Coaching was at its lowest ebb just then, and though I suppose the Four-in-Hand Club actually existed, I have only a remembrance of one "drag " which went about London, driven by a common-looking man, of whom the legend ran that he had been a butcher, and had money left him by his wife on condition of driving so many miles daily. But there were plenty of vehicular notabilities in the Park: the Hon. and Rev. Fitzroy Stanhope, easiest and most courteous of divines, in the four-wheeled trap called after his name; Lord Clanricarde, in a hooded phaeton with one horse, but that one a wonder; Lord Huntingtower, in a great banging, rattling mail-phaeton ; Mr. Tod-Heatley, in the first private hansom cab ever seen in London. Gigs are now relegated to country doctors' use. Tilburys, with a spring behind; britskas, with a back seat called a "rumble" for servants ; chariots, with cane-bearing footmen, have all disappeared; and broughams. dog-carts, T-carts, and victorias have come in their place. In those days smoking in the street was an unpardonable solecism; a lady driving a pony would have been considered to have unsexed herself, while the man seated by her side and passively allowing her to drive would have been voted a milksop and a molly.

Edmund Yates, His Recollections and Experiences, 1885
[chapter on 1847-1852]