JOSEPH HANSOM – HOW SAFETY HELPS SHAPE INNOVATION
HERE’S A QUESTION.
Why didn’t the bicycle become a mainstream success until almost a hundred years after its initial invention?
Well, the same reason wingsuits still haven’t.
Creating a mode of transportation is only half the battle – in order to flourish it also needs to be safe and easy to use.
And whether it’s developing the windscreen wiper so people can safely drive in storms, or cat’s eyes so we don’t all career off cliff-edges at night, innovations in safety have always been integral to moving transport forward.
The horse-drawn carriage has been around for millennia – the first recorded accounts of chariots (an earlier form of carriage) dates to ancient Mesopotamia.
So, when a bankrupted architect from North England patented his Hansom Safety Cab in 1834, it didn’t garner global acclaim because it was new, but because it was safer.
A HANSOM INNOVATOR
Joseph Aloysius Hansom was born on October 26, 1803 in York to family of craftsmen.
His brother and uncle were both renowned gothic revival architects and Joseph showed promise in the field from an early age.
So much so that he was permitted to transfer from his father’s joiner apprenticeship to apprentice with a local architect called Mr Phillips.
Years later as a married man based in Halifax, he formed his first architectural partnership with two brothers he had befriended in the town.
‘Hansom & Welch’ went on to design churches across Yorkshire and Liverpool on behalf of the Catholic church, along with a castle in Denbighshire and a college in the Isle of Man.
However, in 1831, after winning a contract to work on the Birmingham Town Hall, an issue due to a surety bond with some builders caused the partnership to declare bankruptcy.
But three years later, at the push of his then employer, Joseph re-emerged from obscurity and filed his patent for the soon to be iconic ‘Hansom safety cab’.
SAFER IS BETTER
What made Joseph’s invention so special was the amount of thought he put into ensuring his cab was better than carriages of the time in almost every way.
He gave the cab a low centre of gravity so it wasn’t only safer when going around corners, but could do so at faster speeds than previous iterations.
He placed the driver behind the cab and made the cab enclosure smaller. This allowed it to be drawn by just one horse and made it easier for the driver to communicate with passengers.
He even put the driver’s seat on springs to make the bumpy ride more comfortable.
And even though the design would go through several improvements by numerous innovators, Joseph’s foundational design was so all-encompassing that the cab retained his name.
THE HUMAN-CENTRIC CHALLENGE
At its peak, there were up to 7,500 Hansom cabs in London alone – they became a ubiquitous feature of the nineteenth century.
Joseph’s invention made it easier, cheaper and more comfortable to get around. It even made life easier for the horses who powered them.
Ground-breaking innovation takes more than just creating something new. It requires careful consideration of how it’s going to affect the lives of the people who are going to use or encounter it every day.
This is what we’re doing with SMLL.
The self-driving car is an amazing innovation in itself. However, what will make it a ground-breaking innovation is if we can make it benefit everyone, not just a privileged few.
Integrating it with existing transportation networks and creating an efficient, affordable and safe system has to be the goal. To look not just as self-driving cars in isolation, but to the consider the broader future of mobility. It will take many great minds working together, approaching the problem from numerous different angles.
But together, we have the potential to usher in a new era of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and change transportation forever.
And in doing so, we may change the trajectory of countless lives in the process.