Queen Victoria and baby stroller’s fashion

On June, 18th, 1889, 121 years ago the American William Richardson has patented the first baby stroller.

But the real fashion on strollers has arisen only in 1840 when English queen Victoria, a mum of the nine children, has wanted to walk with the kids across Royal Park. Soon the fashion on strollers has extended in all aristocratic circles of Europe.

In the first strollers three or four wheels were attached to a basket or to a box, also there was attached the special handle that allows to carry a stroller behind a parent. Sometimes pony, goats or dogs were harnessed to strollers to roll children.

There were high strollers on thin wheels that allow their easy rolling on bad road, and low strollers on small wheels which better rolled on an equal surface. Strollers were made to order, and according to the form they were similar to transport for adults – carriages and stagecoaches.

On June, 18th, 1889 William Richardson has come to Baltimore patent bureau with the idea which has made the next revolution in the stroller’s history. He has invented a reversible model in which the child could sit as faced to a man who was carrying a stroller, as back to him. Besides, William has included an axis to the model that has improved stroller’s maneuverability.

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Up to that time axis and wheels were whole-foundry that didn’t allow them to turn separately. Wheels in Richardson’s stroller could rotate on 360 degrees absolutely independently from each other.

Since then the baby stroller has passed the whole evolution, having turned from a bulky construction, against which pediatricians of that time came out, to convenient means of transportation.