A Sedan chair is an enclosed windowed chair with an upholstered interior suitable for a single occupant, which was carried by two porters, one in front, one behind, using wooden rails that passed through metal brackets on the sides of the chair. These porters were known in London as "chairmen" and could be counted on to turn out in any public brawl.

These have been very rare since the 19th century, but such enclosed portable litters have been used as an elite form of transport for centuries, especially in cultures where women are kept secluded. In Ancient Rome, a litter (lectica) carried members of the imperial family.

In Asia

In Han China the elite travelled in light bamboo seats supported on a carrier's back like a backpack. In the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, wooden carriages on poles appear in painted landscape scrolls.

Such wooden or bamboo litters, (now often called "sedan chairs") used by women and the elderly among common people were called minjiao, the mandarin class using an official guanjiao enclosed in silk curtains. A traditional bride is carried to her wedding ceremony by a similar “shoulder carriage” or jianyu lacquered a fortunate shade of red. In Korea, both the bride and groom are carried to the ceremony in separate, elaborately decorated litters.

In Hong Kong the annual sedan chair race to benefit the Matilda Hospital has been run since 1907.

In Europe

In Europe, it took four strong chairmen to carry the corpulent Henry VIII of England in the chair he was carried in, towards the end of his life, but the expression "sedan chair" was not used in print until 1615. It does not seem to take its name from the city of Sedan. Trevor Fawcett notes (see link) that English travellers like Fynes Moryson (in 1594) and John Evelyn (in 1644-5) noted with interest the seggioli of Naples and Genoa, which were chairs for public hire slung from poles and carried on the shoulders of two porters.

From the mid 17th century, visitors to take the waters at Bath would be conveyed in a chair enclosed in baize curtains, especially if they had taken a heated bath and were going straight to bed to sweat. The curtains kept off a possibly fatal draft. These were not the proper sedan chairs "to carry the better sort of people in visits, or if sick or infirme" (Celia Fiennes ). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the chairs stood in the main hall of a well-appointed city residence, where a lady could enter and be carried to her destination without setting foot in a filthy street. The tasteful neoclassical sedan chair made for Queen Charlotte remains at Buckingham Palace. Sedan chairs could pass in streets too narrow for a carriage.

By the mid-17th century, sedans for hire were a common mode of transportation. In London, "chairs" were available for hire in 1634, each assigned a number and the chairmen licensed, because the operation was a monopoly of a courtier of Charles I. Sedan chairs were meant to alleviate the crush of coaches in London streets, an early instance of traffic congestion. A similar system was later used in Scotland. In 1738, a fare system was established for Scottish sedans, and the regulations covering chairmen in Bath remind the reader of a modern Taxi Commission's rules. A trip within a city cost six pence and a day’s rental was four shillings. A sedan was even used as an ambulance in Scotland's Royal Infirmary.

Chairmen moved at a good clip. In Bath they had the right-of-way: pedestrians hearing "By your leave" behind them knew to flatten themselves against walls or railings as the chairmen hustled through. There were disastrous accidents, upset chairs, broken glass-paned windows.

Sedan chairs were used by the wealthy in the cities of colonial America. Benjamin Franklin used a sedan chair until late in the 1700s.

The end of a tradition

In the early 19th century, the public sedan chair began to go out of use, perhaps because streets were better paved, perhaps because of the rise of the more companionable hackney carriage. In Glasgow the licensing records show 1800, twenty-seven sedans; 1817, eighteen sedans, 1828, ten sedans. In that same period the number of registered hackney carriages in Glasgow rose to one hundred and fifty.

The traveling "Silla" of Latin America

A similar but simpler device was used by the elite in parts of 18th and 19th century Latin America. Often simply called a silla (chair), it consisted of a simple wooden chair with tump-line attached. The occupant sat in the chair, which was then affixed to the back of a single porter, with the tump-line supported by his forehead. The occupant thus faced backwards during travel. This was probably devised because the area had many rough roads unsuitable to European style sedan chairs. Travelers by silla usually employed a number of porters, who would trade off carrying the occupant.

External link

• Trevor Fawcett, "Chair transport in Bath": from Bath History, II (1988): richly detailed social history