Animals of the Trams

At first glance, it appears to be a normal Victorian tram company picture. Mostly male, all behatted, the manager obvious in a smart suit and top hat, the engineers in shirts and waistcoats. At the front are several young boys, one is holding a cat. And another…is that…a goat?

Today, many of us have the impression that history was, on the whole, not a good time to be an animal. Most were eaten, some worked and others starved on the streets while only the rich kept lapdogs as pets.

This isn’t necessarily true. In fact, during the Victorian era, Britain saw a ‘pet revolution’, along with the emergence of the middle class and it extended to the tramways.

Dogs

The stars of this show were, of course, dogs. Always having been popular for guarding, hunting, pest control and on farms, they made for loving and devoted pets. In a memoir of the tramways, a J. Joyce remembers a night where an incredibly drunk man was led aboard the tram by his dog and then led off again at his stop. Apparently, this was a nightly occurrence.

Dogs were popular in the tram depots as well, generally working as pest control and often ended up becoming a sort of a workshop mascot, as we can see from various official portraits.

Horses

We cannot mention animals of the trams without talking about the horses whose labour made the trams possible in the first place, as they were the dominant source of power until steam and electricity.

Tram horses were a unique breed called ‘Hackney’ horses, who were lighter and had more stamina. They were mostly mares (female horses) and had roughly a four year working life. It was a tough life, working at all hours in all weathers, but being the most essential part of the operation had some benefits.

In some rural areas, after pulling an industrial tram up a steep hill, the horses would ride the tram down on the other side. In the cities, an average sized tram company generally needed double storied stables, with an in house horse hospital. Within these walls, the horses were generally well looked after, companies set a lot of store by looks after all, and they were washed, brushed and well-fed. This would also improve their resale value, an important consideration for a tramway CEO requiring a fresh team as the horses tram careers came to an end.

Cats

The popularity of cats in Britain grew with the popularity of flats as a cheaper form of living. Largely independent and quiet animals, they were easier to accommodate than dogs, especially without access to garden.

Like dogs, the depot cats were a form of pest control who would often become mascots, included in official and unofficial photographs.

Goats

We are unsure of the purpose of the goats. Many depots were attached to farms, so they may have provided milk, operated as weed control or, similar to cats and dogs, were workshop mascots.

 

The inclusion of all of these animals in photographs demonstrates the love and regard that tram workers had for their four-legged colleagues. Enough to hold them still for official photographs, the quality of which demanded both time and expense and, likewise, enough to include them in their everyday work.

Today, although trams themselves have been mostly relegated to history, the legacy of tram animals lives on. In the museum workshop, the engineers take pictures of the trams with stuffed toys as mascots and in the archive, we have our very own ‘depot dog’ although he has not carried on the tradition of pest control.

Researched and written by Elizabeth Mason, Museum Volunteer.