Hansom

Joseph Aloysius Hansom was an English architect born in York in 1803. He designed the Birmingham Town Hall, completed in 1834. He also patented a 'safety cab' in 1834 — a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with the driver seated behind and above the enclosed passenger compartment. Hansom sold the patent for 10,000 pounds but reportedly never received the full payment. The patent was improved by others, particularly John Chapman, who redesigned the cab in 1836.

The hansom cab became the standard hired vehicle in London for the next seventy years. It was faster than the four-wheeled growler, cheaper than a private carriage, and more maneuverable in narrow streets. Passengers entered through a front door and communicated with the driver through a trapdoor in the roof. The design was compact, elegant, and distinctly urban. By the 1860s, there were over 4,000 hansom cabs licensed in London.

Sherlock Holmes rides in hansom cabs throughout Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. The phrase 'hansom cab' appears in nearly every Holmes adventure set in London. The cabs are how Holmes gets to crime scenes, follows suspects, and races through foggy streets. The association with Holmes gave the hansom cab a literary immortality that the vehicle itself did not earn — the cab was simply the Victorian equivalent of hailing a taxi.

Motor taxis replaced hansom cabs in London between 1903 and 1910. The last licensed hansom cab in London ran in 1947. Joseph Hansom died in 1882, having earned far more fame from a cab patent than from his architectural work. His buildings still stand. His cab is gone. But his name appears in every edition of every Sherlock Holmes story ever printed.