the General Highway Act of 1745, beginning to lay aside something of
their pristine horrors, and Shrewsbury coaching enterprise was once more
aroused to great issues. In April, 1753, the “Birmingham and Shrewsbury
Long Coach, with six able horses, in four days,” started from the “Old
Red Lion” (the “Lion,” Wyle Cop), and went to the “Bell,” Holborn. The
fare was only 18_s._, not more than 5_s._ over and above the price of a
third-class railway journey that nowadays takes you either way in
something less than three hours and three-quarters. Competition began at
Shrewsbury in less than three months after the establishment of the
“Long Coach,” for in the following June Fowler’s “Shrewsbury Stage-coach
in three and a half days” began to set out from the “Raven and Bell” to
the “George and White Hart,” Aldersgate Street; fare one guinea, outside
half-price. It is not on record how these rivals regarded one another,
but they seem to have continued, each going to London once a week, for
thirteen years before circumstances warranted the intrusion of a third.
In April, 1764, however, a “Machine” was started, to go three times a
week and do the journey in two days, at a fare of 30_s._ The continually
increasing fares up to this point were balanced by the lower hotel
expenses on the shorter time taken, and so the “Machine” became popular
in summer. But this celerity of motion could not be sustained during the
winter, when the journey was extended to three days. In the spring of
1765, when it returned to its fine weather rapidity, it received the
name of the “_Flying_ Machine,” with the fare raised to 36_s._; but in
August, 1772, when its time was reduced to one and a half days, the
price came down by a couple of shillings. The reason for this combined
acceleration of pace and reduction of fare is instantly
apparent—opposition was threatened. It came with the spring of the
following year, but did not directly challenge the supremacy of the
“Flying Machine,” for the “new Flying Machine,” as it was called, by
John Payton, of Stratford-on-Avon, and Robert Lawrence, of the “Raven
and Bell,” Shrewsbury, took the Stratford-on-Avon and Oxford route to
London, was half a day longer on the journey, and charged 2_s._ more.
The proprietors of the original “Flying Machine” must have felt relieved
when those particulars were disclosed; but their nerves received a worse
shock in the spring of 1774, for the confederates who had started the
“new Flying Machine” re-named it the “London and Shrewsbury New Fly,”
and announced several alterations and improvements. It was to perform
the journey in a day and a half, to go three times a week, and, fitted
“quite in the modern taste” and with steel springs, it offered decided
advantages over the old favourite. In addition came the unkind
announcement that, “notwithstanding the Fly sets out after the old
coach, it will be in London as soon.” How sweet a sop for lazy
travellers, none too eager to rise, and how bitter the taunt to the old
firm!
It is not to be supposed that they tamely submitted to this impudence.
Their reply was soon forthcoming. It stated that the proprietors of the
“original London and Salop Machine,” in the modern taste, on steel
springs (the Machine, not the proprietors) and bows on the top, called
upon all travellers to observe “that the road through Coventry, being
several miles nearer than through Oxford, will fully demonstrate the
most speedy conveyance to London.” The “bows on the top” were seats for
the outsides, who, if carried before, must have been accommodated in the
“basket,” a wicker-work structure, hung on behind. Unfortunately for the
“original,” it had very determined competitors to deal with. Its
business suffered, just as, thirteen years before, it had come upon the
scene and cut up the trade of the “Long Coach” and Fowler’s “Shrewsbury
Stage.”
[Illustration: WYLE COP AND THE “LION”]
The rivals even put on another conveyance, the “Diligence” they called
it, conveying three passengers at the express speed of Shrewsbury to
London in one day, at £1 11_s._ 6_d._ each. This startling innovation
was announced to go three times a week.
There were thus in 1776 three modes of getting to London. Rivalry,
however, had outrun custom, and discretion had far out-distanced both.
The “Original” slipped back to a two days’ journey, twice a week, the
“Fly” dropped one weekly journey during the winter, and the “Diligence”
soon ceased to run at all.
