Clarence (carriage) Clarence (carriage) A clarence is a type of carriage that was popular in the early 19th century. It is a closed, four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle with a projecting glass front and seats for four passengers inside. The driver sat at the front, outside the carriage. The clarence was named after Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, later to become King William IV of England, who died in 1837. It was introduced in 1840 in London. The Brougham was a lighter, two-passenger version originally commissioned by Lord Brougham. In time, second-hand clarences came to be used as hackney carriages, earning
London Borough of Hackney "Bryck Place" for Sir Ralph Sadleir, a diplomat. The village of Hackney flourished from the Tudor to late Georgian periods as a rural retreat. The first documented "hackney coach"—the forerunner of the more generic "hackney carriage"—operated in London in 1621. Current opinion is that the name "hackney," to refer to a London taxi, is derived from the village name. (Hackney, associated with high-stepping horses and horse-drawn carriages, is the root of the French word "haquenée", a term used for a small breed of horse, and the Sardinian achetta horse.) Construction of the railway in the 1850s ended Hackney's rural reputation