Your British Cab Trade Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians

By Paul Wright

If you're researching your family history and have come across anyone in the UK cab trade, this illustrated book will help you untangle the confusing names terminology and help you understand how the trade in both London and the rest of the UK was organised.
In this book, you'll find:
An overview of the history of the trade
The differences in how the trade was controlled in London and in the provinces
A guide to the kind of job names you may find in official records
A look the social aspect of the trade - health, prosperity, working conditions etc

• Language: English
• Publisher: Earlswood Press
• Release date: Jan 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005133276

Paul Wright

Since 1998 I have written many non-fiction print books for other publishers including subjects as varied as military vehicles and coachbuilders, but my specialist subject is the history of the London taxi. After self-publishing a ninth title through my company, Earlswood Press I then took the work of other authors, and published another of my own print books under this imprint. I have ceased to publish the works of other authors and now publish my own work exclusively. I'm married to Karen, and together we enjoy social dancing, walking, swimming and travel

Book preview

Your British Cab Trade Ancestors

A Guide for Family Historians

Bill Munro

Published as an ebook on Smashwords 2022

Copyright  Bill Munro 2021

The rights of the author are asserted

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author

Cover image: A Hansom Cab in London’s Bond Street

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Terminology

Chapter 2 Licensing and Regulation

Chapter 3 How the Trade was Organised and Run

Chapter 4 The Vehicles

Chapter 5 Related Occupations and Trades

Chapter 6 The Social Aspect

The Company of 400

Further Reading

About the Author

Introduction

From time to time, you may find people in your family tree who have worked in the cab trade, either in London or elsewhere in Britain. If you have such a family connection with the cab trade, but know little about the trade's history or of the lives of people in the trade, this book is will, hopefully help you learn more about both the jobs themselves and the life and times of the people in the trade over the past four centuries. It may help you locate such ancestors, identify what they were doing and what sort of regulatory framework (if any) they would be working under.

The period covered by this book begins in the early 17th century book up to the early post-Second World War years. Anything newer can be considered as within the living memory of either family members or others connected with the trade.

The London Trade and the Provincial Trade - the Differences

It is important to understand from the outset that the legislation governing London's cab trade is different from that which controls the trade in the rest of the UK. Most local historians and those making a stab at the history of the cab trade have a habit of assuming that London's trade is similar in its makeup and regulation to the rest of the country's. This leads leading people to believe, if they didn't already believe so, that changes that affected London's cab trade automatically affected the trade in the rest of the UK. That is not the case.

Though there are a handful of stories, most of which are personal memoirs, the broad history of the provincial cab trade has yet to be written, if indeed it ever will be. One aim of this book is to begin to redress the balance; in fact, if you are documenting the lives of your provincial cab trade ancestors, you will be contributing to that story. What you must take on board, though is the point just made, that there are clear differences between the cab trade in London and the provincial trades, and that one town's or city's trade may be very different from another's. To help you, each section in each chapter of this book deals with the London story separately from the provincial story.

What are the Differences between the Rules Controlling the London and the Provincial Cab Trades?

London's framework was set up originally by the Crown in the 17th century, then passed to Parliament, through the Home Office. Currently the trade is run by Transport for London, through TfL Taxis and Private Hire. It rests on two fundamentals: the Conditions of Fitness, which is a set of regulations governing the design and construction of taxis that will be accepted for licensing, and the Knowledge of London, which is a tough topographical test for those wishing to become London cab drivers.

In the provincial trade, the first form of national legislation for cabs came about via the Police Town Clauses Act of 1847, which provided a framework for local authorities to perform that function. The authorities that adopted this legislation were free to choose what vehicles they would license and what criteria they applied to those seeking a cab driver's licence. The Act did not, however make it compulsory for the authorities to do so. Also, it must be said that the degree to which local authorities applied any regulations and enforced them varied greatly.

Surviving Official Records

Let's deal with this question straight away. In London there are almost no surviving records of cab or cab driver licences. A fire at the Hackney Coach Office in the early 19th century (believed to be an arson attack) destroyed all the ancient records and the Metropolitan Police records prior to 1941 were lost in the Blitz. However, one record of London hackney coach proprietors, the Company of 400, survives and can be found on line. See Appendix 1 for that list. Subsequently, the Public Carriage Office adopted the practice of systematically destroying all licensing records after a few years of the expiry of any given licence. So, no use asking Transport for London, which now controls London's cab trade if they have the records of your great-grandfather and what his badge number was. The answer will be, sorry, no.

Whether cab trade records outside of London have been archived depends on the individual licensing authority.

Dispelling old Myths

There have been a number of myths about the cab trade, mostly relating to London. Before we begin, let us dispel them!

The First Man in London to drive a Motor Cab

If someone in your family tells you that their ancestor was the first man to drive a motor cab in London, then unless his name was James Howe and he lived in Hammersmith, he wasn't! Although we have no record that confirms which company Howe worked for, the first company to put motor cabs on London's Streets was the Express Motor Service Company. They were allowed to put three cabs onto the streets, so if all three worked together at the same time, there must have been two other drivers, at least. Their names are no known, so if your ancestor's claim seems to have some credibility, I would certainly be interested to find out more. Perhaps he might be one of the other pioneers.

An Authorised Comfort Station

On a slightly less delicate note, public conveniences did not exist in London until later Victorian times (the first recorded one was at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851) and apart from what facilities might have been available in pubs, there was nothing for cabmen to use before public toilets were introduced. A myth exists that a cabman could request a uniformed police officer to shield him while he urinated against the wheel of his cab. As I said, this is just a myth!

And Last but not Least - the Bale of Hay

And there is that old chestnut, about the bale of hay. Whenever I met someone at a social gathering and they found out what I did for a living, one of two questions come to the forefront of their mind. One is to ask me if I have the Knowledge. I could assure them yes, I did, and then, almost invariably, they would ask me if I carried a bale of hay in my cab. I don't know why they did not believe me when I told them I did, not, that it was an old wives' tale. A London taxi driver DOES NOT have to carry a bale of hay in his cab. Horse cabmen didn't have to either, though they did have to carry a nosebag for the horse.

Chapter 1 - Terminology

How do you understand from BMD certificates and census returns what your cab trade ancestors actually did for a living? What terms were used in those documents, and other sources to describe their occupations, so that you might recognise that they were actually in the cab trade, or in one of its allied trades?

The various names given to people in the cab trade changed over the centuries, along with the vehicles they owned, drove or maintained. Also, different terminology was often used outside of London, and may have been different again in Scotland than it was and is in England and Wales. The terms and descriptions will also vary according to the time the record was made. For instance, hackney coach driver has its origins in the early 17th century and thus would be found in records dating from that time to the middle of the 19th century, whilst hackney cab driver remains in use outside of London to this day. The term taxi driver originates from 1909, so it would not ever be found in any record before