Billings 1

Jonah Billings

Ms. Lukins

Language Arts Period 3-4

30 January 2018

Taxis Of Long Ago 

Chances are, you see the impacts of this invention every single day. You may 

even own something evolved from this little known yet important product of ancient 

China, and it is most likely part of your everyday life. The invention I am speaking of is 

called the sedan chair, which was a chair or booth connected to two carrying poles. It 

was a revolutionary transportation device so convenient in the old days that even 

founding father Benjamin Franklin used one in the late 1700’s.  

The exact origins of the sedan chair are not known for certain, but we do know 

that it was invented in China around 400 A.D. The original purpose was to create a 

solution for congested foot traffic in major cities, which was one of the first ideas of a 

taxi-like vehicle in cities. These sedan chairs were called minjiaos, meaning ​civil sedan​. 

The civil sedans were made of wood or bamboo and were drab and undecorated, but it 

wasn’t long before the wealthy people of the cities decided they wanted private sedan 

chairs for themselves. Soon, the guanjiao was born. Guanjiao meant ​official sedan​, and 

the wealthy citizens made sure it lived up to its name. Guanjiaos were decorated in 

colorful silk curtains, making sure people knew that whoever riding inside was a very 

important person. This is a trait that would carry over into the third use for the sedan 

chair in China hundreds of years later. The bridal sedan chair was introduced in the 
 Billings 2

1700’s by Emperor Quinlong of the Quing dynasty. Being an emperor, he had his own 

guanjiao. “During a tour through the countryside, the Emperor and his party met with a 

bride and her wedding party proceeding to the ceremony. A donkey carried the bride. 

The emperor offered his sedan chair to the bride if she could recite a poem to him on 

the spot. The bride promptly thought of a poem and the emperor was so impressed he 

immediately handed over the sedan chair” (​History Magazine​). Bridal sedan chairs were 

called jianyu, meaning s​ houlder carriage​, and were decorated in red, a traditional Chinese 

wedding color. As you can see, the Chinese had basically invented the idea of 

transportation in cities. It wasn’t long before someone else noticed. 

While the civil and official sedan chairs were very popular in Asia, they had not 

spread to Europe or Africa. In the year 1634, an Englishman named Sir Saunders 

Duncombe decided it was time to change that. A man known to travel, Duncombe most 

likely saw the sedan chair while in China (There are also claims that he found it in 

France, but these have been proven wrong). No sooner had he gotten back to England 

that he took out a 14 year license and began using the sedan chairs as taxis the way the 

Chinese had done. The idea immediately caught on for a few reasons. For one, they were 

much cheaper than the horse drawn cabs that were popular in London. They were also 

popular with the rich because the streets of London were crowded, dirty, disease 

infested, and in bad shape. Traveling in your own private capsule was very appealing. 

“After the fire of London, in 1666, the streets were impassable and so people of quality 

went on their business or pleasure in sedan chairs” (​English History Authors​). Sedan 

chairs could also accommodate the wealthy’s long capes and white wigs that were in 
 Billings 3

style. Soon, word of this convenient new mode of transportation had spread. “In Europe, 

the sedan chair was popular in the 1600s and 1700s, and its use spread from Italy to 

France, England and Scotland” (​History Magazine​). They even spread to the American 

colonies, where founding fathers like Ben Franklin used them! These days were the peak 

of sedan chair convenience. Sadly, after every peak there is a decent. The sedan chair 

had revolutionized transportation in Europe, but by the 1800’s their use was in sharp 

decline. Newer, better versions of the sedan chair that could be rolled on wheels instead 

of carried along were becoming the new favorite in Europe and America. Even the 

Chinese were beginning to move on. After over 1,500 years, the sedan chair was dying 

out. 

Today, as you will be relieved to hear, the sedan chair has not completely 

disappeared, though it is not used very heavily. The jianyu is still used in some 

weddings, and they are still used for important ceremonies in some places. There are 

also sedan chairs for rent as tourist attractions in a few towns in Asia. “...the rich and 

lazy apparently still enjoy being carried on the shoulders of their fellow countrymen. 

But these days the rigs they ride in are a little more rustic. One of the prime occupations 

of locals in Wulingyuan is carrying visitors up mountains on crude sedan chairs” 

(​Vagabond Journey​). There are even annual sedan chair races held around the world, 

most prominently run by the Sedan Chair Charity Fund (Yes, that’s a thing). The biggest 

impacts of the sedan chair, however, are a bit more subtle. It was the first means of 

public transportation, which connects it directly to taxis, buses, trains, trolleys, you 

name it. It this also connects it to services like Uber and Lyft. The sedan car was named 
 Billings 4

for it. You may not think the sedan chair, in all its dusty, primitive glory, had a big 

impact on our world, but it did. I would even venture to say it is one of the most 

important inventions in the history of transportation, only falling second only to the car, 

the train, and the plane. 

All in all, the sedan chair was one of the most impactful things ever to come out 

of China. Why? Because it revolutionized the world of transportation, and we are still 

seeing its effects today. That puts it right up there with compass and gunpowder, two 

other big inventions from China, and those things both have had big negative impacts. 

Gunpowder had taken millions, maybe billions of lives. The compass has, and let’s be 

honest here, gotten many people even more lost than they were before. The sedan 

chair’s only negative impact? Been the bad spot on the lives of some unpaid workers. 

Even then, in some cases hauling the sedan chair is much better than what they would 

have been doing otherwise! So, as we can now conclude, something that started as an 

easy way to get around for lazy people turned into something we all use every day. I 

hope, after reading this essay, you will look at a taxi or an Uber and think of its roots, 

how it started many years ago as a chair and two sticks.