But Robert Lawrence, the landlord of the “Raven and Bell,” and partner
in the newer coaching enterprises with Payton, of Stratford-on-Avon, was
a remarkable man. Given a wider sphere of action, there is no knowing to
what greatness he might have developed. As it was, he did much for
Shrewsbury in his time, and greatly influenced the traffic along the
Holyhead Road, from end to end. The route had until then been invariably
by way of Chester; but the casual inspection of any map will soon show
that that city lies at a considerable distance to the north of a direct
line drawn from London to Holyhead, and that Shrewsbury is placed much
more centrally. It occurred to Lawrence that the difficulties and
dangers of the route by what we now call the Holyhead Road, _viâ_
Llangollen and Capel Curig, were much exaggerated, and that time might
be saved and the dangerous ferry (as it then was) of Conway missed by
avoiding Chester altogether. In that case Shrewsbury would regain much
of the trade that belonged to it by virtue of its geographical position.
These prime facts grasped, Lawrence set himself to alter the course that
traffic had taken for centuries, and devoted his life to this one aim.
It was, as may readily be supposed, no easy matter, and he was obliged
to begin his reforms slowly. Thus, on July 3rd, 1779, we find him
setting up a post-coach to Holyhead by Wrexham, Mold, St. Asaph, and
Conway, three times a week, and in one and a half days, in conjunction
with other innkeepers. The fare was £2 2_s._
This ceased in 1783, but in the meanwhile, in conjunction with some
London innkeepers, he had started the first stage-coach to perform the
whole journey between London and Holyhead. This was established in May,
1780, going through Coventry, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, Walsall,
Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Llangollen, Corwen, Llanrwst, and Conway. In
November of that year Lawrence removed from the “Raven and Bell” to the
“Lion,” next door, a larger house, and announced his determination to
pursue with unremitting industry the object he had in view, of securing
the Chester traffic for Shrewsbury.
This bold pronouncement roused the Chester proprietors and the
innkeepers along that route to fury. They threatened Payton with
opposition to his Birmingham, Oxford, and London coaches if he did not
break his connection with Lawrence, and when Payton declined to listen
to them, established themselves as a confederacy at the “Raven and
Bell,” just vacated by his partner, and put the “Defiance” coach on the
road to London, by Worcester. Lawrence, in his turn, perhaps somewhat
alarmed by the storm he had raised, issued an advertisement, thanking
the public for their patronage, and entreating further support in his
attempts to open up a direct road to Holyhead. Without this
encouragement, he said, “several years’ labour and great expense he has
been at (together with the great advantage to the town of Shrewsbury)
would be entirely lost.”
He was not content with advertising, but travelled largely, and waited
upon many people of influence for their interest in obtaining the
improvement of the route on which he had set his heart; and prevailed
upon several persons who had been upper servants in great English
families to establish inns at the several stages. His exertions were not
fruitless. Several of the principal travellers began to travel the
Shrewsbury route, and not only saved some miles and avoided the Conway
ferry, but had the additional advantage of superior accommodation.
Lawrence had a powerful ally in the press, and the _Shrewsbury
Chronicle_ is early found recording successes. Thus, February 3rd, 1781,
the Editor “is happy to inform the publick that the travelling through
this town daily increases,” and from that time proceeded to record the
names of important personages who passed through, in preference to
Chester. In the same year Lawrence still further enlarged his views, and
inspired the _Chronicle_ with the statement: “We have not a doubt, from
the rapid increase of business on this road, that, if proper application
is made, one, if not both, of the Irish mails will pass through the
town.” He had, in fact, been making interest with the Post Office to
that end. The mails of that day, however, were not coaches, but mounted
postboys; the first mail-coach in England not being established until
August, 1784.
Lawrence indeed went to surprising lengths, and seems to have
constituted himself a species of informal road-authority, to judge from
the _Shrewsbury Chronicle_ of April 13th, 1782, in whose columns care is
taken to “inform the publick that the new road through Wales, _viâ_
Llanrwst, has by the activity of Mr. Lawrence been kept open,
notwithstanding most other roads were rendered impassable by the heavy
falls of snow.” In the September of that year, Lawrence had another
triumph, for Earl Temple, the new Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, travelled
by Shrewsbury, and lay at the “Lion,” where he was received in state by
the Mayor and Corporation. “His lordship,” we learn, “said he was
extremely glad the Shrewsbury road had been recommended to him, as he
found it not only considerably nearer, but the accommodations were in
every respect perfectly to his satisfaction.”
