
A dogcart (or dog-cart) is a light
horse-drawn vehicle, originally designed for sporting shooters, with a box behind the driver's seat to contain one or more retriever dogs. The dog box could be converted to a second seat. Later variants included :
* A one-horse
carriage, usually two-wheeled and high, with two transverse seats set back to back. It was known as a "bounder" in
British slang
British slang is English-language slang originating from and used in the United Kingdom and also used to a limited extent in Anglophone countries such as Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, especially by British expatriates ...
(not to be confused with the
cabriolet
A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers.
A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving exp ...
of the same name). In India it was called a "tumtum" (possibly an altered form of "
tandem
Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction.
The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...
").
* A French version having four wheels and seats set back to back was a ''dos-à-dos'' (French for "back-to-back").
* An American four-wheeled dogcart, having a compartment for killed game, was called a "game cart".
A young or small groom called a "tiger" might stand on a platform at the rear of a dogcart, to help or serve the driver.
Frequent references to dog-carts are made by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle in his writings about fictional detective
Sherlock Holmes,
Dogcart - Things in "Speckled Band".
Melançon Enterprises and indeed by many other Victorian writers
Victorian or Victorians may refer to:
19th century
* Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign
** Victorian architecture
** Victorian house
** Victorian decorative arts
** Victorian fashion
** Victorian literature ...
, as it was a common sight in those days.
Fashions in vehicles changed quickly in the nineteenth century, and there is a great variety of names for different types. The dog-cart bears some resemblance to the phaeton, a sporty, lightly sprung one-horse carriage; the curricle
A curricle was a smart, light, two-wheeled chaise or "chariot", large enough for the driver and a passenger and—most unusually for a vehicle with a single axle
An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. ...
, a smart, light vehicle that fits one driver and passenger, but with two horses; the chaise
A one-horse chaise
A three-wheeled "Handchaise", Germany, around 1900, designed to be pushed by a person
A chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two- or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage for one or two people with a foldin ...
or shay, in its two-wheeled version for one or two people, with a chair back and a movable hood; and the cabriolet
A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers.
A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving exp ...
, with two wheels, a single horse, and a folding hood that can cover its two occupants, one of whom is the driver.
File:Dogcart (PSF).png, Later type of dogcart designed exclusively for a driver and passenger
Image:Dos-a-Dos Style Carriage.jpg, Dos-à-dos style carriage
File:Dokar from Kalibaru, East Java, Indonesia.jpg, ''Dokar'', the horse cart of Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
See also
* Arrol-Johnston
Arrol-Johnston (later known as Arrol-Aster) was an early Scottish manufacturer of automobiles, which operated from 1895 to 1931 and produced the first automobile manufactured in Britain. The company also developed the world's first "off-road" veh ...
* Governess cart
A governess cart is a small two-wheeled horse-drawn cart. Their distinguishing feature is a small tub body, with two opposed inward-facing seats. They could seat four, although there was little room for four large adults. The driver sat sideways o ...
* Jaunting car
A jaunting car is a light two-wheeled carriage for a single horse, with a seat in front for the driver. In its most common form with seats for two or four persons placed back to back, with the foot-boards projecting over the wheels and the typical ...
* Types of carriage
References
{{Reflist
Carriages
Carts