Talk:Horse-drawn omnibus

consistent markup of this section by P64 2012-02-01

"The first known occurrence of wagonettes is in England, ca. 1843." - reference - I'm not sure this is true - what does it mean - the first use of the term? because horse drawn omnibuses are mentioned before 1843

eg see Wikisource:Omnibuses and cabs: their origin and history (1902) by Henry Charles Moore

Sf5xeplus (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

(quote the first sentence: "Omnibuses, under the name of carrosses a cinq sous, were started in Paris in 1662.") -P64

i know that this is false. becasue there was omnibus routes before 1843 in fact in my local region of north east ohio. the city of Cleveland, Ohio[USA] started omnibus in 1841. im not saying it was first there may have been even more earlier occurances but i know that 1843 was not the begining my information comes from this source

76.211.5.253 (talk) 20:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

in public transportation around Boston, Massachusetts[USA]

Cambridge. As commerce greatly expanded with Boston, a stage coach line was established in the 1820s. By the 1830s, hourly omnibuses had replaced the coaches. A stage coach was a large carriage drawn by four horses, while an omnibus was a smaller vehicle drawn by two horses. The Cambridge Railroad was the first official horse car company to begin operating in Massachusetts (1856), and the omnibus lines were soon replaced by horse car routes.

South Boston. South Boston was originally part of Dorchester, and was annexed by the City of Boston in 1804. Omnibuses, or small Stage Coaches drawn by two horses, were operated there starting in the 1830s. They can be considered the original "Red Line" [modern subway] as they were later replaced by horse cars [c.1857], electric street cars, and of course the Cambridge-Dorchester subway.

--P64 (talk) 16:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

We refer at horsecar to "omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s" --P64 (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

See also the preceding section.

We say at horsecar that omnibus runs on public roads, horsecar runs on rails. --P64 (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• About definitions:
  • The term wagonette describes the position of the seats. And (at least in German definition) wagonettes have springs but no ceilings.
  • The term omnibus (Latin: "for all") describes the use for public transports. And if we look at the age, when omnibus services were established, it implicates a certain level of comfort. Omnibuses were no simple wagons, they had springs. Mostly they had a hardtop and glass windows. Some had deck seats on the ceiling.

• About chronical aspects:
  • The very first horse-drawn omnibuses ran in Paris since 1662, though only for a few years.
  • Starts of omnibus services in 19th century:
    • 1820 Berlin – Charlottenburg by de:Simon Kremser. The type of vehicle he used, nowadays called Kremser after hin, had springs, a huge number of seats positioned like in a wagonette, and a textile ceiling.
    • 1824 in Manchester by John Greenwood
    • 1826 in Nantes by Étienne Bureau and Stanislas Baudry
    • 1828 in Paris by Stanislas Baudry
    • 1829 in London by George Shillibeer
    • late 1820es in New York (New York Transit Museum: Omnibuses were oversized stagecoaches that ran along a fixed route.

--Ulamm (talk) 22:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The early-20th Century photograph from Copenhagen shows a double-decker bus with, however, only a wire lattice guardrail along the top deck. In the UK, it was either discovered or feared that an enterprising voyeur, standing on the ground, adjacent to the bodywork of the vehicle, could peer upwards and, without difficulty, secure an unimpeded view beneath the hem of the dress of any lady who happened to be seated on the upper deck. The crucial phrase is without difficulty, and it will be appreciated that the execution of such a manœuvre will have been easier for some than for others; indeed, its comparative lack of facility might properly assign such concerns to the realm of moral panics. Natheless, it seems to have disturbed the industry (and its customers, or their husbands) sufficiently to warrant the addition of a form of modesty screen to the length of the upper deck guardrail. This addition coincidentally contributed a new area for use as a hoarding. The board was referred to as a rocker; subsequently giving its name to any long narrow oblong or other shape designed for inscriptions of any sort. Hence the crescent-shaped patch of a motorcycle club member's patch or colours. Nuttyskin (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Oy! @Murgatroyd49: Is there any good reason why you unilaterally decided to change the citation style from CS1 to short form style using {{sfn}} templates—breaking a few along the way and not changing all of them? The original style was CS1, as well as the majority style last week. Someone inserted 2 short forms in 2015, and I changed those two to CS1 to match the majority style that everyone else had been using. It is a violation of WP:CITEVAR to just change the whole styling without a consensus.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 16:21, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

