there was little change for the better in the stage coaches, which
differed slightly from the “machine” of a century earlier; the driver’s
seat was safer and less uncomfortable, and that was the only noteworthy
alteration. An advertisement of 1750 announces “accommodation behind
the coach for baggage and passengers; fares 21s., and servants 10s.
6d., riding either in the basket behind or on the box beside the
driver.”
Endeavour to expedite the service between the great towns of the
kingdom is shown in an advertisement of the “Flying Coach,” which was
put on the London and Manchester road in 1754. This informs possible
patrons that “incredible as it may appear, this coach will actually
arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester.” The
distance between the two cities is about 187 miles, making the rate of
speed a little over 44 miles per day.
The stage coach of 1755 is thus described by Mr. Thrupp.
“They were covered with dull black leather, studded by way of ornament
with broad-headed nails, with oval windows in the quarters, the frames
painted red. On the panels were displayed in large characters the
names of the places where the coach started and whither it went. The
roof rose in a high curve with an iron rail around it. The coachman
and guard sat in front upon a high narrow boot, often garnished with
a spreading hammer-cloth with a deep fringe. Behind was an immense
basket supported by iron bars in which passengers were carried at lower
fares. The whole coach was usually drawn by three horses, on the first
of which a postillion rode, in a cocked hat and a long green-and-gold
coat. The machine groaned and creaked as it went along with every tug
the horses gave it, and the speed was frequently but four miles an
hour.”
Three horses may have done the work in summer, but there is no reason
to suppose that the roads of 1755 were any better than they had been
sixteen years earlier, when Thomas Pennant thus described a journey in
March from Chester to London. The stage, he says:—
“was then no despicable vehicle for country gentlemen. The first day,
with much labour, we got from Chester to Whitchurch, twenty miles;
the second day to the Welsh Harp; the third to Coventry; the fourth
to Northampton; the fifth to Dunstable; and as a wondrous effort on
the last, to London, before the commencement of night. The strain
and labour of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the
sloughs of Mireden and many other places.”
[Illustration: TRAVELLING POSTING CARRIAGE, 1750.]
THE APPLICATION OF SPRINGS.
In the year 1768 Dr. R. Lovell Edgeworth, who had devoted much
attention to the subject, and had made numerous experiments,[19]
succeeded in demonstrating that springs were as advantageous to the
horses of, as to the passengers in a coach; and he constructed a
carriage for which the Society of English Arts and Manufactures awarded
him three gold medals. In this conveyance the axletrees were divided
and the motion of each wheel was relieved by a spring. Just one dozen
patents for springs were granted during the eighteenth century, and it
is impossible to say which invention had most influence on methods of
building coaches. In 1772 a patent was granted to James Butler for a
new coach-wheel the spokes of which were constructed of springs; but
this curious contrivance is mentioned nowhere—so far as the writer’s
investigations have shown—but in the Patent Office files, whence we may
conclude it was a failure.
[19] _An Essay on the Construction of Roads and Carriages._ London,
1817.
[Illustration: TRAVELLING POSTING CARRIAGE, 1750.]
The adoption of springs was certainly gradual. It is probably right
to assume that wealthy men led the way by having coaches built on
springs or altering their vehicles. It is impossible to draw a hard and
fast line between the period of the coach without and the coach with
springs. The illustrations show that travelling carriages on springs
and braces were built in 1750. These drawings prove that, clumsy though
the public conveyances were, private carriages were both tolerably
light and comfortable. The “whip springs” to which the braces are
attached were in general use ten years later.
A curious error arose from the application of springs to public
conveyances, according to Dr. Lovell Edgeworth. Their introduction, it
must be premised, led to the accommodation of passengers and loading of
baggage on top of the stage coach, and coachmen, finding the vehicle
drew more easily, attributed the fact, not to the springs, but to the
increased height and reduced length of the load.[20]
[20] Abolition of the basket on the hind axle would have materially
reduced the length of the load.
