2-361-703 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Thomas Rickett's steam carriage, 1860 (1956). Rickett, a Birmingham maker of agricultural implements, built a steam-powered plough in 1858. This prompted the Marquess of Stafford to ask him to build a steam carriage for him. A second example was ordered by James Sinclair, Earl of Caithness (one of the passengers in the photograph) in 1860. Sinclair drove the carriage 146 miles from Inverness to Barrogill Castle, north of Wick. Rickett advertised his carriages in The Engineer magazine at a price of £180-£200, but no more are believed to have been ordered. A print from Things, a volume about the origin and early history of many things, common and less common, essential and inessential, by Readers Union, the Grosvenor Press, London, 1956.