Green’s Dictionary of Slang

growler n.²

a four-wheeled cab; thus its driver; also attrib.

1863		Bucks Herald 24 Oct. 4/6: He calls a Hansom a ‘shofle,’ and his own vehicle is known as a ‘growler’.
1873		Sl. Dict. 183: Growler a four-wheeled cab. It is generally supposed that drivers of these vehicles take a less favourable view of life than do their Hansom brethren.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) May 150: A great deal more might be said in disparagement of the ‘growler,’ which is only the old hackney-coach writ small.
1890		Sporting Times 1 Feb. 3/2: I resolved to cross Africa in a GROWLER!
1893		Harper’s Mag. 87 July 307/2: In London, for example, the four-wheel cab is called a growler; — why?
1894		Lancs. Eve. Post 17 May 2/6: The driver of a four-wheeler is a ‘growler’.
1900		Punch 31 Jan. 81/2: I want to leave the van and go / Home comfortably in a growler.
1903		Illus. Sporting & Dramatic News 21 Nov. 10/3: The steed which has become to slow for a ‘sho’ful,’ as the hansom is termed [...] has to come down to ‘growler’ work.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 20 Apr. 3/6: A Charing Cross busman, having bumped his horses into the back of a ‘growler,’ [...] shouted out to tbe driver [etc].
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 273: You might make nearly half as much at it [...] as you would if you went in for being a clerk or driving one o’ them there has-been growlers.
1912		Truth (Sydney) 29 Dec. 9/3: I could never drive a Growler / (Which goes on 4 wheels, you see).
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 28: A motor-car [...] going quite fast through the hansom cabs and growlers and bicycles.

In compounds

growler-shover (n.)

a cab driver.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

In phrases

work the growler (v.)

to hire a cab to accompany one on a ‘pub-crawl’.

1894		Dundee Courier 2 Jan. 5/6: ‘What ails that man?’ [...] ‘Worked the growler,’ was the explanation.
1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 508: [...] late C.19–20.