In the belief that a high and short load possessed some mysterious
property which made it easier to draw than a low long one, builders
vied with each other in building lofty vehicles. “Hence in all
probability,” says the authority we are quoting, “arose the
preposterous elevation of public carriages.”
OUTSIDE PASSENGERS.
Dr. Lovell Edgeworth gives us to understand that the practice of
carrying passengers on the roof of the coach followed the application
of springs to stage coaches; and in view of the belief noticed above
this seems exceedingly probable. The practice had clearly been in vogue
for some years when the _Annual Register_ published the following
paragraph:—
“_September 7 (1770)._—It were greatly to be wished the stage coaches
were put under some regulations as to the numbers of persons and
quantity of baggage. Thirty-four persons were in and about the Hertford
coach this day when it broke down by one of the braces giving way.”
In 1775, we learn from the same publication, stage coaches generally
carried eight persons inside and often ten outside passengers. On
another page appears the statement that “there are now of these
vehicles [stage coaches], flies, machines and diligences upwards of
400, and of other wheeled carriages 17,000.”
In 1785 was passed George III.’s Act, which forbade the conveyance of
more than six persons on the roof of any coach and more than two on the
box. This Act was superseded in 1790 by another which permitted only
one person to travel on the box and only four on the roof of any coach
drawn by three or more horses. A coach drawn by less than three horses
might carry one passenger on the box and three on the roof, but such
vehicles might not ply more than twenty-five miles from the London Post
Office.
The first “long coaches” (_i.e._ long-stage vehicles) and those called
diligences were superseded by what were called the “old heavies,”
carrying six inside passengers and twelve out.[21]
[21] _The Public Carriages of Great Britain._ J. E. Bradfield, London,
1855.
ROADS IN GEORGE III’s TIME.
The turnpike road had been improved by the year 1773, when Mr. Daniel
Bourn wrote a pamphlet[22] answering some objections which had been
urged against his waggon on rollers (see p. 79). Mr. Jacob had
asserted that the roughness of the roads was an insuperable obstacle to
the enormously wide wheels invented by Mr. Bourn; and the latter, while
admitting the wretched condition of local roads, refutes this argument
as applied to the great roads:—
“A person might follow a waggon from London to York and meet with very
few great stones ... let us now view this more agreeable turnpike road,
yet even here you will find that there is less degrees of loose dirt
and mangled materials.”
[22] _Some Brief Remarks upon Mr. Jacob’s Treatise._ London, 1773.
In this connection it will be remembered that the road roller had been
brought into use in the previous year (see footnote p. 80).
The improvement was by no means universal, however. Arthur Young[23]
writes:—
“I know not in the whole range of language terms sufficiently
expressive to describe this infernal road. To look over a map, and
perceive that it is a principal one, not only to some towns, but even
whole counties, one would naturally conclude it to be at least decent;
but let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally
purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the
devil, for a thousand to one but they break their necks or their limbs
by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts, which
I actually measured, four feet deep, and floating with mud, only from
a wet summer; what, therefore, must it be after the winter? The only
mending it receives, in places, is the tumbling in loose stones, which
serve no other purpose but jolting the carriage in a most intolerable
manner. These are not merely opinions, but facts, for I actually passed
three carts broken down in these eighteen miles of execrable memory.”
[23] _Tour in the North of England._ London, 1770.
IMPROVEMENTS IN STAGE COACHES.
The last twenty-five years of the eighteenth century saw great increase
of the coaching industry and many important improvements. The “long
stages” were still slow; the _Edinburgh Courant_, of 1779, contains
an advertisement of the London Coach which “will run every Tuesday,
occupying ten days, resting all Sunday at Barrowbridge; for the better
accommodation of passengers will be altered to a new genteel two-end
coach machine hung upon steel springs, exceeding light and easy.” At
this period the newspapers often contained advertisements inviting
a companion to share with the advertiser the risks and expenses of
posting to London.
It was no doubt the love of Englishmen for privacy which led a Mr.
Crispus Claggett to patent in 1780 his “Imperial Mercury.” This vehicle
had the outward appearance of one carriage, but it was divided into
four equal compartments with space in each for four persons. Each
compartment was entered by its own door and was partitioned off from
the others by doors and glasses, This curious conveyance must have
somewhat resembled an early railway coach.
