[1] Born Carlo Bianconi in Costa Masnaga, Italy on 24 September 1786,[5]: p1  he moved from an area poised to fall to Napoleon and travelled to Ireland in 1802, via England, just four years after the 1798 rebellion.

After the collapse of Anderson's mail coach and banking empire in 1815, Bianconi established regular horse-drawn carriage services on various routes from about 1815 onwards.

Secondly, the general peace that followed the battle of Waterloo, and by which a great number of first-class horses, bred for the army, were thrown on the market with very little competition existing for their purchase.

The family outside jaunting-car, thus expelled from general use by a carriage-tax, suggested itself to me as being admirably adapted for my purpose; and I was enabled to procure these vehicles on very moderate terms.

Mary Anne published a biography of her father in 1878 which featured contributions by the artist Michael Angelo Haynes and the writer Anthony Trollope, who both knew him.