Sedan chairmen in eighteenth-century London

Abstract

Most household account books of the eighteenth-century London elite contain entries for ‘Sedan chairmen’, albeit they were never servants per se. Little consulted as sources for transport history, these unpublished accounts in various public and private archives in England reveal that Sedan chairmen were independent and worked for themselves. Supplemented by contemporary material, court cases, diaries and correspondence, light is shed on when Sedan chairs first appeared in London, on how the public overcame initial repugnance at the idea of being carried, on the earnings of chairmen, the hours they worked and the diverse tasks asked of them. Examples are given of chairmen’s position in London society, their status and how they regarded themselves. The sources show how chairmen responded to market forces and for over a hundred years played a part in inner London mobility and transport.