Stagecoach
Diligencia (coche de posta con suspensión de correas)
- Date
- c. 1640-1660 · confidence medium
- Place
- London, England / Paris
- Credited to
- English and French coaching entrepreneurs; suspended coach bodies from Hungary (the kocsi) and Berlin (1660)
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A public coach with timetables, stops and relays of horses, its body slung on leather straps to make the journey bearable. The first regular commercial passenger transport.
What it led to
- Regular travel between cities and early tourism
- Turnpikes and road improvement
- A network of coaching inns and mail services carrying passengers
Built on
- Four-wheeled wagon with pivoting front axlec. 1335
- Public postal service1490
- Hungarian coach (kocsi, 15th century)
- Spring-suspended carriage
Made possible
- Mail coach (1784)
- Steel leaf-spring suspension (1804)
- omnibus