Ver.04.29.93*END*
This etext produced by Eric Hutton, email: bookman@rmplc.co.uk
additional proof reading by David G Haren and Simon Allen
The Life of Thomas Telford civil engineer with an
introductory history of roads and travelling in Great Britian
by Samuel Smiles
"Let us travel, and wherever we find no facility for
travelling from a city to a town, from a village to a
hamlet, we may pronounce the people to be barbarous"
--Abbe Raynal
"The opening up of the internal communications of a
country is undoubtedly the first and most important
element of its growth in commerce and civilization"
--Richard Cobden
CONTENTS
Preface
EARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLING
CHAPTER I. Old Roads
Roads as agents of civilization
Their important uses
Ancient British trackways or ridgeways
The Romans and their roads in Britain
Decay of the Roman roads
Early legislation relating to highways
Roads near London
The Weald of Kent
Great Western roads
Hollow ways or lanes
Roads on Dartmoor
in Sussex
at Kensington
CHAPTER II. Early Modes of Conveyance
Riding on horseback the ancient mode of traveling
Shakespear's description of travelling in 'Henry IV.'
Queen Elizabeth and her coach
Introduction of coaches or waggons
Painful journeys by coach
Carriers in reign of James I
Great north Road in reign of Charles I
Mace's description of roads and travellers stage-coaches introduced
Sobriere's account of the Dover stage-coach
Thoresby's account of stage-coaches and travelling
Roads and travelling in North Wales
Proposal to suppres stage-coaches
Tediousness and discomforts of travelling by coach
Pennant's account of the Chester and London stage
Travelling on horseback preferred
The night coach
Highway robbers and foot-pads
Methods of transport of the merchandize pack-horse convoys
Traffic between lancashire and Yorkshire
Signs of the pack-horse
CHAPTER III. Influence of Roads on Society
Restricted intercourse between districts
Local dialects and customs thereby preserved
Camden's fear of travelling into the barbarous regions of the North
Rev. Mr Brome's travels in England
Old Leisure
Imperfect postal communication
Hawkers and pedlars
Laying in stores for winter
Household occupations
Great fairs of ancient times
Local fairs
Fair on Dartmoor
Primitive manners of Dartmoor District
CHAPTER IV. Roads in Scotland last centuary
Poverty of Scotland
Backwardness of agriculture
Idleness of the people
Andrew Flecher's description of Scotland
Slavery of colliers and salters
Improvements in agriculture opposed
Low wages of the labouring population
State of the Lothians and Ayrshire
Wretched states of the roads
Difficulty of communication between districts
Coach started between Edinburgh and Glasgow
Carrier's perils between Edinburgh and Selkirk
Dangers of travelling in Galloway
Lawlessness of the Highlands
Picking and lifting of cattle
Ferocity of population on the Highland Border
Ancient civilization of Scotland
CHAPTER V. Travelling in England last century
Progress made in travelling by coach
Fast coaches established
Bad state of the roads
Foreigners' accounts of travelling in England
Herr Moritz's journey by the basket coach
Arthur Young's description of English roads
Palmer's mail coaches introduced
The first 'Turnpike' roads
Turnpike riots
The rebellion of 1745
Passing of numerous highway Acts
Road-making thought beneath the dignity of the engineer
CHAPTER VI. John Metcalf, road-maker.
Metcalf's boyhood
His blindness
His boldness
Becomes a Musician
His travels
Journey on foot from London to Harrogate
Joins the army as musician in the rebellion of 1745
Adventures in Scotland
Becomes travelling merchant and horse dealer
Begins road-making
Builds a bridge
His extensive road contracts in Yorkshire and Lancashire
Manner of aking his surveys
His skill in road-making
His last road--his death
Roads in the south of England
Want of roads on Lincoln Heath
Land lighthouses
Dunstan pillar
Rapid improvement in the roads
Application of steam
Sydney Smith on improved facilities of communication
THE LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD
CHAPTER I. Eskdale.
