Hackney carriage a 1662 Act of Parliament establishing the Commissioners of Scotland Yard to regulate them. Licences applied literally to horse-drawn carriages, later modernised as hansom cabs (1834), that operated as vehicles for hire. The 1662 act limited the licences to 400; when it expired in 1679, extra licences were created until a 1694 act imposed a limit of 700, which was increased by later acts and abolished in 1832. There was a distinction between a general hackney carriage and a hackney coach, a hireable vehicle with specifically four wheels, two horses and six seats, and driven by a "Jarvey" (also spelled
Hackney carriage issues "Hackney Carriage" medallions to its taxi operators. 'Hackney' is derived from the village name Hackney (now part of London). Hackney supplied horses from its surrounding meadows. The word was once thought to be an anglicized derivative of French "haquenée" — a horse of medium size recommended for lady riders. The place-name, through its fame for its horses and horse-drawn carriages, is also the root of the Spanish word "jaca", a term used for a small breed of horse and the Sardinian achetta horse. The first documented hackney coach—the name later extended to the newer and smaller carriages—operated in London