A coachman was a man whose business it was to drive a coach, a horse-drawn vehicle designed for the conveyance of more than one passenger — and of mail — and covered for protection from the elements. He was also called a coachee, coachy or whip.
The term "coachman" is correctly applied to the driver of any type of coach, but it had a specialized meaning before the advent of motor vehicles, as the servant who preceded the chauffeur in domestic service. In a great house, this would have been a specialty, but in more modest households, the coachman would have doubled as the stablehand or groom.
In early coaches he sat on a built-in compartment called a boot, bracing his feet on a footrest called a footboard. He was often pictured wearing a box coat or box jacket, a heavy overcoat with or without shoulder capes, double-breasted, with fitted waist and wide lapels; its name derives from its use by coachmen riding on the box seat, exposed to all kinds of weather. An ornamented, often fringed cloth called a hammercloth might have hung over the coachman's seat, especially of a ceremonial coach. He could be seen taking refreshments at a type of public house called a watering house.
A coachman was sometimes called a jarvey or jarvie, especially in Ireland (Jarvey was a nickname for Jarvis). One who drove dangerously fast or recklessly might invoke biblical or mytholological allusions: Some referred to him as a jehu, recalling King Jehu of Israel, who was noted for his furious attacks in a chariot (2 Kings 9:20) before he died about 816 BCE. Others dubbed him a Phaeton, harking back to the Greek Phaëton, son of Helios who, attempting to drive the chariot of the sun, managed to set the earth on fire. When there was no coachman, a postilion or postillion sometimes rode as a guide on the near horse of a pair or of one of the pairs attached to a coach.
Coachman is also a synonym for the pennant coralfish (Heniochus Monoceros).
Coachman is also a very famous fly used for flyfishing. The pattern exist as both a dry-fly and wet-fly. The pattern is composed before 1860 in England.
External links
- Gentlemen Coachmen, by Anne Woodley.
- George Borrow's, "The Stage-Coachmen Of England: A Bully Served Out". Compiled by Blupete (Peter Landry).
- The stables - Coachmen 1662-1837 | British History Online.
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