Eskdale
Langholm
Former lawlessness of the Border population
Jonnie armstrong
Border energy
Westerkirk
Telford's birthplace
Glendinning
Valley of the Meggat
The 'unblameable shepherd'
Telford's mother
Early years
Laughing Tam
Put to school
His school-fellows
CHAPTER II. Langholm--Telford a Stonemason
Telford apprenticed to a stonemason
Runs away
Re-apprenticed to a mason at Langholm
Building operations in the district
Miss Pasley lends books to young Telford
Attempt to write poetry
Becomes village letter-writer
Works as a journeyman mason
Employed on Langholm Bridge
Manse of Westerkirk
Poem of 'Eskdale'
Hews headstones and doorheads
Works as a mason at Edinburgh
Study of architecture
Revisits Eskdale
His ride to London
CHAPTER III. Arrives in London
Telford a working man in London
Obtains employment as a mason at
Somerset House
Correspondence with Eskdale friends
Observations on his fellow-workman
Propses to begin business, but wants money
Mr. Pulteney
Becomes foreman of builders at Portsmouth Dockyard
Continues to write poetry
Employment of his time
Prints letters to his mother
CHAPTER IV. Becomes Surveyor for the County of Salop
Superintends repairs of Shrewsbury Castle
Appointed Surveyor for County of Salop
Superintends erection of new gaol
Interview with John Howard
His studies in science and literature
Poetical exercises
Fall of St. Chad's Church, Shrewsburg
Discovery of the Roman city of Uriconium
Overseer of felons
Mrs. Jordan at Shrewsbury
Telford's indifference to music
Politics, Paine's 'Rights of Man'
Reprints his poem of 'Eskdale'
CHAPTER V. Telford's First Employment as an Engineer
Advantages of mechanical training to an engineer
Erects Montford Bridge
Erects St. Mary Magdalen Church, Bridgenorth
Telford's design
Architectural tour
Bath
Studies in British Museum
Oxford
Birmingham
Study of architecture
Appointed Engineer to the Ellesmere Canal
CHAPTER VI. The Ellesmere Canal
Course of the Ellesmire Canal
Success of the early canals
The Act obtained and working survey made
Chirk Aqueduct
Pont-Cysylltau Aqueduct,
Telford's hollow walls
His cast iron trough at Pont-Cysylltau
The canal works completed
Revists Eskdale
Early impressions corrected
Tours in Wales
Conduct of Ellesmere Canal navigation
His literary studies and compositions
CHAPTER VII. Iron and other Bridges
Use of iron in bridge-building
Design of a Lyons architect
First iron bridge erected at Coalbrookdale
Tom paine's iron bridge
Wear iron bridge, Sunderland
Telford's iron bridge at Buildwas
His iron lock-gates and turn-bridges
Projects a one-arched bridge of iron over the Thames
Bewdley stone bridge
Tougueland Bridge
Extension of Telford's engineering buisness
Literary friendships
Thomas Campbell
Miscellaneous reading
CHAPTER VIII. Higland Roads and Bridges
Progress of Scotch agriculture
Romilly's account
State of the Highlands
Want of roads
Use of the Cas-chrom
Emigration
Telford's survey of Scotland
Lord Cockburn's account of the difficulties of travelling
the North Circuit
Parliamentary Commission of Highland Roads and Bridges appointed
Dunkeld Bridge built
920 miles of new roads constucted
Craigellachie Bridge
Travelling facilitated
Agriculture improved
Moral results of Telford's Highland contracts
Rapid progress of the Lowlands
Results of parish schools
CHAPTER IX. Telford's Scotch Harbours
Highland harbours
Wick and Pulteney Town
Columnar pier work
Peterhead Harbour
Frazerburgh Harbour
Bannf Harbour
Old history of Aberdeen, its witch-burning and slave-trading
Improvements of its harbour
Telford's design carried out
Dundee Harbour
CHAPTER X. Caledonian and other Canals
Canal projected through the Great Glen of the Highlands
Survey by James Watt
Survey by Telford
Tide-basin at Corpach
Neptune's Staircase
Dock at Clachnaharry
The chain of lochs
Construction of the works
Commercial failure of the canal
Telford's disappointment
Glasgow and Ardrossan Canal
Weaver Navigation
Gotha Canal, Sweden
Gloucester and Berkeley, and other canals
Harecastle Tunnel
Birmingham Canal
Macclesfield Canal
Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal
Telford's pride in his canals
CHAPTER XI. Telford as a road-maker
Increase of road-traffic
Improvement of the main routes between the principal towns
Carlisle and Glasgow road
Telford's principles of road-construction
Macadam
Cartland Crags Bridge
Improvement of the London and Edinburgh post road
Communications with Ireland
Wretched state of the Welsh roads
Telford's survey of the Shrewsbury and Holyhead road
Its construction
Roads and railways
London and Shrewsbury post road
Roads near London
Coast road, North Wales
CHAPTER XII. The Menai and Conway Bridges
Bridges projected over the Menai Straits
Telford's designs
Ingenious plan of suspended centering
Design of a suspension bridge over the Mersey at Runcorn
Design of suspension bridge at Menai
The works begun
The main piers
The suspension chains
Hoisting of the first main chain
Progress of the works to completion
The bridge formally opened
Conway Suspension Bridge
CHAPTER XIII. Docks, Drainage, and Bridges
Resume of English engineering
General increase in trade and poulation
The Thames
St. Katherine's Docks
Tewkesburg Bridge
Gloucester Bridge
Dean Bridge, Edinburgh
Glasgow Bridge
Telford's works of drainage in the Fens
The North Level
The Nene Outfall
Effects of Fen drainage
CHAPTER XIV. Southey's tour in the highlands
Southey sets out to visit the Highlands in Telford's company
Works at Dundee Harbour
Bervie Harbour
Mitchell and Gibbs
Aberdeen Harbour
Approach to Banff
Cullen Harbour
The Forres road
Beauly Bridge
Bonar Bridge
Fleet Mound
Southey's description of the Caledonian Canal and works
John Mitchell
Takes leave of Telford
Results of Highland road-making
CHAPTER XV. Mr Telford's later years--His death and character
Telford's residence in London
Leaves the Salopian
First President of Institute of Civil Engineers
Consulted by foreign Governments as to roads and bridges
His views on railways
Failure of health
Consulted as to Dover Harbour
Illness and death
His character
His friends
Integrity
Views on money-making
Benevolence
Patriotism
His Will
Libraries in Eskdale supported by his bequests
PREFACE
The present is a revised and in some respects enlarged edition of
the 'Life of Telford,' originally published in the 'Lives of the
Engineers,' to which is prefixed an account of the early roads and
modes of travelling in Britain.
