The carts that succeeded the early British and Roman war chariots, and
enabled the villeins and cottars to do the obligatory "cartage" for the
lord of the manor, were heavy, lumbering vehicles, with wheels hewn out of
solid pieces of wood, and were used for private transport rather than
transport for hire. The latter came in with the "wains" or "long waggons"
of England's pioneer road carriers. These long waggons, according to Stow,
were brought into use about the year 1564, up to which time--save for the
horse litters and the agricultural carts--the saddle-horse and the
packhorse had been the only means of travelling and conveying goods. The
long waggon developed into a roomy covered vehicle, capable of
accommodating about 20 passengers in addition to merchandise; it had broad
wheels adapted to the roads; and it was drawn, at a walking pace, by six,
eight, or more horses which (except on such long journeys as that from
London to Wigan) accompanied it for the entire journey. As the forerunner
of the stage-coach it was, at first, generally used not only for the
heavier classes of goods (lighter qualities, and especially so when greater
speed was required, still going by packhorse), but, also, by such
travellers as either could not, or preferred not to, travel on horseback.
The waggons made regular journeys between London, Canterbury, Norwich,
Ipswich, Gloucester, and other towns. It was in the long waggon that many a
traveller in the seventeenth century made the journey between London and
Dover, either going to or returning from the Continent[6]; and, though,
because of this Continental traffic, the Dover road was probably kept in as
good a condition as any in the country, the long {36}waggon went at so slow
a pace that in 1640 the journey to Dover often took either three or four
days.
To Bristol, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, long waggons were
despatched three times a week, as follows:--
LEFT LONDON. ARRIVED AT BRISTOL.
Wednesday Tuesday
Saturday Friday
Friday Thursday
It should, however, be remembered that both the long waggon and the
stage-coach which succeeded it travelled only by day, remaining for the
night at some wayside inn where, in coaching language, it "slept."
When Charles Leigh wrote "The Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire and
the Peak of Derbyshire," published in 1700, the London waggons went as far
north as Wigan and Standish, where they took in cargoes of coals for sale
on the return journey. North of Wigan nearly all the trade was carried on
by strings of packhorses or by carts. Kendal was the principal packhorse
station on this line of road, sending large trains of packhorses as far
south as Wigan, and over the hills, northward, to Carlisle and the borders
of Scotland.
In 1753, according to "Williamson's Liverpool Memorandum Book" for that
year, the Lancashire and Cheshire stage waggons left London every Monday
and Thursday, and were ten days on the journey in summer and eleven in the
winter. At that time no waggon or coach from the south could get nearer to
Liverpool than Warrington, owing to the state of the roads. The general
mode of travelling was on horseback. Four owners of post-horses in London
advertised in 1753 that they started from the "Swan-with-Two-Necks," Lad
Lane, every Friday morning with a "gang of horses" for passengers and light
goods, and arrived in Liverpool on the following Monday evening, this being
considered very good time.
The conditions of transport between London and Edinburgh in 1776, when Adam
Smith published his "Wealth of Nations," may be judged from the following
references thereto which he makes in a comparison between the cost of land
transport and the cost of sea transport:--
"A broad-wheeled waggon, attended by two men, and {37}drawn by eight
horses, in about six weeks' time carries and brings back between London and
Edinburgh near four ton weight of goods. In about the same time a ship
navigated by six or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London and
Leith, frequently carries and brings back two hundred ton weight of goods.
Six or eight men, therefore, by the help of water carriage, can carry and
bring back in the same time the same quantity of goods between London and
Edinburgh as fifty broad-wheeled waggons, attended by a hundred men, and
drawn by four hundred horses."
The long waggon, supplementing alike the packhorse and the coach, which
carried the lighter and more urgent commodities, continued, right down to
the railway age, the means by which the great bulk of the general
merchandise of the country was transported where carriage by water was not
available. It remained, also, in favour with the poorer classes of
travellers until late in the eighteenth century, when the stage coaches
reduced their fares to such proportions that there was no longer any saving
in going by the slower conveyance.