THE MAIL COACH.
Mr. John Palmer’s[24] “diligences” were put upon the road in 1783,
and with these the proprietor laid the first crude foundation of the
mail service. The ordinary post was carried by boys on horseback and
was both slow and uncertain owing to the poor quality of the horses,
the badness of the roads and not least to the untrustworthiness of the
boys. Every letter for which expedition was necessary was now sent by
diligences where they were established, and they ran from nearly all
the towns in the kingdom to London and between many of the principal
towns. Postage by these was very expensive: a letter by the ordinary
post from Bath to London cost fourpence, whereas it cost two shillings
for “booking, carriage and porterage” if sent by diligence. The
greater speed and safety were the inducements to use the diligence for
important letters, as on the stage coaches both guard and coachman were
well armed; the former sat on the box with the driver, and, says a
writer of the time, “always sat with his carbine cocked on his knees.”
[24] The story of John Palmer’s work in connection with the postal
service, may be read in Joyce’s _History of the Post Office_ (1893),
and in many histories and other works dealing with Bath. Palmer became
Member of Parliament for Bath in 1801.
The conveyance of letters by diligence or “coach diligence” from Bath,
where Mr. Palmer resided, to London was an experiment on the success of
which that gentleman depended largely in his battle with the officials
of Parliament and Parliamentary Committees when he sought to bring
about change in the method of carrying letters. For a considerable
time those in authority refused to admit the possibility of a coach
travelling from Bath to London, 108 miles, in eighteen hours; but after
a hard struggle Mr. Palmer triumphed, and the first mail coach ran
from Bristol to London on August 2, 1784. Six miles an hour had been
promised, but the journey, 117 miles, was performed in seventeen hours,
or at a rate of nearly seven miles an hour, about double the speed of
the mounted post-boy.
[Illustration: JOHN PALMER.
(_From a portrait in the possession of Henry G. Archer, Esq._)]
These early mail coaches (the “old heavies”) were cumbrous vehicles,
and by no means remarkable for strength of construction: indeed, until
Mr. Palmer took the matter firmly in hand and compelled the contractors
to replace their worn-out coaches by new ones (which were built by
Besant), three or four breakdowns or upsets were daily reported to
the Post-master General. They were drawn by four horses; carried
six inside passengers and, until the law of 1785 already noticed,
twelve “outsides.” Their speed on the principal roads was gradually
accelerated about this time, and after the mail coaches began to work
the pace of “fly stage coaches,” or flying coaches, was increased to
eight miles an hour.
On some roads the old slow coaches remained; as late as the year 1798
the Telegraph left Gosport at one o’clock in the morning and reached
Charing Cross at eight in the evening, thus occupying nineteen hours
over a journey of 80 miles; a speed of little over four miles an hour.
In 1792 sixteen mail coaches left London daily; and seven years later
these had increased to about eighty.
REGULATIONS FOR MAIL AND STAGE COACHES.
During George III’s reign, three Acts of Parliament had been passed
defining the number of outside passengers that any stage coach might
carry, and making other regulations in the public interest; these three
Acts were repealed by a fourth placed on the statute book in 1810,
which enacted that any “coach, berlin, landau, chariot, diligence,
calash, chaise-marine or other four-wheeled vehicle,” employed as
a public carriage and drawn by four horses might carry ten outside
passengers including the guard but not the coachman; that only one
person might share the box with the coachman; and of the remaining
nine, three should sit in front and six behind. No passenger might sit
on the baggage. Stages drawn by two or three horses might carry not
more than five outside passengers; “long coaches” or “double-bodied
coaches” might carry eight.
The social distinction between “inside” and the “outside” is betrayed
by a clause of this law which forbade any outside passenger to travel
inside unless with the consent of one inside passenger; and the
“inside” who gave consent was to have the “outside” placed next him.
