed out. Postriders could also be hired to take travellers by carriage or coach and delivered mail and packages on a route, meeting up at various places according to a schedule. Routes included post roads. A postmaster was an individual from whom horses and/or riders known as postilions or "post-boys" who might help a coachman drive coaches could be hired. A postilion might also travel on a coach to take back his employer's horses. The postmaster would reside in the post house.