Charles Bianconi the man who brought wheels to Ireland 1815 – 1875 | Season 3 – Episode 52
Wheels Aug 13, 2024
Back in the early 1800s travelling to your next town in Ireland usually meant you had to walk and not just because the roads were in poor condition, also because horses and donkeys were expensive. While there were canals the first of which the 165 mile (265 kms) long Grand Canal, started in 1756 and completed in 1803 to link Dublin in the east to the River Shannon in the west they were mainly for freight with limited passenger capacity and were not flexible enough for local traffic.
Italo-Irish entrepreneur, Charles Bianconi (1786 – 1875) is credited with introducing cheap, fast and reliable public transport to Ireland, in the 19th century. More on his pioneering transport service later.
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Early Life
Carlo (Charles), Giovacchino, Giuseppe, Bianconi was born in the town of Tregolo in Costa Magnasta in the Lombardy Highlands of northern Italy on September 24th 1786 into a family involved in the silk trade.
The people of Tregolo customarily sent their surplus sons to England due to Napoleon’s need for men in his armies and the constant threat of forced conscription.
Journey to Ireland
Past emigrants who had settled in England arranged these journeys for young individuals like Bianconi. At the age of sixteen in 1800, Bianconi’s father paid for him to embark on an eighteen-month apprenticeship with art dealer, engraver, and printer Andrea Faroni in England.
Bianconi and three other apprentice boys crossed the French Alps on foot and walked to London in 1801. However, upon reaching London, Bianconi faced a twist of fate as his mentor, Faroni, decided to move his engraving business to Dublin. As a result, in the summer of 1802, the sixteen-year-old Bianconi, now going by the anglicized name Charles, found himself living near Essex Street, just off Temple Bar in Dublin.
As an engraver and printer, Faroni assigned Charles the task of selling his engravings on the streets of Dublin. Charles had only one word of English in his vocabulary – “buy.” To convey the price of his engravings to potential customers, he used his fingers, where one finger symbolized one penny.
In the same year, receiving a weekly allowance of four pence to cover his expenses he was sent into rural Ireland to sell his wares. Setting out from Dublin on Monday mornings with his pictures, he journeyed on foot through Munster and Leinster, selling his wares and planning his route meticulously to return to Dublin by late Saturday night.
In his later years and reminiscing about this time in his life, Bianconi referred to the “idea that grew on my back,” attributing it to his transportation method of carrying a large box strapped to his shoulders while selling his wares. According to Bianconi, the box weighed around thirty pounds as he covered long distances each day, often walking twenty or thirty miles.
We have heard that he faced an unexpected incident in Passage East, Co Waterford, where he was arrested and spent a night in jail for selling pictures of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was considered the British number one enemy at that time.
Setting Up In Business
In 1804, he had completed his eighteen-month apprenticeship, was proficient in English and had learnt the trade and he then made the significant decision not to return to Italy but instead to establish his own sales route.
For the next fifteen years, Bianconi pursued engraving and printing as his trade. In 1806, he established his shop in Carrick-on-Suir and obtained his supplies, including gold leaf, from Waterford. To reach Waterford, he travelled by river on Charles Morrissey’s boat, which accommodated eight to ten passengers at a fare of 6½d (sixpence ha’penny) each.
The journey along the winding River Suir spanned 24 miles, twice the distance of the overland route. Due to the river being tidal, the timing of the trips was determined by the tides and the journey was a long one.
He later relocated this business to Waterford and, subsequently, to Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. In the year 1809, he established his shop at No.1 Gladstone Street, where he operated as a first-class “Carver and Guilder.”
Beginning the coach service
By 1815, Charles Bianconi was a successful and popular businessman in Clonmel and known locally as “Mr By-and-coney”’. He actively participated in local charities such as the Society for Visiting the Sick Poor and became a valued member of the House of Industry.
During the summer of 1815, following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo and the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Bianconi saw an opportunity in the flooded market of affordable army horses and unemployed horsemen.
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Jaunting Car Service Launched
In July 1815, the first Bianconi jaunting car embarked on its journey from Clonmel to Cahir also on the banks of the River Suir, County Tipperary and so began the first ever integrated transport system in Ireland.
Charles Bianconi’s first vehicles were jaunting cars, a distinctive design native to Ireland. These were two-wheeled carriages drawn by a single horse, featuring a raised box seat for the driver positioned facing forward and accommodating up to six passengers facing outward, situated over the wheels. During the 1800s, the term “car” referred to a small horse-drawn carriage.
Initially, Bianconi’s Jaunting car service took some time to gain popularity since it targeted individuals who were accustomed to walking or using boats for transportation. But when it did, it took off and everyone wanted to travel on the “Bians” as they were to become known. The fare cost one-penny farthing a mile and average speeds were of 7 or 8 miles per hour. By the end of 1815, with Clonmel as the hub and creating huge employment the Bians were running to Tipperary, Limerick and Thurles. Seeing real opportunity Bianconi designed his routes to link up towns, especially market towns, rather than concentrate on the main routes already served by the mail coaches.
In the following year, 1816, he expanded the route system to include Carrick-on-Suir and Waterford. Offering a trip that previously took travellers five to eight hours in Morrissey’s boat, Bianconi managed to complete the journey in less than two hours, charging only 2/- for the service. The significant time saved by using his transportation meant that travellers could avoid spending a night away from home.