In February, 1784, we still find Lawrence “determined to use every
effort to establish effectually what he has so long laboured at a great
expence to accomplish,” but it was not until 1802 that his exertions
procured the commencement of a shorter line of road, branching off at
Pentre Voelas from his previous route by Llanrwst and Conway and going
to Bangor by the present route, _viâ_ Bettws and Capel Curig. He was
aided in this by the Lord Penrhyn of that time, with whom it had long
been a favourite scheme, and who, to ensure its popularity with
travellers, built the great inn beside it at Capel Curig. By the
completion of this road a saving of eight miles was effected.
Meanwhile Palmer had established mail-coaches, and Lawrence had secured
an “Oxford, Birmingham, and Shrewsbury Mail, on Mr. Palmer’s plan,” so
early as September 5th, 1785. But it went no further until 1808, when it
was extended to Holyhead.
New times, however, had now dawned, and the modernised Holyhead Road was
coming into existence, under the control of greater forces than Lawrence
could have brought to bear. The Government and Telford between them
planned the “New Parliamentary Road,” which by July 1817 was
sufficiently advanced for the mails to be sent this way. The “Oxford,
Birmingham and Shrewsbury Mail” was therefore discontinued beyond
Birmingham, and the “New Holyhead Mail” began to run from London by the
present Holyhead Road, in thirty-eight hours. Shrewsbury had at last
achieved its due, and the “Chester and Holyhead Mail,” a slower coach,
by Northampton and Stafford, was regarded as altogether an inferior
affair.
XXII
When at last Lawrence was gathered to his fathers and new men took up
the business of coaching, the daily Mail-coach to Holyhead and the two
stages, running twice a week, were increased to seven coaches to or from
London daily, in addition to numerous local stages. There were the
“Oxonian Express,” through to Holyhead, by High Wycombe, Oxford, and
Birmingham; the “Union,” by the same route, going no further than
Shrewsbury; the “Shamrock,” to Holyhead, by Coventry and Birmingham; the
“New Mail,” to Holyhead by the same route; the “Prince of Wales,” to
Holyhead, by Oxford and Birmingham; and two Post-coaches. One could then
actually do the journey between London and Shrewsbury in eighteen hours.
There were also Crowley’s and Hearne’s vans and waggons, three-horsed
and six-horsed, for the carriage of goods, plodding very soberly and
with much jingling of harness and whip cracking, accomplishing the
distance in three or four days.
But to accomplish the journey by coach in eighteen hours did not satisfy
the new spirit come upon the scene. Isaac Taylor, who had taken the
“Lion” coach-office and appears to have separated the businesses of
inn-keeping and coach-proprietorship—that house being then occupied by
William Tompkins, who was succeeded by Mrs. Basnett in 1835, and by Mrs.
Brown in 1842—started the celebrated “Wonder” between Shrewsbury and
London, in 1825, to “perform,” as the old coach advertisements expressed
it, the journey of one hundred and fifty-eight miles in sixteen hours.
The “Wonder” set the fashion of day coaches running long distances, and
was the first to accomplish over a hundred miles a day. The proprietors’
complete satisfaction and pride in what they had found it possible to do
are seen clearly reflected in the name given to the coach. Taylor had a
strong company of allies to work the enterprise. It was horsed out of
London from the “Bull and Mouth” by Sherman, and by the most reliable
men at Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton; while at Shiffnal and Hay
gate were two of his own brothers.
According to the time bill here appended, there were sixty-five minutes
consumed in stops on the way. Add to these fifteen minutes for the
fourteen or fifteen changes at the various stages down the road, and the
result is eighty minutes to be deducted from the running time, thus
giving a net average speed of a little over eleven and a half miles an
hour.
