Horse Dealers

Victorian horse dealers were intermediaries between farmers, who bred horses, and people wanting horses for work, transport, and leisure. They ranged from shrewd, travelling traders to proprietors of coaching inns managing large stables.

The term 'horse trading' carries connotations of wily negotiation. The horse dealer needed a deep knowledge of horses' health and market value plus the personality needed to convince others. Some dealers, like my ancestor, travelled widely, spending months away from home.

My great great grandfather was a horse dealer in Ramsgate who travelled to South Wales to buy ponies direct from the breeders. He had 40 to 50 Welsh Cobs, horses and Ponies for sale at Ashford, Canterbury and Sandwich Markets in 1875. He joined with others to form a Licensed Horse Dealers Protection Society. Its aim was to discourage 'the great numbers of unlicensed persons carrying on the business of Horse Dealers'.

The horse trader made his money by acquiring and fattening up skinny horses and selling them on at a profit.

The Horse World of London' by W. J. Gordon (1893) lists horse repositories in London, including one at Elephant and Castle, where

one of my great grandfather's brothers bought a horse in 1890.

The Horse Dealers Daughter' by D H Lawrence (1922) describes the family and household of 'a man of no education, who had become a fairly large horse dealer'. There was 'a great come-and-go' of horses, dealers and grooms at his premises. In fact, noone came to the house except dealers and 'coarse men'. The horse dealer's men were foul-mouthed and the women in the kitchen had bad reputations. No wonder, then, that his sons had illegitimate children.