From this volume, read in connection with the Lives of George and
Robert Stephenson, in which the origin and extension of Railways is
described, an idea may be formed of the extraordinary progress
which has been made in opening up the internal communications of
this country during the last century.
Among the principal works executed by Telford in the course of his
life, were the great highways constructed by him in North Wales and
the Scotch Highlands, through districts formerly almost inaccessible,
but which are now as easily traversed as any English county.
By means of these roads, and the facilities afforded by railways,
the many are now enabled to visit with ease and comfort magnificent
mountain scenery, which before was only the costly privilege of the
few; at the same time that their construction has exercised a most
beneficial influence on the population of the districts themselves.
The Highland roads, which were constructed with the active
assistance of the Government, and were maintained partly at the
public expense until within the last few years, had the effect of
stimulating industry, improving agriculture, and converting a
turbulent because unemployed population into one of the most loyal
and well-conditioned in the empire;-- the policy thus adopted with
reference to the Highlands, and the beneficial results which have
flowed from it, affording the strongest encouragement to Government
in dealing in like manner with the internal communications of
Ireland.
While the construction of the Highland roads was in progress,
the late Robert Southey, poet laureate, visited the Highlands in
company with his friend the engineer, and left on record an
interesting account of his visit, in a, manuscript now in the
possession of Robert Rawlinson, C.E., to whom we are indebted for
the extracts which are made from it in the present volume.
London, October, 1867.
EARLY ROADS AND MODES OF TRAVELLING.
CHAPTER I. OLD ROADS.
Roads have in all times been among the most influential agencies of
society; and the makers of them, by enabling men readily to
communicate with each other, have properly been regarded as among
the most effective pioneers of civilization.
Roads are literally the pathways not only of industry, but of
social and national intercourse. Wherever a line of communication
between men is formed, it renders commerce practicable; and,
wherever commerce penetrates, it creates a civilization and leaves
a history.
Roads place the city and the town in connection with the village
and the farm, open up markets for field produce, and provide
outlets for manufactures. They enable the natural resources of a
country to be developed, facilitate travelling and intercourse,
break down local jealousies, and in all ways tend to bind together
society and bring out fully that healthy spirit of industry which
is the life and soul of every nation.
The road is so necessary an instrument of social wellbeing,
that in every new colony it is one of the first things thought of.
First roads, then commerce, institutions, schools, churches,
and newspapers. The new country, as well as the old, can only be
effectually "opened up," as the common phrase is, by roads
and until these are made, it is virtually closed.
Freedom itself cannot exist without free communication,--every
limitation of movement on the part of the members of society
amounting to a positive abridgment of their personal liberty.
Hence roads, canals, and railways, by providing the greatest
possible facilities for locomotion and information, are essential
for the freedom of all classes, of the poorest as well as the
richest.
By bringing the ends of a kingdom together, they reduce the
inequalities of fortune and station, and, by equalizing the price
of commodities, to that extent they render them accessible to all.
Without their assistance, the concentrated populations of our large
towns could neither be clothed nor fed; but by their instrumentality
an immense range of country is brought as it were to their very doors,
and the sustenance and employment of large masses of people become
comparatively easy.
In the raw materials required for food, for manufactures, and for
domestic purposes, the cost of transport necessarily forms a
considerable item; and it is clear that the more this cost can be
reduced by facilities of communication, the cheaper these articles
become, and the more they are multiplied and enter into the
consumption of the community at large.
