05 January 2009
Replica rocking horse on show at the V&A's museum of Childhood

Anthony Dew has made a replica of what may have been the first rocking horse ever made.

Vist the V & A's museum of Childhood and see a replia made by Tony Dew of what is thought to have been the first rocking horse ever made.

On show with the original until end of Feb.

Read more about the original:-

Re-making History
By Anthony Dew

I believe making rocking horses are still the finest of childhood playthings and, as I have designed and made them for over 30 years, I have a long standing interest in their history.
The hey day of rocking horse making was the early part of the 20th century and the last couple of decades of the 19th, but the craft goes way back to the early 16th. Somebody must have made the very first one. How and why? Recently I have been able to piece together what I think are convincing answers to those questions. The story is as follows: Price Charles was a sickly child who suffered from a form of rickets (I mean the Prince Charles born in 16th, not our present strong and illustrious Prince of Wales, obviously). At four years old he was unable to walk or even talk properly. His older brother – Henry, heir to the throne, was a strong, healthy boy and an excellent horseman, a vital manly accomplishment in those days. (and still is, for the wealthy). Charles envied Henry enormously but small, weak and retiring as he was, what chance did he have? Charles was put into the care of Sir Robert and Lady Alletta Carey. King James had suggested putting his youngest son into iron boots to stiffen his wobbly ankles, but Lady Carey’s kinder solution was to have Spanish leather riding boots made for him and it may well have been her idea to have a wooden toy horse made, for Charles to ride.

King James often used Theobald’s Palace as a hunting lodge, and the horses maker was probably an estate carpenter there, the details of the design either his own, instigated by Lady Carey or suggested by someone else. Toy horses had been made for hundreds, even thousands of years. They were often mounted on platforms with wheels but were usually small. Even if they were big enough to be ridden they needed an assistant to push or pull them along. Hobby horses in which the rider’s own legs provide the movement, had also been known from early times and so had rocking cradles for babies. But the idea of making a wooden horse large enough for a child to ride and mounting it on rockers so even the smallest rider could make it move, that was new. It was the world’s first proper rocking horse. Charles could ride the wooden rocking horse. Not just pretend, that he could really ride it. It was completely under his control, like a real horse, and he could make it trot or gallop without needing anyone to help him. Riding the rocking horse taught Charles balance, exercised his legs and strengthened his ankles. It taught him to ride and to, if he fell off, he would have to get back on and learn to ride properly, which he did. When Henry unexpectedly died, twelve year old Charles became heir to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. I like to think it was the rocking horse which helped young Charles become the excellent horseman he did and to gain in ability and confidence so that he could eventually assume his destined role as king.

At some point ‘King Charles 1’ rocking horse was moved from Theobald’s, perhaps to Sudeley Castle (were Charles had his headquarters) and at some later date to nearby Cheshunt great house. From there, in 1906, it was sold at auction for £5.10s to a private buyer. In 1986 the horse was put up for auction at Sotherby’s , London, with a guide price of £6-8,000, but the highest bid was only £2,200. It was withdrawn and returned to its owner, were it remained in storage and virtually forgotten until, researching the history of rocking horses a couple of years ago, I rediscovered its whereabouts. In 2006 the horse was purchased by London’s Victoria & Albert museum, for £25,000, and is now on public view in a glass case in the V & A’s toy branch at museum of childhood in Bethnal Green. Well worth a visit. In March 2007 I spent a day at the museum sketching, photographing and measuring the old horse with a view to build a replica. The original King Charles 1 horse has various bits missing – half its face, half the front legs, the cantle and pommel (boards at the back and front of the saddle) and there are no foot rests. The idea of the reproduction is to make the horse using similar materials – pine and English elm, animal glue and wrought iron nails – to those used in the original, but with our best guess to how it would have looked when first made, I,e. with the missing bits restored . At least two will be made – one for the V & A’s museum of childhood, and one for display in my collection of old rocking horses in Fangfoss, East Yorkshire. At the time of writing we are still considering ways of answering the may questions that this project throws up, but we have been able to test ride the first of these reproductions.

Unlike the original, which is very battered and worm-eaten, extremely fragile, and so valuable that no child will ever ride it again, the reproduction is robust enough to be ridden. Of course there are health and safety considerations. Like many other rocking horses of this type this one has a fast and dynamic rocking action. But unlike almost all other horses mounted on curved rockers, this one has no ‘safety stops’ at the ends of the rockers, so there is nothing to prevent it from tipping right over when rocked too vigorously. This probably accounts for the horse’s broken legs and nose. Interestingly, although several fine portraits exist of the adult King Charles 1, he does not appear to have suffered a broken nose himself. This is probably because he was a rather timid boy and would only dare to rock the horse gently, at least at first. Plus there would probably always be a palace flunky standing close by to catch him if it looked as if he might overturn his rocking horse.

With our version children, given adequate supervision, can experience the thrill of riding a horse identical to the first rocking horse, made over 400 years ago. They may also understand something of how it felt to be a weak and shy young prince who needed to overcome his childhood weakness in order to fulfil his destiny and become the King of England.

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