This Act also prescribed important limitations to the height of
coaches: neither passenger nor luggage might be carried on the roof of
any coach the top of which was over 8 feet 9 inches from the ground and
whose width was under 4 feet 6 inches measured from the centre of one
wheel track to the centre of the other. On a four-horse coach 8 feet 9
inches high the baggage might be piled to a height of two feet; on one
drawn by two or three horses, to a height of eighteen inches. As it was
considered expedient to encourage low-hung coaches with the view of
attaining greater immunity from accidents, it was legal to pile baggage
up to a height of 10 feet 9 inches from the ground. Any passenger might
require any turnpike keeper to count the “outsides” or to measure
the height of the luggage on the roof. At a later date the fast mail
coaches were prohibited by the Post-master General from carrying any
baggage at all on the roof.
MAIL COACH PARADE ON THE KING’S BIRTHDAY.
Mr. Thrupp gives the following description of the mail coaches as they
appeared at the “King’s Birthday Parade,” an interesting display which
appears to have been held for the first time in the year 1799, and
which remained an annual function until 1835. The coaches assembled
in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and drove through the streets past St. James’
Palace and back to the General Post Office, then in Lombard Street:—
“Each coach was new or turned out to look like new and was painted red
with the Royal Arms on the door panel, and on the smaller panel above
the name of the town to which the coach went; on the boot the number
of the mail, and on each upper quarter one of the stars of the four
Orders of the Knighthood of the United Kingdom, the Garter, the Bath,
the Thistle and St. Patrick. The coaches were built just big enough to
contain four inside and three or four outside, and coachman and guard.
The body was hung upon a perch carriage and eight telegraph springs,
the underworks being both solid and simple in construction.”
A writer in _Baily’s Magazine_ (June, 1900), gives a description of
this parade; only the coachmen and guards, in new uniforms, were
allowed on the coaches, for which gentlemen used to lend their best
teams; the procession generally consisted of about twenty-five coaches
and was prolonged by the presence of a horseman between every two
coaches.
THE MAIL COACHMAN AND GUARD.
The mail coaches in their daily routine assembled in Lombard Street
between 8 and 8.20 p.m. every evening to receive the mails, and drew up
in double file. Each was known by the name of the town to which it ran,
and on the call of “Manchester,” “Liverpool,” or “Chester,” the coach
bound thither broke rank and came up to the post-office door to receive
the mails; the bags were tossed into the boot and the slamming of the
lid of the boot was the signal to start.
Most of the mails for the Western counties started at 7 p.m. from the
Gloucester Coffee House in Piccadilly, the mail bags being brought
thither from the General Post Office in gigs drawn by fast-trotting
horses, The stages for the West started from Hatchett’s; for the North,
from the Peacock, Islington.
The mail guard was a considerable personage; when the modern style
of build was adopted, the hind seat over the mail boot was strictly
reserved to him, nobody being allowed to share it, as a precaution
against robbery of the mails. To obtain an appointment as guard on a
mail coach the applicant had to produce a recommendation from a Member
of Parliament showing that he bore a high character, and a medical
certificate to effect that he was of good constitution (exceedingly
necessary in view of the nature of his work); if accepted as a
probationer he had to spend a term in a coach factory and there learn
how to repair a broken pole and patch up any other fracture that might
occur on the road. His pay was only 10s. per week, but his perquisites
were considerable; he might make as much as £3 or £4 a week, by taking
charge of plate chests and valuables entrusted to his care; and it was
the custom to allow the guard and coachman to divide all fares of 3s.
or less between them.
The guard went the whole way with his coach; the coachman’s “stage” was
generally forty or fifty miles out and home again. The latter’s wages
were supplemented by tips from the passengers, who were admonished
that the time had come to open their purses by the coachman’s polite
“Gentlemen, I leave you here.”
The money thus collected by the driver of a first-class coach amounted,
it is said, to £200 or £300 a year. The coachman was subject to
numerous regulations which aimed at the security of passengers and
mails. He might not allow anyone else to drive, without the consent of
the coach proprietor or against the wishes of the other passengers; he
might not leave his box unless a man was at the leaders’ heads; and
there were many such minor instructions to be observed.
