Wheeled Chairs and Bath Chairs in the 18th Century

Last updated: Jan 7, 2024

Images of 18th century wheelchairs – including Bath chairs and other wheeled chairs.

(Children’s carts – which may have been functionally similar to 18th century wheelchairs or strollers – are on the toys linkspage.)

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)
• “‘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, Cabinet maker, from London, on the main ſtreet near the Capitol in Williamſburg, makes all ſorts of cabinet work, either plain or ornamental, in the neateſt and neweſt faſhions. He hopes to give ſatisfaction to all Gentlemen who ſhall pleaſe to favour him with their commands.
  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
• Lieut. Bowling pleading the cause of young Rory to his Grandfather by Thomas Rowlandson, 1792
• 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