Working Life of Horses - circa 1900

Extracts from: - Horses and Stables by Sir F Fitzwygram, BART. Published by Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York and Bombay. 1901.

Some few statistics may be interesting and valuable. The statistics, however, refer only to the duration of horses in the employment for which they were bought. It does not follow that a horse is worn out, because he is no longer fit for the work for which he was bought. Many, in fact most of them, may be fit for slower or lighter work for many years to come.

The Author desires to return his warm thanks to those, who have so kindly supplied him with following information.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has kindly supplied the Author with the following valuable information: -

313 horses divided into Patrol and Despatch.

Patrol horses do from four to five hours daily and the despatch horses 21 miles on weekdays, and half that distance on Sunday.

Both classes are subject to considerable extra work when occasion requires, and long distances on the road may have to be covered in addition to the duty for which they are required.

Cab horses

Cab horses are no criterion. They are bought at all ages. But from the best information, which the Author has been able to glean, the average service may by taken at three and a half years. The average distance travelled by the cab appears to be about 20 to 25 miles per day.

The distance traversed daily by cab horses, often above 25 miles, may seem excessive. There are, however, many halts during the day and it must be remembered that horses rest and sleep while standing.

Job horses

As regards London job carriage horses the Author is inclined to think that in good places the average duration of service may run as high as 7 years, whilst in places where they are knocked about, it may not be more that from 3 to 4 years or even less.

It may seem impertinent to make suggestion to job-masters, who of course know their business much better that the Author, but he thinks that their interest would be much better served by charging the full price for the first and second years, and an annually decreasing sum for each succeeding year the customer retained the same horse.

In considering the price charged by the job-master the public must recollect first, the large number of horses which he must keep at his own expense to supply loss from casualties, especially in the spring when horses are most in demand. Second, the large number of horses which are returned at the end of the season, which must either be sold at a great sacrifice, or maintained in idleness at a great expense for six months. Thirdly the very considerable number of horses which after six or more months training from various causes turn out unfit for London or other carriage work.

The extra number of horses these causes required to be kept may be set down at 20%.

Extract from: - The Long Haul (The Life and Times of the Railway Horse) by Bryan Holden. Published by J. A. Allen, London 1985.

In January 1977, Bryan Holden visited Snow Hill Station, Birmingham, then in the final stages of its demolition and in the depths of the south tunnel discovered the stables where the fish siding's shunt horses had spent their lives in conditions worse that any pit pony. Rarely had these unfortunate animals left the tunnel; they were creatures of habit, working instinctively: it was said that they never passed a coloured light signal set at caution, nor stepped nearer the rail than was safe.

But there is little evidence that railway horses were deliberately ill-treated, for they were a valuable company asset and as such were always well looked after. They were rarely left unattended, and at weekends and at holiday times there was always a duty stableman to look after them.

In 1893, W. J. Gordon in his definitive work The Horse World of London estimated that some 6,000 horses were employed on railway work in the metropolis, engaged in shifting a mammoth 84,000,000 tons of merchandise a year.