Until about 1815 the coachman’s box was not part of the body of the
vehicle, and while the passengers rode comfortably on springs the
unfortunate driver had a seat as comfortless as want of springs could
make it. When this was done away with, it was quite in accord with
British traditions that strong objections should be made, the chief
being founded on the idea that if the coachman were made so comfortable
he would go to sleep on his box. The Manchester Telegraph, celebrated
as one of the smartest coaches of the day, was the first which was thus
altered.
The guard was responsible for the punctuality of the coach, and each
evening when leaving the General Post Office he was handed a watch
officially set and officially locked in a case in such wise that it
could not be tampered with. The guard also carried what was called a
“snow book” from the fact that entries therein were most usually caused
by heavy snowstorms. In this he recorded any such incidents as the hire
of extra horses when these might be needed, of saddle horses to carry
the mail bags forward if the coach came to grief, or of any other
outlay.
“THE ROAD” IN WINTER.
Mention of the guard’s “snow book” suggests that a winter’s journey
in the coaching days was an undertaking not to be lightly faced. One
morning in March, 1812, the Bath coach arrived at Chippenham with two
outside passengers frozen to death in their seats, and a third in a
dying state. A snow shovel strapped behind his seat was a regular
item of the guard’s winter equipment, but only too often a shovel was
useless. In the winter of 1814, the Edinburgh mail had to be left in
the snow and the mail bags forwarded to Alnwick on horseback; in the
same week eight horses were needed to draw the York coach to Newcastle.
When a coach was snow-bound it was the guard’s duty to get the mails
forward; this he did when possible by taking two of the horses and
riding one while the other carried the bags. Some of the best of
Pollard’s coaching pictures represent such incidents as occurred in the
severe winters of 1812, 1814, and 1836.
The winter of 1814 was long remembered for the great and prolonged fog
which disorganised traffic; the fog was followed by a singularly severe
snow storm which continued for forty-eight hours; while it lasted
no fewer than thirty-three mails in one day failed to arrive at the
General Post Office.
The Christmas season of 1836 is historical in meteorological annals
for the unprecedented severity of the snowfall. The storm lasted for
the best part of the week, and for ten days travelling was suspended.
Christmas night was the worst, and scarcely a single coach ventured
to quit London on the 26th and 27th, St. Albans was literally full of
mails and stages that could not get forward; on December 27, no fewer
than fourteen mail coaches were abandoned snow-bound on various roads;
and the Exeter mail, on December 26, was dug out five times on the way
to Yeovil. In flat and open country all traces of the roads were lost,
and the coachman had to trust the safety of the vehicle to his horses’
instinct. In some places the snow drifts gathered to an enormous depth
and made the roads utterly impassable.
It was an article of the coaching creed to “get forward” if humanly
possible; and the feats of endurance and courage accomplished by guards
and coachmen in these old times prove them to have been a remarkably
fine class of public servant, deserving all that has been written of
them.
PASSENGER FARES.
Passenger fares by mail coach were higher than by the ordinary stage;
on the former the rates were from 4d. to 5d. per mile for “outsides,”
and 8d. to 10d. per mile for “insides”; on the stage coach the outside
passenger paid from 2½d. to 3d. per mile, and the inside from 4d.
to 5d. Posting cost about eighteenpence per mile, and was therefore
reserved to rich men.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STAGE AND MAIL COACH.
In the early days of the century, though the actual rate of travel was
about eight miles an hour by the ordinary stage coach, much time was
occupied over the journey. There appears to have been no such thing
as a “time bill.” The coachman would go out of his way to set down or
pick up a passenger: he would wait to oblige a friend if desired, and
“Nimrod” in his famous article on “The Road” cites, as an example of
the leisurely fashion prevalent, the civility of “Billy” Williams, who
drove the Shrewsbury-Chester coach in his school days, and took twelve
hours to cover the forty miles, Two hours were allowed for dinner at
Wrexham, but this obliging coachman would come into the parlour and
say, “The coach is ready, gentlemen, but don’t let me disturb you if
you wish for another bottle.”