The
trolley was a platform body with four relatively small wheels mounted underneath it, the front two on a turntable undercarriage. It was drawn by a pair of horses and the driver's seat was mounted on the headboard.
The lift van was a sturdy wooden box to long, wide and high to the centre of the roof. It had two wrought iron straps passing down the sides and under the bottom, having a sling shackled to holes in the top ends of the straps so that the whole and its contents could be lifted by crane onto the trolley for movement by road, onto a railway truck or into the hold of a ship. It was therefore a logical step on from the
pantechnicon van
A pantechnicon van was originally a furniture removal van drawn by horses and used by the British company "The Pantechnicon" for delivering and collecting furniture which its customers wished to store. The name is a word largely of British Engl ...
in the development of
containerization
Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers and ISO containers). Containerization is also referred as "Container Stuffing" or "Container Loading", which is the p ...
.
The system thereby provided a means of door-to-door transit and was used particularly for furniture removals. The furniture makers and merchants,
Maple and Co., in particular, used it to deliver between their depôts in London and Paris.
It was also used for the carriage of
meat
Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
. In this case, the lift van had a double floor, roof and walls with insulating material such as cork and a layer of paper between the cork and each skin. The insulation thickness was about in the floor and elsewhere.
The earliest note by the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
'' is a reference by ''
The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by T ...
'' in 1955, comparing the advantages of "''lift-on, lift-off service involving only a truck van''" with those of "''
roll on-roll off''". However, this would appear to relate to the modern form of container while using old terminology.
References
*Ingram, A. ''Horse-Drawn Vehicles Since 1760'' (1977)
*''Oxford English Dictionary'' (1987) {{ISBN, 0-19-861211-7
Wagons