The history of the rocking horse
Children have been delighted by wooden horses of one form or another for generations. Young Egyptians
enjoyed pulling wheeled horses (like
this one in the
British Museum) - as did
the more youthful ancient Greeks, despite their elders' encounter with the less innocent great horse of Troy.
The Greeks also played with the hobby horse: a modelled horse's head on a pole, which children could pretend
to ride, and it was this form of horse that in England entered medieval folklore, playing a role in morris
dancing and mummers' plays, and in nursery rhyme, as the cock horse of Banbury Cross.
The first true rocking horses seem to have appeared in the seventeenth century, for the childhood of Charles I
(1625-49). These were mostly the picturesque 'bow rockers', with two gently curved rails supporting the
leaping wooden horse. By the 18th century they had become popular toys, characteristically dappled with bright
round spots. Popularity soared in Victorian times with the beginning of mass production, and companies such
as J Collinson & Sons (Liverpool, 1836-c1990), G & J Lines (London, c1850-1972), F H Ayres (London,
1864-1940) and Patterson Edwards were to become famous long-term manufacturers. Collinson displayed at the
Great Exhibition of 1851, where Queen Victoria's choice of a dapple grey model turned that version into an
enduring classic.
P J Marqua's safety stand, patented in Cincinatti in 1877, spared toes and carpets from the picturesque bows
by suspending the horse from swing arms supported by a solid wooden frame. English designers copied the innovation
immediately, and the suspended dapple grey remains the classic design of rocking horse to this day.
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