Private carriages, as an alternative alike to the horse litter and to
riding on horseback, seem to have been introduced into this country, from
the Continent, about the middle of the sixteenth century. In his "History
of the Origin and Progress of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen of the
River Thames" Henry Humpherus says that at her coronation, in 1553, Queen
Mary rode in a chariot drawn by six horses, followed by another in which
were "Lady Elizabeth, her sister, and Lady Ann of Cleves." He further
states that in 1565 a Dutchman, Guylliam Boonen, presented to Queen
Elizabeth a "coach" which was considered a great improvement on the
"chariot or waggon" used at the coronation of Queen Mary. But the pioneer
carriages of this date were little better than gorgeously decorated
springless carts, to be ridden in along the worst of roads, and so
uncomfortable that in an audience she had with the French Ambassador in
1568, Queen Elizabeth told him of "the aching pains" she was suffering in
consequence of having been "knocked about" a few days before in a coach
which had been driven too fast along the streets. All the same, these
private "coaches" must have come into more general use by the end of the
{38}sixteenth century, since we find Stow saying in his "Survey of London"
(1598):--
"Of old times coaches were not known in this island.... But now of late
years the use of coaches, brought out of Germany, is taken up and made so
common that there is neither distinction of time nor difference of people
observed; for the world runs on wheels with many whose parents were glad to
go on foot."
Fynes Moryson, Gent., in the "Itinerary" he published (1617) in the reign
of James I., recording various journeys he had made, also alludes to this
greater use of private "coaches," and he gives some interesting details as
to the general conditions of travel at that period. He says:--
"Sixtie or seventy yeeres agoe, Coaches were very rare in England, but at
this day pride is so far increased, as there be few Gentlemen of any
account (I mean elder Brothers) who have not their Coaches, so as the
streetes of London are almost stopped up with them.... For the most part
Englishmen, especially in long journies, used to ride upon their owne
horses. But if any will hire a horse, at London they used to pay two
shillings the first day, and twelve, or perhaps eighteene pence a day, for
as many dayes as they keepe him, till the horse be brought back home to the
owner, and the passenger must either bring him backe, or pay for the
sending of him, and find him meate both going and comming. In other parts
of England a man may hire a horse for twelve pence the day.... Likewise
Carriers let horses from Citie to Citie.... Lastly, these Carryers have
long covered Waggons, in which they carry passengers from City to City: but
this kind of journeying is so tedious, by reason they must take waggon very
earely, and come very late to their Innes, as none but women and people of
inferiour condition, or strangers (as Flemmings with their wives and
servants) use to travell in this sort."
These long covered waggons began to be supplemented, in 1640 or
thereabouts, by stage coaches, the advent of which is thus recorded by a
contemporary writer, Dr Chamberlayne:--
"There is of late such an admirable commodiousness, both for men and women,
to travel from London to the principal towns of the country that the like
hath not been known in the world, and that is by stage coaches, wherein any
one may be transported to any place sheltered from foul weather and foul
{39}ways, free from endamaging one's health and one's body by hard jogging
or over-violent motion on horse back, and this not only at the low price of
about a shilling for every five miles but with such velocity and speed in
one hour as the foreign post can but make in one day."
The "admirable commodiousness" which thus beat the world's record of that
date was a vehicle without either springs or windows, which carried four,
six or eight passengers inside. Over the axle there was a great basket for
luggage and a few outside passengers, who made themselves as comfortable as
they could among the bags and boxes, a few handfuls of straw being, in
their case, the only concession to luxury. The earliest coaches carried
neither passengers nor luggage on the roof, this arrangement coming into
vogue later. In order that people should not be deterred from travelling in
these conveyances by fear of highwaymen, it was announced, in the case of
some of them, that the guards were armed and that the coaches themselves
were "bullet proof."
As against the eulogy of Dr Chamberlayne it might be mentioned that the
introduction of stage-coaches was regarded with great disfavour by another
writer, John Cressett, who published, in 1672, a pamphlet entitled "The
Grand Concern of England Explained in Several Proposals to Parliament"
(reprinted in Harleian Miscellany, vol. viii.). Cressett evidently belonged
to those adherents to "good old times" conditions who are opposed to all
innovations; but his pamphlet affords much information as to the general
conditions of travel at the time he wrote.
Cressett asked, among other things, "that a stop be put to further
buildings in and about London"; "that brandy, coffee, mum, tea and
chocolate may be prohibited"; and "that the multitude of Stage-coaches and
caravans may be suppressed." It is with the last-mentioned demand, only,
that we have here any "grand concern." In amplifying it he recommends "That
the Multitude of Stage-coaches and Caravans now travelling upon the Roads
may all, or most of them, be suppressed, especially those within forty,
fifty, or sixty Miles of London, where they are no Way necessary."