Early coaches
The coach evidently reached South Africa at an early stage, because Simon van der Stel travelled in one when he led an expedition to Namaqualand in 1685 in search of copper. The Dutch coach of his time was a heavy four-wheeled vehicle with a leather-covered and brass-studded body.
The undercarriage was like that of the wagon, with four upright posts from which the body was suspended on leather straps. A coachman’s seat was fitted above the front wheels and a team of up to six horses drew the vehicle, the leaders being controlled by a postilion who rode one of them.
Early in the next century Adam Tas records using a post-chaise to reach Cape Town from his farm near Stellenbosch. This was probably a lighter version of Van der Stel’s coach, without the coachman. Coaches continued to be used throughout the 18th century on the fairly even roads of towns and dorps.
They were usually of Dutch or French design and could be afforded only by the wealthy burghers. Lady Anne Barnard, who described the Cape at the end of the 18th century, made a sketch of the coach belonging to a local official. English-made coaches were probably introduced at this time, when fine examples of coach-building were coming from the workshop of the celebrated William Felton. A typical coach was a graceful vehicle with very large, though slender, wheels and a light body hung high above the ground on leather braces attached to steel springs. An unsprung coachman’s box was provided, and also a platform between the rear wheels, on which a servant or groom stood. The well-known State coach built for President Kruger and first used in 1898 was a later edition of this type of coach. It had steel `C’ springs, leather braces, a combined wood-and-iron perch, swan-necked to let the front wheels turn under it, and a front boot and driving seat complete with hammer-cloth.
Private carriages
The 19th century was the greatest carriage-building period in history, and during that time almost every type of carriage reached South Africa. The invention of the elliptic spring eliminated the need for the perch (langwa), thus lightening the weight and adding to the grace of the vehicle, while wheels were reduced in diameter. Broughams, landaus and victorias were to be seen in all towns. The former was a completely enclosed carriage first made in 1838. It was compact and could be drawn by one horse. The landau, although of earlier origin, was like a coach but had a hood made to fold back in two parts, this giving it the advantages of three vehicles -a closed carriage, a barouche or half-hooded carriage, and a carriage entirely open. At least a pair of horses was required to draw a landau. The victoria was a low-slung carriage designed for the passengers’ease of access, and is sometimes confused with the less formal phaeton. This was a loosely used term and seems to have been applied to a range of four-wheeled carriages with hoods and open sides. The only sure guide to the phaeton types is the carriage-builder’s illustrated catalogue. The smaller phaetons were often designed to be drawn by a single horse, and the larger ones by a pair.
Spiders
The more popular type of four-wheeled vehicle, both with the farmer and the townsman, was the American buggy, one of several vehicles commonly called a `spider’ in South Africa. Very slender large wheels supporting a small light body suggested a spider in appearance. The vehicle had thin steel springs and there was a light perch linking the back and front axles.
Two to six passengers could be carried. The four-wheeled dogcart with passengers sitting back to back was also called a spider.
Ambulances and hearses
Ambulance wagons were built in large numbers during the Second Anglo-Boer War, but for normal work the smaller van type was usual. There is a good example of one of these in the Railways and Harbours Museum in Johannesburg. Hearses were constructed like vans, but with a glasssided body, and the more expensive ones were lavishly decorated with carved work and embossed glass. There was also a type without glass, but with the sides and top elaborately carved to represent drapery.
Two-wheeled vehicles
When Van Riebeeck found it necessary to fetch wood from the forest behind Devil’s Peak, a two-wheeled carpenter’s cart was made and, until oxen could be trained to draw it, the men inspanned themselves and hauled it. A tented two-wheeled ox-cart is often seen in old pictures, and the Scotch-cart, with or without springs, was always popular with farmers because it could be tilted backwards to enable its load to be discharged.
Cape cart
This cart, with the ox-wagon, is South Africa’s best-known vehicle. The first Cape cart was fitted with a fixed hood and was called a kapkar, from which the name was probably derived. Four, six and even nine people have been carried in these carts, balance being achieved either by moving the front seat or, in some cases, the whole body backwards or forwards. There were three springs and a hinged luggage rack at the back, and sometimes brakes were fitted. In later examples the hood was made to fold down. Two, four or more horses were used to draw the cart.
The Cape buggy
This was merely a much lighter form of the above and was designed to carry two passengers. The space under the seat was usually filled in to form a box for holding small articles, and a rack behind the seat could accommodate a limited amount of luggage.
Miscellaneous carts
A wide variety of carts were on the streets before the advent of the motor-car. There were gigs and curricles, ralli carts and governess carts, together with the less beautiful delivery vehicles of the butcher, milkman and fishmonger. The dust of Cape Town’s streets was laid a century ago by the water-cart, a barrel on wheels dropping an erratic jet of sea-water, and, before the coming of water-borne sewerage, the rumble of night soil-carts was a familiar sound.
Public transport
The story of public transport in South Africa began over 160 years ago, with the establishment in 1801 of a weekly post-wagon service between Cape Town and Simonstown. In 1806 there was a similar service between Cape Town and Stellenbosch, and in 1838 a post-wagon linked Cape Town with Wynberg and Swellendam. The vehicles were probably springless, tented horse-wagons. The English type of stage-coach, however, was also to be seen on Cape roads. It had red wheels, a black-andyellow body and the royal arms on its doors. In 1844 the `Red Rover Royal Mail Coach’ began to run from Grahamstown to Port Elizabeth.
Another form of public transport, the hansom-cab,was introduced into Cape Town in 1849, and flourished for the rest of the century. The cab was a two-wheeled, one-horse vehicle with the driver sitting up behind and communicating with the passenger through a hatch in the top of the hood. In 1850 a post-cart service was established between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Passengers were sometimes carried in post-carts, but a journey in one of these fast and dangerously driven vehicles was a perilous undertaking. By 1858 frontier carts, as they were called, were running regularly to the north-eastern frontier. All post-carts were required to have waterproof `wells’ or boxes and, although some were specially designed, most were probably modified Cape carts.
In 1860 John Dare started an omnibus service between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. He called his tented spring-wagon the `Perseverance’.
There were, by this time, horse omnibuses in the streets of Cape Town exactly like their counterparts in London. After the discovery of diamonds, the strong, light wagons of the Inland Transport Co. began to carry passengers from the Cape to the diamond-fields. Fourteen people rode in them, including the driver and two native assistants. The sides of the wagons were open but canvas blinds could be drawn in bad weather. Ten wiry little Cape horses adorned with jingling bells hauled them, from the railhead at Wellington, through Bain’s Kloof, Michell’s Pass, Ceres, Beaufort West, Victoria West, Hopetown, and then over the Orange by ferry to Colesberg Koppie (Kimberley). The formation of other transport companies caused keen competition on this route.
Wagon and carriage builders. The principal centres of the wagon- and carriage-building industry were in the Cape Province at Wellington, Worcester, Paarl, Robertson, King William’s Town and Queenstown.
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