The Bianconi jaunting cars and cheap was public transport was now a common sight across Ireland.
In 1818, the Bianconi network expanded to include New Ross, followed by the addition of Wexford, Enniscorthy, Kilkenny and Dungarvan in 1819.
With business flourishing in the early 1820s, Bianconi recognised the need to establish his own workshops as his cars subject to breakdowns on the rough roads which he had no control over.
Working Capital Challenge
During this period, he faced another challenge – a shortage of working capital as the costs of maintaining the horses, providing fodder and repairing the jaunting cars were depleting the company’s finances. The business found itself caught in a situation where its own success was becoming a challenge.
And then in 1826 an opportunity came by chance when a significant Waterford by-election resulted in the ousting of the dominant Beresford family in the county’s politics. The Catholic Association, led by Daniel O’Connell and advocating for Catholic Emancipation, emerged victorious. Bianconi, who had previously transported voters for the Beresfords (who were against Emancipation), felt concerned for his drivers’ safety due to heightened tensions and asked to be released from his contract. The Beresfords reluctantly agreed and Bianconi was quickly hired by O’Connell’s team.
Although he may have contributed to their success, what mattered most to Bianconi was being paid £1,000 (about €1000,000 in today’s values), providing him with the capital he needed to further expand his coaching fleet.
With working capital, the jaunting car network was extended to Athlone, Cahirciveen, Cork, Mallow, Roscrea and as far north as Sligo and as far south as Tralee. Bianconi’s network required stabling for horses as well as accommodation for passengers & the jarveys and so began the establishment of a series of inns such as in Piltown Co Kilkenny and Killorglin, Co Kerry.
Introducing The ‘Long Car”
The year 1833 saw the “long car” go into production from his coach building premises at the Clonmel headquarters. These new cars still followed the outside car concept but now featured four wheels and were pulled by two, three, or four horses. The most spacious of these cars could accommodate up to 16 passengers, with 8 on each side, along with their luggage and Post Office mail. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Bianconi’s extensive network of cars had out-competed the majority of the established mail coach routes.
In 1832 Charles Bianconi married Eliza Hayes the daughter of a wealthy Dublin banker.
The Coming Of The Railways
With the arrival of the first railways in Ireland in 1834 Bianconi soon came to realise that this new form of transport may become a threat to his long-established car network. He then began buying up shares in the emerging rail lines and over time was able to influence their routes and station locations. He was then able to connect his existing car network to serve the expanding rail network.
In 1843 more towns in Mayo and Donegal were added to the network and in the same year Bianconi was unanimously elected mayor of Clonmel and went on to serve a second term of office and around this time was also made a director in Daniel OConnells newly founded National Bank.
Indirectly, the Great Famine of 1845-48 actually benefited Charles Bianconi’s business as during the famine years, Ireland’s roads witnessed significant improvement with the employment of thousands of men in relief schemes.
Constant Innovator
Bianconi displayed a constant innovative spirit and in August 1851 he unveiled an ambitious new route, Ballina to Dublin, covering a distance of 233 km within a single day. With the timetabling reliability that Bianconi was famous for, a two horse jaunting car would leave Ballina every morning at 5.45 am (except on Sunday): and travel first to Castlebar, then Westport, Leenane, Letterfrack on to Clifden in time to transfer passengers on to the mail coach from Galway to Dublin. Bianconi boasted that the Mayo traveller could be in Dublin that very same evening for dinner – this was a big boast in 1851.
At the peak of the Bianconi car services the fleet numbered a hundred cars and carriages, covering a distance of 3,800 miles daily. The routes encompassed one hundred and twenty towns, with one hundred and forty stations dedicated to changing horses. To maintain this vast operation, each station employed up to eight grooms, and a total of 300 horses were required daily to pull the cars. These hardworking horses consumed three thousand five hundred tons of hay annually, in addition to thirty-five thousand barrels of oats.
These services continued into the 1850s and later, by which time there were a number of railway services in the country. The Bianconi coaches continued to be well-patronised, by offering connections from various railway termini, one of the first and few examples of an integrated transport system in Ireland.
Speaking at a function in 1857 Bianconi summarised his service: ‘My conveyances, many of them carrying very important mails, have been travelling during all hours of the day and night, often in lonely and unfrequented places; and during the long period of forty-two years that my establishment has been in existence, the slightest injury has never been done by the people to my property, or that entrusted to my care; and this fact gives me greater pleasure than any pride I might feel in reflecting upon the other rewards of my life’s labour.’
Having created an extensive integrated public transport service and opened up the possibilities for mass-transit across Ireland, Charles Bianconi died a millionaire in Clonmel on September 22nd 1875 and is buried in a side chapel to the parish church in the village of Boherlahan Co Tipperary. His birthplace of Tregolo in Costa Magnasta is twinned with Clonmel.
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Information sources:
Bianconi King of the Irish Roads – M.O’C. Bianconi & S.J. Watson 1962,
Bianconi: A Boy with a Dream: The Pioneer of Irish Transport – Thomas Ryan
Charles Bianconi: A Lesson on Self-help in Ireland (1890) – Samuel Smiles
costamasnaga.altervista.org – Dante Corbetta
Kerry Evening Post
National Gallery of Ireland
Our Irish Heritage
The Irish Story
The O’Donohoe Archive
Their Irish History
Thurles Information
Travel and transport in Ireland – KB Nowlan
University of Limerick – Special Collections
