Postilion

Postilions ride the left or nearsideBecause horses are mounted from the horse's left side (the horse prefers no surprises) that side is nearest to the rider. The postilion rides the left horse of the pair because there is no access to the right-hand horse from its left-hand side. mount because horses are mounted from the left.[http://www.brianlucas.ca/roadside Which side of the road do they drive on?] Brian Lucas.{{r|rogers|page=279}} With a double team there could be two postilions, one for each pair,{{r|rogers|pages=282–283, 107}} or, especially in France, one postilion would ride on the left wheel (rear) horse in order to control all four horses.{{r|beaufort|page=314}}

File:Le Royal Mews de Londres-016.JPG postilion livery]]

{{Blockquote |text=The postilion wears a full-dress livery with a short jacket reaching to the waist only and decorated with gold lace and gilt buttons. A white shirt and stock tie, white leather breeches, white gloves, decorated cap, boots with brown tops, and an iron leg-guard on the [right] leg to protect it from the battering of the carriage pole. |author=Thomas Ryder in Fashion on Wheels{{Cite book |first=Thomas |last=Ryder |title=Man and the Horse: An Illustrated History of Equestrian Apparel |chapter=Fashion on Wheels |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Simon & Schuster, New York |year=1984 |ol=2859979M |page=94 |isbn=0870994115}} {{ISBN|0671555200}} }}

• Privacy for passengers in their conversations.{{fact|date=December 2019}}
• Better control of the horses, for example, when moving guns at high speed on a battlefield.{{fact|date=December 2019}}
• Extravagant display by their noble owner, as when attending a state occasion. The display might extend to liveried men walking on foot beside each horse.{{fact|date=December 2019}}

This style of travel was known as "posting".{{r|rogers|page=278}} The postilions and their horses (known as "post-horses"){{r|rogers|page=282}} would be hired from a "postmaster" at a "post house".{{r|rogers|page=282}} The carriage would travel from one post house to the next (a journey known as a "stage"), where the postilions and/or spent (exhausted) horses could be replaced if necessary.{{r|rogers|page=282}} In practice unless a return hire was anticipated a postilion of a spent team frequently was also responsible for returning them to the originating post house.

Posting was once common both in England and in continental Europe.{{r|rogers|pages=279–280}} In addition to a carriage's obvious advantages (a degree of safety and shelter for the inside passengers and accessibility to non-riders) on long trips it tended to be the most rapid form of passenger travel. Individually mounted riders are subject to their personal endurance limits, while posting could continue indefinitely with brief stops for fresh horses and crew. In England, posting declined once railways became an alternative method of transport,{{r|rogers|page=282}} but it remained popular in France and other countries.

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File:Diamond Jubilee- 5th June 2012 (7506675268).jpg

File:QF13pounderBouncingNYTribune20October1918.jpg team with 13-pounder cannon at speed during the First World War]]

The gun detachments of the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery are each driven by a team of three post riders. The King's Troop is a ceremonial unit equipped with World War I veteran 13-pounder field guns drawn by six horses in much the same configuration as the guns of the 19th and early 20th century would have been. Officers and senior non-commissioned officers ride separately.

The United States Army's Old Guard Caisson Platoon also rides postilion. The section sergeant, on a separate horse, is in charge of the team and there are six other horses teamed together. This configuration is used at Arlington National Cemetery.{{cite web |url=http://www.army.mil/info/organization/unitsandcommands/commandstructure/theoldguard/specplt/caisson.htm |title=The Old Guard - Caisson Platoon |access-date=2010-04-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100228155422/http://www.army.mil/info/organization/unitsandcommands/commandstructure/theoldguard/specplt/caisson.htm |archive-date=2010-02-28 }}

To adapt to the rigours of horses traveling long distances at a trot, postillion riders adapted a method of rising and falling with the rhythm of the horse's gait and given the name "posting" or "posting to the trot."

• Le postillon de Lonjumeau, an 1836 French comic opera by Adolphe Adam.
• "My postillion has been struck by lightning". A comical phrase supposedly found in old-fashioned foreign language phrase books. It was adapted by Dirk Bogarde as the title of his first autobiographical memoir (1977).
• Der Postillon, German satirical news site.

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{{Wiktionary}}

{{Commonscat|Postillions}}

{{Reflist|refs=

{{Cite book |last=Beaufort |first=Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset (Duke of Beaufort) |author-link=Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort |title=Driving |year=1901 |location=London |publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co. |ol=22878921M}}

{{Cite book |last=Berkebile |first=Donald H. |title=Carriage Terminology: An Historical Dictionary |year=1978 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press |isbn=9781935623434 |ol=33342342M}}

{{Cite book |title=Manual of Coaching |first=Fairman |last=Rogers |year=1899 |publisher=J. B. Lippincott Company |ol=20478464M}}

{{cite book |title=A Dictionary of Horse Drawn Vehicles |first=D.J.M. |last=Smith |year=1988 |publisher=J. A. Allen & Co. Ltd. |isbn=0851314686 |ol=11597864M |page=62}}

{{cite book |title=The Encyclopaedia of Driving |first=Sallie |last=Walrond |year=1979 |publisher=Country Life Books |isbn=0600331822 |ol=4175648M |page=216}}

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{{Horse-drawn carriages}}

Category:Road transport

Category:Horse driving

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