COACH, a large, closed, four-wheeled vehicle generally constructed to carry pas sengers inside and outside. It is used as a general term to cover all such vehicles, but the typical coach involves four wheels, springs and a roof. It took its name from the place whence it came, Kocs, a Hungarian town between Raab and Buda. The coaches of the Middle Ages were exceedingly elaborate and ornate. As late as 1550, Paris possessed only three coaches; Spain in 1631 could boast of a coach with glass windows in the possession of the Infanta.
In England a kind of carriage called a awhirlicote was in use in the reign of Richard II; but coaches, properly so called, are stated by Stow to have been introduced in 1564 by a Dutchman, who became coachman to Queen Elizabeth. Stow adds: After a while, divers great ladies, with as great jealousie of the queene's displeasure, made them coaches. and rid in them up and down the conntrie, to the great admiration of all the beholders; but then by little and little they grew usual among the nobilitie. and others of sort, and within twentie years became a great trade of coach-making.
They were, however, for a long period con fined to the aristocracy and the wealthy classes. Sometimes six dr even eight horses were har nessed to the coach, partly no doubt for the sake of display, but chiefly because the wretched state of the roads required that number. At first coach-wheels were very low, which circum stance also contributed to prevent the attain ment of any considerable speed, and to make it necessary to use several horses to draw them; and no one seems to have pointed out the ad vantages of large wheels until, in 1771, a Mr. Moore for a short time attracted a good deal of attention by pointing out the fact that it was much easier to draw a coach or cart with large wheels than with small ones, and by actually constructing a coach every large and roomy, which was adrawn by one horse, and carried six persons and the driver, with amazing ease, from Cheapside to the top of Highgate Hi11,'' coming back eat the rate of 10 miles an hour, passing coaches-and-four, and all other car riages it came near on the road." A contem porary account states that this coach had two large wheels, nine and one-half feet in diameter.
Hackney-coaches (q.v.) were first used in London in 1625. They were then only 20 in number, and were kept at the hotels, where they had to be applied for when wanted. In
1635 an attempt was made to restrain their use by a proclamation of Charles I; but, this being found unsuccessful, their number was limited, and a commission was given to the Master of the Horse to grant licenses for their use. In this year only 50 were licensed. In 1634 one Captain Baily, who had formerly been a sea captain, hit upon the plan of keeping a number of hackney-coaches, with drivers in livery, standing at a particular place (the (Maypole,* in the Strand), where they might be had when ever they were wanted. Hackney-coaches now rapidly became more general. The four started by Captain Baily in 1634 had increased to 200 in 1652, to 800 in 1710 and to 1,000 in 1771.
The following facts relating to the history of stage-coaches are taken from Chambers' 'Book of Days> : Stage-coaches were intro duced into England about the same time as hackney-coaches. The first stage-coach in London appears to have run early in the 17th century, and about the middle of the same century they appear to have become general both in London itself and in the better high ways in the neighborhood. Before the end of the century they were started on three of the principal roads in England. Their speed at first was very moderate, about three or four miles an hour. They could run only in the summer, and even then their progress was often greatly hindered by floods and by the wretched state of the roads generally. In 1700 a week was considered a marvelously short space of time to take to travel from York to London; and even 60 years later a fortnight was spent in going between Edin burgh and London. The first stage-coach that traveled between Glasgow and Edinburgh, which was set on foot in 1749, occupied two days in the journey. The first efforts to accele rate the speed of traveling was made by a body of Manchester merchants in 1754, who started a conveyance to which they gave the name of the "Flying Coach,a and which was intended to cover the distance between Manchester and London in the unusually short period of four days and a half. In their prospectus, the pro prietors of the new vehicle made the following announcement: However incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester.