Joseph Hansom

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Joseph Aloysius Hansom (October 26, 1803 - June 29, 1882) was an English architect who invented the Hansom cab.

Hansom was born at 114 Micklegate, York (now the Brigantes pub) and baptised as Josephus Aloysius Handsom(e), in a Roman Catholic family. He became apprenticed as a joiner following his father. He married Hannah Glover in 1825 at St. Michael le Belfrey in York. His brothers were architects Charles Francis Hansom and Edward J. Hansom, who did much of the initial buildings at Clifton College in Bristol.

Showing an aptitude for designing and construction, he was taken from his father's joinery shop and apprenticed to an architect in York, and by 1831 his designs in partnership with Edward Welch, for the Birmingham Town Hall were accepted and followed - to his financial undoing, as he had become bond for the builders. He designed around 200 buildings, including St George's Catholic Church in York, Mount St Mary's College near Sheffield, St Walburge's Church in Preston and, in 1871, the church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Manchester.

Afterwards he moved to manage an estate at Caldecote Hall. On December 23, 1834 he registered the design of a Patent Safety Cab, on the suggestion of his employer, and subsequently sold the patent to a company for £10,000, which, however, owing to the company's financial difficulties, was never paid. The first Hansom Cab travelled down Hinckley's Coventry Road in 1835. The cab was exported worldwide.