Figure 1.-- While we have fewer German portraits, for example, we have enough to suggest that hobby horses were also popular in Germany. Some Germn portraitsare relatively easy to identify because the children wear uniforms . Some even had swords. While not unknown in other ciuntries, these uniform portraits, especially ones with swords, seem especially common in Germany. This CDV was probably taken during the 1880s in Magdeburg, Germany. The subject is unidentified. Image courtesy of the MD collection.

We believe that hobby horses were popular for children throughout Europe and in the United States and Europe. This would include British Empire countries like Australia and New Zealand. We know this is the case for America and England because we have a wealth of photographic portraits to substantiate it. Our collection of American and British images reflect's HBC's greater acces to American and British images, not because hobby horses were not common in other countries. While we have fewer German portraits, for example, we have enough to suggest that hobby horses were also popular in Germany. We believe that they were common items in nurseries in many other countries, but we do not have actual portraits to substantiate this. We thus do not at this tim know of any specific country trends.

America

We have noted large numbers of 19th century photographic portrait of niys on hobby horses. We believe hobby horses were very popular in American nurseries. The large number of American portraits does not mean that the hobby horse was more poular in America than Europe, it presumably reflects HBC's greater access to American images. W note the Fitzroy-Carrington children playing with a toy horse aboyt 1906.

Australia

The hobby horse appears to have been popular in British Empire countries like Australia. It is virtually impossible to differentiate these British Empire portraits from English ones, except by the studio information on the CDVs and cabinet cards or to a lesser extent how the children are dressed. English rocking horse manufacturer John Roebuck emigranted to Australia through New Zealand laubching the industry in the ciolony.

Belgium

Prince Leopold and Charles are riding a toy elephant--a sort of variation on a hobby horse.

France

England

The hobby horse certainly seems to have been very popular in England. It may well have been more popular in England than any where else, although we can not yet say this definatively. A HBC reader in England has provided us numerous images of English children, mostly boys, on hobby horses. Many of the portraits appear to be taken on a studio prop. What a small boy wanted above all in the 19th century was a hobby horse big enough for him to ride. They continued popular in the early-20th century. The hobby horse was a realtively expensive toy, Thus boys who has them tended to give from families in comfortable circumstances. We see large number of boys photographed on hobby horses. We suspect that it was an important photgraphers trick to get a good portrait of a boy, primarily because boys liked the hobby horses. Most good stufios almost certainly had hobby horses for just such purposes. Thus the hobby horses in the portraits belonged to the studios. It is likely thst many of these boys had hobby horses at home. There were several different types of hobby horses. Rocking horses were originally mainly used as a boy's toys especially when boys were preparing for military life, though some early rocking horses were fitted with an extra removable pommel for side saddle riding by girls. It was considered socially unacceptable for girls to ride astride until the 1920s. Almost all of the portraits we have found showed boys with the hobby horses. We notice English boys wearing a wide variety of clothes riding a great variety of hobby horses. The most common outfit was sailor suits.

Germany

While we have fewer German portraits, we have enough to suggest that hobby horses were also popular in Germany. The German word for hobby/rocking horse is "Schaukelpferd". Some German portraits are relatively easy to identify because the children wear uniforms (figure 1). Some even had swords. While not unknown in other countries, these uniform portraits, especially ones with swords, seem especially common in Germany. This CDV was probably taken during the 1880s in Magdeburg, Germany. We are unsure about the uniform. Note the sun-burst symbol on the cap which is repeated with two stars on the side pouch. Hope a HBC reader will help us identify these symbols. We note two German boy having fun with their hobby horse. A stick horse is "Steckenpferd". A reader tells us that thre is an expresion in both German and Dutch, "That is his stickhorse". It means "That is his favorite thing". It suggests that these stick horses and hobbyhorses as well were exceeding popular with German and Dutch boys.

Italy

(The) Netherlands

We believe that the Netherlands is one of the many European countries in which hobby horses were popular. Apparently stick horses were also popular with Dutch boys. A Dutchbreader has provided us a family snap shot of himself playing with a stick horse in the late 1930s.

New Zealand

The toys New Zealand children played with are very similar to those enjoyed by English children. We see New Zealand children enjoying rocking horses which for many years was the favorite toy of younger boys. As in ERngland, we see few girls on rocking horses although our New Zealand archive is admittedly very limited. We do not know how common rocking horses were in New Zealand. We suspect that the popularity was comparable to England. Of course if they were imported from England they woyld have been expensive, but you would think that a hand crafted itemn like a rocking horse would be a product that could be easily manufatured in New Zealand fom an early point in the colony's development. We notice that they are produced in New Zealand today, but have no idea when this began. We do know that John Roebuck was making rocking horses in England. The family had a long history of mnaking ricking hoerses. Roebuck delivered one of his horses to the Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII) for the very young Duke of York. Roebuck is of interest here because he closed up his shop in England and migerated to New Zealand where he participated in the Maori Wars (1865). He did not stay in New Zealand, however, but moved on to Australia where he began making rocking horses.

Scotland

Available Scottish portraits are quite similar to the English portraits that we have noted. we note no destinctive clothing or differences in the hobby horses. Clearly hobby horses were popular throughout the United Kingdom as well as British Empire countries.

South Africa

Like the portraits in many British Empire countries, portraits taken in south africa look very English. without the studio advertizing on the card, we would have identified it as English.

Created: July 1, 2003
Last updated: 12:06 AM 6/4/2011