Tracing Your Trade & Craftsman Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians

In 1810, a tax was levied on vehicle sales (repealed 1825); in 1814, 23,400 four-wheeled vehicles, 27,300 two-wheeled vehicles and 18,500 tax carts paid duty to the government. That year, 3,636 vehicles were built, rising to 5,143 ten years later with a total of 76,000 wheeled vehicles paying tax to the government in 1824.

The stagecoach was effectively the public transport system from the early seventeenth century. Originally private coaches were commandeered for this trade, but were eventually made to order. They were not a comfortable means of transport. The wealthier sat inside in cramped, smelly conditions, the rutted roads meaning they were constantly thrown around and against each other. Vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather, the more impecunious sat on top or at the back, holding tight. The Stage Coaches Act of 1788 regulated the number of people riding on top to six and two at the back. During the eighteenth century, stagecoaches were susceptible to highwaymen and robbers.

As James Burgess explains, by the end of the seventeenth century, the ‘Flying Coach’ could cover the ground between London and Oxford in thirteen hours. There were even discussions about restricting the speed of coaches to thirty miles a day in summer and twenty-five in winter, but nothing came of this. In 1760, it could take eighteen days to travel from Edinburgh to London with part of the journey conveyed by pack horse, the state of the roads too perilous for a coach.

The Royal State Coach still used on state occasions was built in 1762 by Samuel Butler and kept in the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace. Daniel Kirwan’s 1870 book lists the cost and the trades who worked on it. The total cost was £7,528 4s 3½d, and was followed by, writes Kirwan, ‘an awful row about the bill’.

coachmaker (including wheelwright and smith)	£1637 15 0
carver	£2500 0 0
gilder	£935 14 0
painter	£315 0 0
laceman	£737 10 7
chaser	£665 4 6
harnessmaker	£385 15 0
mercer	£202 5 10½
beltmaker	£99 6 6
milliner	£31 3 4
saddle	£10 16 6
woollendraper	£4 3 6
covermaker	£3 9 6
Total	£7528 4 3½

As can be seen from the cost, a wide range of skills were required to build a coach which was basically two parts; the chassis with wheels, springs and axle, shafts and traces for the horses and the body where passengers sat. The body-maker was, according to Burgess, the most skilful of all tradesmen who had to draw out the shape from the wood, taking into consideration the grain in order to make the strongest possible body before cutting and fitting the wood carefully together. With a skilled foreman and workforce, Burgess explains, everyone could work on it together and the coach fitted like a ‘Chinese puzzle’. He describes in meticulous detail the work entailed in building carriage, wheels, springs and axles, including the blacksmith’s role as well as the paintwork with family crests, linings, trimmings and curtains. In the early days, coaches were built to order but, by 1881, they were ready made, much like a car today, and personalised with colour and trimmings. In effect, coachbuilders now had to build speculatively, paying in advance for everything hoping coaches would sell. Competition in the 1880s meant profit margins were extremely tight. In 1851, 16,590 men described themselves as coachmakers, rising to 23,034 by 1871. By 1874, the number of carriages on the road had increased to 482,600 with 125,000 paying duty to the government.

The introduction of the railways from the 1830s terminated the age of the stagecoach. A coachbuilder had to diversify into other horse-drawn vehicles such as phaetons, railway carriages and eventually motor vehicles. Unfortunately, many companies producing horse-drawn vehicles failed to negotiate the change.

Coinciding with the emergence of the railways, the first omnibus in London was launched in 1829 by George Shillibeer, who’d seen similar enterprises while working as a coachbuilder in Paris. Initially carrying twenty-two people inside a coach pulled by three horses, its route was from the Yorkshire Stingo pub in Paddington to Bank. The fare? A shilling. By 1881, the London General Omnibus Company ran about 628 buses with 6,935 horses travelling six miles a day at an average of six miles an hour. The buses were built and maintained by their own workforce.

One company which successfully negotiated the death of the coach and the development of the horseless carriage was Salmons of Newport Pagnell. Founded around 1830 by Joseph Salmons (1796–1878) in Tickford Street, hence Tickford Motors, this company made coaches, dog-carts and ralli-carts sold around the world and was among the earliest coachbuilders to build motor carriages from 1898. The census records from 1841 are full of men classing themselves as coachbuilders or journeymen coachbuilders and invariably they were working at Salmons. Joseph’s first job was wheelwright and the excellent book Salmons and Sons by Dennis Mynard explains the history of this fascinating company, the workers, the prices paid for coaches, carts and eventually cars and much of Newport Pagnell’s history to 1955 when the firm was bought by David Brown of Aston Martin fame. If you have ancestors in Newport Pagnell and surrounding districts, you may find them mentioned in the book.

Obviously, London had more than its fair share of coach building firms, including Hoopers of Westminster (1805–1959) who supplied high quality horse-drawn carriages to royalty, among others, and were incorporated into Daimler in 1940. The City of Westminster Archives has some records but genealogical information is limited. Another firm was Thrupp and Maberly originally established near Worcester in the 1740s but moving to the Grosvenor Square area in the 1760s. Maberly joined them in the 1850s. Pick Motor Company, founded by John Pick, originally a blacksmith, operated in Stamford, Lincolnshire, from 1899 to 1925. Another Stamford firm was Henry Hayes and Son, in business from 1825 to 1924. Unfortunately, even though in the 1871 census twenty-nine men and seven boys were employed, no records have survived.

Hints as to where coachmakers and builders worked can be found in pub names. Coach building families Duffet (1871 census) and Deacon (1881 census) were licensees at the Coachmakers Arms in Southsea.

The Worshipful Company of Coachmakers and Coach Harness Makers http://coachmakers.co.uk received its Charter from Charles II in 1677 and its rules ensured that no one could execute the trade of coach or coach harness maker within twenty miles of London without belonging to the Company. Unfortunately, most records were destroyed in the Second World War, although the 1761 model for the Royal State Coach and other treasures had been removed beforehand. Guildhall has details of any archives still in existence.

Other coach building companies and coach design development in London are explained in the useful www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22174. The National Motor Museum in Beaulieu www.nationalmotormuseum.org.uk may be of interest, as might the various publications heralding the industry such as The Coach Builders’, Harness makers’ and Saddlers’ Art Journal, published from 1880, some copies of which are held at the museum in its extensive reference library on the motor and coach industry. Access is by appointment. It is unlikely you will find any genealogical information. Your best bet, as usual, is to search relevant record offices. Some forums exist with information on coachbuilders, although many are twentieth century.

Places to Visit

• Museum of Leathercraft, Abington Museum, Abington Park, Northampton. www.museumofleathercraft.org; saddles, clothing and bookbinding etc.

• National Motor Museum at Beaulieu www.nationalmotormuseum.org.uk large collection of not just cars, but also a charitable trust dedicated to preserving and promoting motoring history.