On that occasion, Edward had not been required to venture beyond West Sussex. In every other respect, he was a monarch on the move. During his reign, the number of motorised vehicles in Great Britain quadrupled, from 23,000 in 1904 to 100,000 in 1910. Every day, fewer and fewer carriages were to be seen on the streets, and those that remained appeared increasingly anachronistic. The demise of the hansom cab, one of the most potent symbols of Victorian London, elicited a pang in the hearts of traditionalists.
