Nothing historical about this post (though maybe we could make it so - does anyone know when wheelchairs were first used?) but my five-year-old grandson has apparently asked if he can have a wheelchair for his birthday! His mother added that Louis (my son) had forgotten the key element that Jay had sustained a tiny cut. Unfortunately my wheelchair broke and I've had to have a replacement while they get a new one or fix the old one. I think it might be unfixable. 

In the later years of their lives, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (because of his gout), Henry VIII of England (due to his leg ulcer) and the Parliamentarian commander-in-chief Sir Thomas Fairfax (as a result of the many injuries he had received during the Civil War) all used wheeled chairs to get around. However I'd have thought the simple and cheap idea of attaching wheels to a chair was a fairly common solution for mobility problems, so doubtless wheelchairs in some form or other have been around for many centuries. Nevertheless, then as now, their usefulness must have been greatly reliant on the contemporary environment: unpaved, rubbish-strewn streets, muddy rutted roads and stairs everywhere (as was often the norm in European towns before the 20th century) cannot have been easy to negociate. When he retired to the monastery of Yuste Charles V had to get ramps built so that his servants could wheel him up and down the numerous flights of steps throughout the building and thereafter he rarely ventured outside of the monastery's paved confines.

According to this 17th century Chinese print even Confucious used a wheelchair, although, similar to being carried in a litter or sedan chair, that might just denote respect rather than infirmity.

The picture of Confucious show - and Mm mentions Charles V, Henry VIII and Fairfax - indicate to me that their general use would be relatively modern, as they otherwise would be dependent on a number of servants. 
We, including myself as a wheelchair user, without sufficient means or being poor would either remain at home - perhaps hidden as being embarrasments to the family - or have to beg in order not to starve to death.

Sorry but, 'Confucious he say, man running after car get exhausted' and 'man running in front of car get tired.'

I can use my wheelchair in my house since my husband specially designed it with my needs in mind. But when we go out he has to push me in it. I am very dependent on him or my sons to get me in and out the car and then to find a disabled park (contrary to popular opinion, they are never taken by people without the necessary sticker). 
I remember my great-aunt being basically confined to her home, but by the time I had my stroke there were concessions made to people needing help to get around.

Nielsen wrote:

The picture of Confucious show - and Mm mentions Charles V, Henry VIII and Fairfax - indicate to me that their general use would be relatively modern, as they otherwise would be dependent on a number of servants.

Yes, wheelchairs were generally for the rich and privileged. In this picture, wounded Crimean War veteran Sir Thomas Troubridge receives a commendation from Britain's Queen Victoria on Horse Guards Parade in London.



Troubridge had lost both feet and his right leg to a cannon ball at the Battle of Inkerman in 1854. He is being drawn in a Bath chair pulled by a corporal of his own regiment the Royal Fusiliers.

The 39-year-old Troubridge was well known to Victoria as his father Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Troubridge had been naval aide-de-camp to both her and her uncle King William IV. Sir Edward had also been MP for Sandwich while Thomas himself was the 3rd Baronet. Troubridge’s plight is said to have spurred Victoria into commissioning the building of the giant 1000-bed Royal Victoria Military Hospital on Spike Island at Netley near Southampton. Its controversial design, however, was said to be impractical and indeed wasteful. Prime minister Lord Palmerston and Florence Nightingale were both critics. Neither was there much evidence of advances in terms of wheelchair technology for patients at that time. It wouldn’t be until the following decade with the American Civil War that recognisable user-propelled wheelchairs would begin to be designed for wounded veterans. These advances would then be passed on to the civilian population in the ensuing decades both in America and elsewhere.

Thomas Fairfax's wheelchair, mentioned above, is probably one of the earliest recorded self-propelled wheelchairs -  as opposed to things like bath chairs that were pushed or pulled by someone else - and is on display at the National Civil War Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire. Fairfax's self-propelled chair was moved by means of cranks, rather than by turning a large drive-wheel as modern wheelchairs are, and whilst combining manoeuvrability with simple propulsion, the ratios of wheel circumferences suggest to me that the incapacitated Fairfax must have had quite a lot forearm and general upper-body strength.



Regarding the engraving of Thomas Troubridge receiving his commendation from Queen Victoria ... that's an interesting variety of military headgear on display there; from bicorns, busbies and bearskins, to shakos and the then newly introduced 'Prince Albert dragoon helmet' with its very Germanic spike on top. I also see a young lad in full Scottish regalia who I take to be the young Prince of Wales, Edward, destined eventually to become king Edward VII. Due to his injuries Troubridge was understandably unable to return to front-line service, but he remained active in the army in superintending parts of the supply and logistics forces, during which time he designed and introduced a new type of more practical backpack that remained in service for many years. Given his evident vigour I'm rather surprised he was content to be passively towed around on what was basically a wheeled bed and didn't, like Thomas Fairfax 200 years previously, design a chair to propel hismself around. Perhaps he did.