rocking horse history

the history of the rocking horse

rocking horse story

rocking horse history
I found an antique rocking horse photograph and became a lover of rocking horses and then collector. There is something gorgeous and fascinating about traditional rocking horses and I have been researching their history.
rocking horse makers
I was helped by The Kensington Rocking Horse Company, who provided me with background information and photographs. I adored the traditional rocking horses at their showroom and shop in Sussex. I had no idea that there was such a thing as a rocking horse shop! They are also specialists in rocking horse restoration.

early rocking horses
Wheeled horses on which knights and warriors practised swordsmanship and jousting date back at least to the Middle Ages, but it is the 18th Century before the 'toy' rocking horse begins to appear more widely as a children's plaything and examples of the German and British rocking horse from the period survive.

19th century rocking horses
In the wake of the industrial revolution, an aspiring upper middle-class emerged in Britain in the first half of the 19th century. These people were to become the natural rocking horse buyers. The rocking horse made increasing appearances in the nursery and commercial rocking horse making began.

queen victoria's dapple grey rocking horse
To some rocking horse lovers, a carved English rocking horse means one thing: a dapple grey. No lesser person than Queen Victoria gave the dapple grey rocking horse 'royal approval'. In 1851, she visited the works of J. Collinson in Liverpool and selected a dapple grey to ride. News of her preference soon spread and the future of the dapple grey was assured. Subsequently, the visit has become part of rocking horse folklore. I devote a separate page to the story of the dapple grey rocking horse.

victorian rocking horse makers
The visit to Collinsons in the Liverpool in the North of England acknowledged Britsh provincial rocking horse makers and it is known that there were makers in Birmingham and Leeds too, but this was 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and so all roads led to London, capital of England, of Great Britain and of the British Empire. London rocking horse makers led the world and the capital's dapple grey rocking horses were the overwhelming favourites of Victorian English children.

rocking (horses) in the USA
There was no doubt that British rocking horses or, more accurately, English rocking horses led the world. Ironically though, it was an American who was responsible for one of the most significant advances in design: in 1877, P.J. Marqua of Cincinatti, Ohio, patented the safety stand.

Hitherto, all rocking horses had been mounted on bow rockers. Marqua's design responded to both safety and practical concerns. The safety or swinger stand, on the other hand, provided a fixed static frame on which the rocking horse swung on swing irons.

safety stand holds sway
English makers quickly saw the potential for this new style of rocking horse and London solicitor Herbert Haddon was granted a British patent in 1880. Over the next 30 years, the rocking horse on a safety stand rapidly became the preferred form.

Today, rocking horse makers like The Kensington Rocking Horse Company do offer traditional rocking horses on bow rockers. This style of rocking horse does have an undeniable elegance.

However, I am told that most clients ultimately opt for their rocking horse to be mounted on the safety stand, not least because a similar sized rocking horse probably requires up to 3 ft or 1 metre of extra length when mounted on a bow rocker.

Interestingly, rocking horse logos used by antique shops, toy shops, children's nurseries, toy fairs etc. almost invariably depict the rocking horse on a bow rocker.

golden age of rocking horse making
Towards the end of the 19th century, there were many rocking horse manufacturers in London. Those rocking horse makers enjoying greatest prominence included FH Ayres and G&J Lines, but there were many other smaller makers. JR & T Smith of London and Wilson of the Silver Cross Works, Leeds in Yorkshire were other makers of this era whose examples have survived to this day.

Unlike today, when most customers opt to make direct contact with the maker to increase choice and value for money, Victorian rocking horses were often sold in the major London toy- and department stores of the day, including Harrods, Hamleys, Selfridges, Army & Navy Stores, Fortnum & Mason, Gamage's and Barkers of Kensington.

My picture above shows a rocking horse made in 1908 and it was the late Victorian- and Edwardian era age which probably represented the golden age of rocking horse carving. The dawn of the First World War in 1914 was to usher in the decline and fall and (much later) revival of British rocking horse making.

rocking horse owners
Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books and The Tailor of Gloucester and who was born in Kensington, refers to her own rocking horse in her coded diary.

EH Shepard, most famous for his wonderful illustrations of the Winnie the Pooh books by AA Milne, received his tricycle rocking horse as a birthday present from his Godmother-Aunt in the 1880s.

JM Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan who lived close to Kensington Gardens and adopted five orphaned boys, describes buying a rocking horse in the first Peter Pan book, The Little White Bird, published in 1902.

rocking horse links
The Kensington Rocking Horse Company
rocking horse shop Sussex