Detail map of London, England, United Kingdom,Bath, England, United Kingdom Overview map of London, England, United Kingdom,Bath, England, United Kingdom

A: London, England, United Kingdom, B: Bath, England, United Kingdom

Goldsworthy Gurney Advertises a Steam-Powered Road Vehicle, the Steam Carriage

1825 to 1829
This print with its lengthy caption explaining the operation of the steam carriage was probably issued to promote the product. As the print indicated, the Carriage operated between London and
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This print with its lengthy caption explaining the operation of the steam carriage was probably issued to promote the product. As the print indicated, the Carriage operated between London and Bath.

Between 1825 and 1829 Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, having obtained a patent for "An apparatus for propelling carriages on common roads or railways – without the aid of horses, with sufficient speed for the carriage of passengers and goods", designed and built a number of steam-powered road vehicles, one of which is illustrated in this hand-colored print. Gurney's work encompassed the development of the blastpipe, which used steam to increase the flow of air through a steam engine's chimney, so increasing the draw of air over the fire and significantly increasing the power-to-weight ratio of the steam engine. The print illustrating Gurney's steam carriage was probably issued to promote the product.

"One of his vehicles was sufficiently robust to make a journey in July 1829, two months before the Rainhill Trials, from London to Bath and back, at an average speed for the return journey of 14 miles per hour—including time spend in refuelling and taking on water. His daughter Anna, in a letter to The Times newspaper in December 1875, notes that "I never heard of any accident or injury to anyone with it, except in the fray at Melksham, on the noted journey to Bath, when the fair people set upon it, burnt their fingers, threw stones, and wounded poor Martyn the stoker". The vehicle had to be escorted under guard to Bath to prevent further luddism."(Wikipedia article on Goldsworthy Gurney, accessed 11-4-2018).

Gurney's venture into steam-powered transportation was not a commercial success, and had to be liquidated, partly because of the obvious danger that passengers must have felt in riding so close to a steam engine. 

In December 2025 I received the following informative email from Robert Simons of Bedfordshire, England, regarding Gurney and his invention:

"I can confirm that your image of Gurney's Steam Carriage is promotional and does not represent a carriage on its way to Bath. 

"The design is that shown in Gurney's patent of 1825. It includes four chimneys at the back (as well as two vertical separators); these were replaced in 1828 by a single wide chimney between the two separators. 
 
"More seriously, just in front of the rear wheels are two curved legs (like an old long "s"). These were the means of propulsion in the 1825 patent: they operated like horses' hooves (or Oscar Pistorius's running blades) to push the vehicle forwards. In the early 1820s, it was thought that wheels would spin when trying to go uphill on roads, so various types of leg were devised. 
 
"Gurney built these but found they didn't work, so moved to using cranks to drive the rear wheels, retaining the legs for when the wheels lost traction. By 1826 he realised they were a waste of time and removed them. 
 
"By 1828 Gurney had worked out that it was better to separate the steam vehicle from the passengers and thereafter built steam drags, small steam locomotives which pulled a carriage or omnibus. It was one of these which made the journey to Bath."




Timeline Themes

Technology / Engineering
Transportation
Book Production in the Industrial Revolution: Origins of Mass Media
Industrial Revolution