Brougham (carriage)

Brougham carriage

A brougham (pronounced "broom" or "brohm") was a light, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage built in the 19th century. It was either invented for Scottish jurist Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, or simply made fashionable by his example. It had an enclosed body with two doors, like the rear section of a coach; it sat two, sometimes with an extra pair of fold-away seats in the front corners, and with a box seat in front for the driver and a footman or passenger. Unlike a coach, the carriage had a glazed front window, so that the occupants could see forward. The forewheels were capable of turning sharply. A variant, called a brougham-landaulet, had a top collapsible from the rear doors backward.

In London, in the late 19th century, it was common practice for Broughams which had been previously owned and used as private carriages to be sold off by the owner to keepers of Hackney carriages. The unique characteristics of the Brougham bear a distinct similarity to the current London Taxi as built to the London Public Carriage Office's "Conditions of Fitness" for a vehicle intending to be licenced as a taxi cab.

Victorian Hackney Cabs which were second-hand Broughams often displayed the painted-over traces of the previous owner's coat of arms on the carriage doors.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

Pronunciation of this word is correct as two syllables, \ˈbrü:(-ə)m, ˈbrō:(-ə)m\, but be can pronounced as one syllable although considered "Americanized" or "slang."

See also

• Clarence (carriage) - a larger version of the Brougham
• brougham (car body), inspired by the brougham carriage
• landaulet, car body style inspired by the landaulet carriage

External links

• 1871 Advertisement for William Kilross & Sons and Kinross Brougham Illustrations and text
• 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brougham - Wikisource
• CAAOnline: Carriage Tour Carriage Association of America. Illustration and text
• Horse Drawn Brougham, The Henry Ford. Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan. Photo and text.
• The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages, Stony Brook, New York: Collection Database. Search brougham; illustrations and text.
• Victorian Brougham carriage and The Victorian Brougham at the Institute of Texan Cultures TTM web. Texas Transportation Museum, San Antonio. Photos
• Articles about Horse-drawn Carriages