Wheelchairs and Bath chairs in the 18th century
Some images show what appears to be a wheeled sedan chair (e.g. La Place Victoire à Paris; A French Physician with His Retinue Going to Visit His Patients); some satirical illustrations depict disabled or elderly people transported in wheelbarrows (e.g. A Trip to Cocks Heath).
There are several 18th century chairs to which wheels have been added, perhaps for an owner with limited mobility, such as National Trust 1332422, a c. 1780 armchair with four sturdy wheels, or the wheeled chair displayed in George Rogers Clark’s apartment at Locust Grove (h/t Marc Lauterbach). Others, like V&A W.103-1978, were purpose-built. Many of the images below show Bath chairs, invented in the 18th century and utilized well into the 19th century; the Tenby Museum and Art Gallery has a particularly well-preserved example.
Lady Tyrconnel in The Belton Conversation Piece by Philippe Mercier, c. 1725-1726 (also here)
William Coventry, 5th Earl of Coventry, Elizabeth Allen, Countess of Coventry, the Hon. E.D. Coventry, Thomas Henry Coventry, Viscount Deerhurst and John Bulkeley Coventry with a groom in a landscape by Charles Phillips, c. 1730
“‘Sir Hans Sloane,’ ſays our Author, ‘in the decline of his life, left London, and retired to his manor-houſe at Chelſea, where he reſided about fourteen years before he died … He was ſo infirm, as to be wholly confined to his houſe, except ſometimes, though rarely, taking a little air in his garden, in a wheeled chair: and this confinement made him very deſirous to ſee any of his old acquaintance, to amuſe him.’” (The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal, on the Gleanings of Natural Hiſtory, 1760)
“B. Bucktrout,
N. B. Where likewiſe may be had the mathematical GOUTY CHAIR.” (Virginia Gazette, July 25, 1766)
“I thought I wanted neither crutches, helps, not wheeled chair; and ſeveral times forgot that I ailed anything.” (The History of Sir Charles Grandison in a Series of Letters by Samuel Richardson, 1770)
A Peep in the Garden at Hayes, 1773
Mister Billy’s Procession to Grocers Hall, 1784
Illustration from Die Indianer in England, after 1790
Lieut. Bowling pleading the cause of young Rory to his Grandfather by Thomas Rowlandson, 1792
Illustration from Brandenburgische Geschichte, c. 1793
Comforts of Bath by Thomas Rowlandson, 1798: Plate 3, Plate 4, Plate 8, Plate 9 , Plate 11, Feeding the Ducklings
The Naturalist’s Visit to the Florist, 1798
The Treasury Spectre, or the Head of the Nation in a Queer Situation, 1798
Pope-Joan, 1805
Westminster-Conscripts under the Training Act, 1806
Bath Races by Thomas Rowlandson, 1810