TIME BILL OF THE “WONDER” COACH, LONDON TO SHREWSBURY
_Departed from the “Bull and Mouth” at 6.30 morning._
_Left the “Peacock,” Islington, at 6.45 morning._
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬──────┬─────────┬─────────┬───────┬──────┐
│Proprietors. │ Places. │Miles.│ Time │ Should │ Did │ Time │
│ │ │ │allowed. │ arrive. │arrive.│lost. │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────┼──────┤
│ │ │ │ H. M.│ H. M.│ │ │
│Sherman │St. Albans │ 22½│ 2 3│ 8 48│ │ │
│J. Lilley │Redbourne │ 4½│ 0 25│ 9 13│ │ │
│ │ Breakfast │ │ 0 20│ │ │ │
│Goodyear │Dunstable │ 8¼│ 0 48│ 10 21│ │ │
│Sheppard │Daventry │ 29¾│ 2 54│ 2 15│ │ │
│Collier │Coventry │ 19 │ 1 47│ 4 2│ │ │
│ │ Business │ │ 0 5│ │ │ │
│Vyse │Birmingham │ 19 │ 1 39│ 5 46│ │ │
│ │ Dinner │ │ 0 35│ │ │ │
│Evans │Wolverhampton│ 14 │ 1 15│ 7 36│ │ │
│ │ Business │ │ 0 5│ │ │ │
│Evans │Summer House │ 6½│ 0 35│ 8 16│ │ │
│J. Taylor │Shiffnal │ 6½│ 0 35│ 8 51│ │ │
│H. J. Taylor │Haygate │ 8 │ 0 43│ 9 34│ │ │
│I. Taylor │Shrewsbury │ 10 │ 0 56│ 10 30│ │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼──────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────┼──────┤
│ │ │ 158 │ 14 45│ │ │ │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴──────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────┴──────┘
This was a programme kept with surprising punctuality throughout the
year; a punctuality and an evenness of working obtained only by the
large number of horses kept and the frequent stages. The Shrewsbury
“Wonder” thus came to be regarded with such veneration for its
time-keeping qualities that watches and clocks were regulated by its
passing. When the swift yellow coach hove in sight at the end of a
village street, the inhabitants, finding their timepieces fast, would
not assume the lateness of the “Wonder,” but would put back the hands
with a thorough and well-merited belief in the coach.
The stud of horses kept for the “Wonder” numbered one hundred and fifty,
all sleek and plump. None of the horses worked more than one hour out of
the twenty-four, being required merely on one of the ten-mile stages,
which they frequently performed in five minutes under schedule time, and
then were taken fresh and vigorous from the traces. They were fed
liberally, with the view of keeping them heavy, rather than muscular;
strength for short and powerful exertion being required, rather than
endurance. Their average value was £20 and they were seldom worked more
than four years on this fast coach. Well groomed and cared for, theirs
was a lot to be envied.
The surprising performances of the “Wonder,” and its financial success,
at last raised up a spirit of rivalry in the breasts of others in the
horsey and coaching way, so that in 1834 a competitor was put upon the
road, named (from the pseudonym adopted by C. J. Apperley, that famous
sporting writer), the “Nimrod.” Jobson, landlord of the “Talbot” inn,
horsed the “Nimrod” out of Shrewsbury. From London it was horsed on
alternate days by Horne, from the “Bull,” Holborn, or by Robert Nelson
from the “Belle Sauvage,” as far as Redbourne. The proprietors of the
“Wonder,” whose enterprise had in its success raised up this
competition, were furious, and determined to put another coach on the
road. Accordingly, the “proud Salopians” were astonished by the
appearance of an advertisement in the _Shrewsbury Chronicle_ during
July, 1835, announcing a new coach, designed to supplement the
celebrated “Wonder.” It ran:—
Isaac Taylor, ever grateful for the distinguished support he has
received from the public, announces a new and elegant fast day coach,
called the “Stag,” every morning at a quarter before five, arriving at
the “Bull and Mouth,” opposite the General Post Office, at seven the
same evening. I. T. has been induced to commence running the “Stag,”
to prevent the celebrated “Wonder” being in any way injured by racing
or at all interfered with in the regularity which has hitherto been
observed.
The figures quoted above give a journey of fourteen hours and a quarter,
a speed not approached within half-an-hour by the “Wonder” itself at its
very best. But this kind of thing could not, and did not, last, and
while it did continue must have been cruelly hard on the horses.
The “Stag” was designed to run a little in advance of the “Nimrod,”
while the “Wonder” followed it. In the expressive language of the road,
the “Nimrod” was “well nursed,” and only by the greatest good luck
chanced to pick up any passengers on the way. They raced along with such
a hearty rivalry all the way that the three coaches often arrived
simultaneously at Islington, _two hours before time_. It is surprising,
both that nothing ever happened to them, and that Shrewsbury could at
that time have had sufficient intercourse with London to render this
wholesale competition, in view of the other coaches running at the same
time, a paying speculation.