The CS1 versions appeared not to work properly, page numbers were showing up in the text rather than the reference. If you want to revert the changes, go ahead but at least the sfn temlates seem to work as intended. A bigger problem is that the older works used as refs appear to have an number of inaccuracies, at least compared with the work of Charles Lee in the 1970s. I still can't find what the supposed British Law is that restricts the inside occupants of a horse bus to 12, though that was the accomodation of the later standardised vehicles. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

@Murgatroyd49: The page numbers were showing up in the text, because that is where I put them using the method described at Template:R#Inline invocation, and they work just fine. When you see something like "on the upper deck.^[13]: 20" then that means citation 13 page number 20 (Hunt 1847)—which was removed and replaced by a {{citation needed}} tag but it is the source for the twelve inside passengers content: "that it is under the royal and charming jurisdiction of the young lady now reigning over us, V. R. by whom it is permitted to carry "twelve inside passengers, AND NO MORE". That royal young lady, V.R., is Queen Victoria.

The source for the 1838 regulation is page 228 of Moore (1902), "In 1838, cabmen were compelled by Act of Parliament to take out a licence and wear a badge." When I was trying to locate the actual law, I encountered Hackney Carriages, Metropolis Act 1838 and https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Statutes_Of_The_United_Kingdom_Of_Gr/3aZFAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=badge .

I don't have access to Lee (1974) except in googlebooks snippet view, which is unreliable for showing everything one needs. However, the results I got searching for "1838" corroborate rather than contradict what the older sources (Hunt and Moore) say, so you're going to have to be more specific if you think there are still some other 'inaccuracies'.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 20:15, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Never come across the page numbers in the text before, it is certainly not obvious what they are.

I have no arguement with the 1838 reference for licenses, previous edits had it as 1832, hence the query. The relevant act is dated 10 August 1838.

Any limits on the number of passengers would have nothing to do with Victoria or her government, being a matter for the London authorities. Lee makes no mention of formal limits, just infers that was the practical result of standardisation on a vehicle that could manouvre through the London traffic better than the older, longer, cars. (Shillibeer and his imitators had 18 seat vehicles) The 1838 act also provided for the number of permitted passengers to be marked on the side of the vehicle. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 20:31, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

@Murgatroyd49: Now that you know what those subscript superscript numbers are, I'll put them back the way they were before, and fix the errors.

In England, as in many countries, all laws passed by the governing body are signed by the monarch... a process called royal assent. So, yeah, V.R. (the royal cypher of Queen Victoria) would be found at the bottom of all signage required by law. Such laws of limits on passengers were twofold: (1) as a capacity limit for weights (horse effort and vehicle construction) and for safety reasons for passengers, and (2) as a licensing regulation. These licenses were matters of revenue foremost, and safety secondarily. See Stamp Office (mentioned in Lee).

The 1833 was a simple misreading of 1838 from a poor scan on Hathitrust. I'll fix that citation.

The Hathitrust source (section COACH) goes on to describe the French diligences (coaches) as having 3 attached bodies (holding 3, 6, & 6-8 passengers), presumably the resulting design after the original 1828 Shillibeer design. Shillibeer went on to introduce omnibuses to London, but had to make changes because of London roads. His designs were the earliest omnibuses, but I don't see any contradiction between the capacity of any earlier designs and the later 1838 regulations.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 22:57, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

I am well aware how the legal system works in this country, thank you. I am also aware that 19th century authors used more enthusiasm than accuracy in their writings, especially if it involved crawling to Royalty. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 07:42, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

With no discussion on this talk page about horsebus, but lots of talk about omnibus, I went hunting. None of the citations use the term horsebus; they all use omnibus. None of the carriage terminology books I checked, use horsebus; they all use omnibus. See Bibliography of carriages and driving. However, on 12 November 2012 the article was unilaterally renamed to Horsebus (from Wagonette).

Since then, the article has morphed into Horse-drawn omnibus territory. Meanwhile, there's no such thing as a "horsebus". It seems to be a WP:SYNTHesized abbreviation for "horse-drawn omnibus" or "horse-drawn bus".

Omitted from the article is the Opera omnibus, also called a Private omnibus (as depicted in the image File:Koets Breda 04.JPG.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 04:59, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

The article should be renamed to Horse-drawn omnibus.

"Horsebus" is used 146 times in Wikipedia mainspace, and since the term "horsebus" does not appear in carriage literature, it seems to have entered Wikipedia through the 2012 rename. There's no telling how much of the internet has been affected by this incorrect terminology.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 05:34, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I did a little cleanup in the article to change horsebus to omnibus. Hopefully I caught all the occurrences.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 21:10, 13 July 2026 (UTC)