On 10th September 1897, a London taxi driver became the first person in Britain — and quite possibly the world — to be convicted of drink-driving.

At the time, there were no breathalysers, no legal blood-alcohol limit and the vehicle involved in the historic incident wasn’t even petrol-powered. It was an early type of electric taxi.

The driver was 25-year-old George Smith, who was driving one of the new Bersey electric cabs. According to news reports at the time, he was driving along New Bond Street around midnight when his cab began swerving across the road, mounted the pavement, and crashed into 165 New Bond Street.

He was arrested by Police Constable Russell and taken to nearby Vine Street Police Station, where a police surgeon certified that he was drunk.

The following day, he appeared at Marlborough Street Police Court, where he admitted that he had consumed “two or three glasses of beer”. Unsurprisingly, Smith pleaded guilty to being drunk while in charge of his cab and was fined 20 shillings, which would have been the equivalent of about a week’s wages at the time.

The magistrate warned Smith that drivers of the new machines needed to be particularly careful. Police, he observed, had developed ways of stopping a runaway horse, but stopping a runaway motor car was another matter entirely.

A law written before the motor car

Although Smith’s case was a motoring first, Britain already had legislation dealing with drunken people in charge of carriages.

Section 12 of the Licensing Act 1872 made it an offence to be drunk while in charge of a “carriage, horse, cattle, or steam engine” on a highway or in another public place. The maximum penalty was 40 shillings, or up to a month in prison.

When horseless carriages appeared a couple of decades later, the existing legislation for horsey carriages was used to deal with them as well. But with motoring becoming more popular the previous year, the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896 swept away some of the most restrictive rules introduced for motor cars.

And the speed limit was raised to an eye-watering 14mph, but even so, it would not be until 1904 that driving licences and vehicle registration numbers were introduced.

Smith was therefore convicted of drink-driving several years before Britain even required him to have a driving licence.

The electric taxi

Another curious aspect of the story involves one of London’s earliest electric taxis.

The Bersey electric cab had entered service just a few weeks earlier. Designed by electrical engineer Walter Bersey, the battery-powered vehicles quickly earned the nickname “Hummingbirds” because of the unusual sound of the electric motors. With a top speed of 9mph, they could travel roughly 30 miles between battery changes. The batteries weren’t recharged in the cab, but swapped at the depot for charged ones, speeding up how quickly they could get back on the road.

The Hummingbirds themselves weren’t around for long. Their heavy batteries contributed to tyre wear and mechanical problems, while operating and maintaining the vehicles proved expensive. Just a couple of years after being introduced, the company closed down.

From police judgement to breathalysers

At the time, there wasn’t an official test available to determine how much alcohol a motorist had consumed. Police instead relied on how someone behaved, spoke and walked, together with later medical examination and witness evidence.

Early devices for measuring alcohol in a driver’s breath were developed in the first half of the 20th century, leading to much more practical breath-testing equipment in the 1950s. It wasn’t until the Road Safety Act 1967 that the first blood-alcohol limit for motorists was introduced, and police were allowed to use roadside breath tests.

In the meantime, the corner of New Bond Street and Grafton Street should have a blue plaque marking the ignoble spot where the first drink-driving conviction took place.