The rivals then commenced cutting one another’s throats by actually
rendering the affair unprofitable, and paring down the fares by one
third, trusting that those with the longest purse would be able to
survive, and recoup themselves when the others had been driven off the
road. Fifteen hundred pounds were lost in twelve months by the
proprietors of the “Stag” and “Wonder” in this way; but they had the
satisfaction of seeing the “Nimrod” off the road, and though the
“Emerald” and “Hibernia” night coaches, extended for a time from
Birmingham, loaded well from the rival yard, the famous “yellow belly,”
as the “Wonder” was fondly called, went on, with fares raised again to
48_s._ inside and 30_s._ out, from the 30_s._ and £1 to which, in
competition, they had fallen.
Thus did the “Wonder” maintain its pre-eminence in the little time left
before the London and Birmingham Railway came, in 1838, to cut its
journey short, and the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway, in 1849, to
complete the work of sweeping _all_ the coaches off the road into the
limbo of obsolete institutions. In its last few years the “Wonder” was
accelerated by one hour on both up and down journeys, for, starting an
hour later, it reached its destination at the same time as before.
Indeed, at the very time when railway enterprise cut it off in
mid-career, a further acceleration was contemplated. It was proposed to
perform the journey in thirteen hours. To do this it would have been
necessary to establish six-mile, instead of ten-mile stages, and to
abandon all stopping for taking up intermediate passengers.
But in the last days of its entire journey the “Wonder” was made to do a
remarkable thing. It left the “Bull and Mouth” at the moment when the
train for Birmingham steamed out of Euston, and reached Birmingham
twenty minutes earlier. That extraordinary feat was not repeated, and
was only possible even then by reason of the rails being slippery with
rain and the locomotive wheels losing grip, causing great delay. From
1839 the “Wonder” ran only between Shrewsbury and Birmingham, by way of
Ironbridge and Madeley, and ended its career, as a two-horse coach, in
1842.
XXIII
If Shrewsbury was a place to and from which came and went many fast
coaches, it certainly sent forth one coach that was phenomenally slow.
The “Shrewsbury and Chester Highflyer,” at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, was very much less of a flyer than might have been
expected from its name.
Those two places are forty miles apart. The “Highflyer” set out from
Shrewsbury at eight o’clock in the morning, and arrived at Chester,
under favourable circumstances, at the same hour in the evening. This
snail-like crawl of little over three miles an hour is so remarkable
that it invites investigation, whereupon some extraordinary things are
revealed. At Wrexham, for example, two hours were allowed for dinner,
and if his passengers wanted to linger over another bottle, Billy
Williams, the coachman, who had looked in at the coffee-room door to
announce the starting, would affably say, “Don’t let me disturb you,
gentlemen.”
“Billy Williams,” as he was to one class, “Mr. William Williams” to
another, “Chester Billy” and “Shrewsbury Billy” to the rest, was—need it
be said?—a Welshman, and if any one wished for a little extra time in
which to see Wrexham Church and its tower—one of the “wonders of
Wales”—his patriotic ardour could not withstand the application for a
further halt. Then, when Ellesmere was reached, another long stop was
made to sample the _cwrw da_, the famous ale of that place; and, in
fact, stops anywhere and everywhere, so that the wonder was, not that
the journey occupied twelve hours, but that it did not take twenty-four.
It must, indeed, have required some sharp driving, between whiles, to
perform the distance in a dozen hours, and it was probably during one of
these spurts that another coachman—one Jem Robins—was killed by being
crushed under the coach when on one occasion it was overturned at an
abrupt corner.
Billy Williams, however, made a peaceful end. He retired, or _was_
retired by the railway’s usurpation of his line of country. He was what
our grandfathers called an “original,” and a _protégé_ of the Honourable
Thomas Kenyon, at Pradoe, to whom he gave an excellent reason why horses
should seem to go better at night.
“Hang me, Billy!” the honourable had exclaimed, “I’ve tried to account
for it, but never could.”
“Why, I’m surprised at you,” said Billy; “do you mean you don’t know
that?” “Why, of course I don’t,” replied the squire. “Well, then,” said
Billy, “if you want to know the _real_ reason, it’s because you’ve had
your dinner.”
Billy was the hero of a story that long made a laughing-stock of him.
The Honourable Thomas Kenyon was driving on one occasion to Chester
races, but before setting out with his party from Pradoe thought that,
as it was a particularly hot day, Billy might feel more comfortable if
he exchanged his breeches and leather tops for lighter raiment. He
accordingly told him to go upstairs and put on a pair of his own white
trousers. Billy went up, and came back attired in a manner his host had
never contemplated, for he had put the trousers on over the other
garments!