Let any one imagine what would be the effect of closing the roads,
railways, and canals of England. The country would be brought to a
dead lock, employment would be restricted in all directions, and a
large proportion of the inhabitants concentrated in the large towns
must at certain seasons inevitably perish of cold and hunger.
In the earlier periods of English history, roads were of comparatively
less consequence. While the population was thin and scattered,
and men lived by hunting and pastoral pursuits, the track across
the down, the heath, and the moor, sufficiently answered their purpose.
Yet even in those districts unencumbered with wood, where the first
settlements were made--as on the downs of Wiltshire, the moors of
Devonshire, and the wolds of Yorkshire--stone tracks were laid down
by the tribes between one village and another. We have given here,
a representation of one of those ancient trackways still existing
in the neighbourhood of Whitby, in Yorkshire;
[Image] Ancient Causeway, near Whitby.
and there are many of the same description to be met with in other
parts of England. In some districts they are called trackways or
ridgeways, being narrow causeways usually following the natural
ridge of the country, and probably serving in early times as local
boundaries. On Dartmoor they are constructed of stone blocks,
irregularly laid down on the surface of the ground, forming a rude
causeway of about five or six feet wide.
The Romans, with many other arts, first brought into England the
art of road-making. They thoroughly understood the value of good
roads, regarding them as the essential means for the maintenance
of their empire in the first instance, and of social prosperity in
the next. It was their roads, as well as their legions, that made
them masters of the world; and the pickaxe, not less than the sword,
was the ensign of their dominion. Wherever they went, they opened
up the communications of the countries they subdued, and the roads
which they made were among the best of their kind. They were
skilfully laid out and solidly constructed. For centuries after
the Romans left England, their roads continued to be the main
highways of internal communication, and their remains are to this
day to be traced in many parts of the country. Settlements were
made and towns sprang up along the old "streets;" and the numerous
Stretfords, Stratfords, and towns ending' in "le-street"
--as Ardwick-le-street, in Yorkshire, and Chester-le-street,
in Durham--mostly mark the direction of these ancient lines of road.
There are also numerous Stanfords, which were so called because they
bordered the raised military roadways of the Romans, which ran
direct between their stations.
The last-mentioned peculiarity of the roads constructed by the
Romans, must have struck many observers. Level does not seem to
have been of consequence, compared with directness. This
peculiarity is supposed to have originated in an imperfect
knowledge of mechanics; for the Romans do not appear to have been
acquainted with the moveable joint in wheeled carriages.
The carriage-body rested solid upon the axles, which in four-wheeled
vehicles were rigidly parallel with each other. Being unable
readily to turn a bend in the road, it has been concluded that for
this reason all the great Roman highways were constructed in as
straight lines as possible.
On the departure of the Romans from Britain, most of the roads
constructed by them were allowed to fall into decay, on which the
forest and the waste gradually resumed their dominion over them,
and the highways of England became about the worst in Europe.
We find, however, that numerous attempts were made in early times
to preserve the ancient ways and enable a communication to be
maintained between the metropolis and the rest of the country,
as well as between one market town and another.
The state of the highways may be inferred from the character of
the legislation applying to them. One of the first laws on the
subject was passed in 1285, directing that all bushes and trees
along the roads leading from one market to another should be cut
down for two hundred feet on either side, to prevent robbers
lurking therein;*[1] but nothing was proposed for amending the
condition of the ways themselves. In 1346, Edward III.
authorised the first toll to be levied for the repair of the
roads leading from St. Giles's-in-the-Fields to the village of
Charing (now Charing Cross), and from the same quarter to near
Temple Bar (down Drury Lane), as well as the highway then called
Perpoole (now Gray's Inn Lane). The footway at the entrance of
Temple Bar was interrupted by thickets and bushes, and in wet
weather was almost impassable. The roads further west were so
bad that when the sovereign went to Parliament faggots were
thrown into the ruts in King-street, Westminster, to enable the
royal cavalcade to pass along.
In Henry VIII.'s reign, several remarkable statutes were passed
relating to certain worn-out and impracticable roads in Sussex and
the Weald of Kent. From the earliest of these, it would appear
that when the old roads were found too deep and miry to be passed,
they were merely abandoned and new tracks struck out. After
describing "many of the wayes in the wealds as so depe and noyous
by wearyng and course of water and other occasions that people
cannot have their carriages or passages by horses uppon or by the
same but to their great paynes, perill and jeopardie," the Act
provided that owners of land might, with the consent of two
justices and twelve discreet men of the hundred, lay out new roads
and close up the old ones. Another Act passed in the same reign,
related to the repairs of bridges and of the highways at the ends
of bridges.
But as these measures were for the most part merely permissive,
they could have had but little practical effect in improving the
communications of the kingdom. In the reign of Philip and Mary
(in 1555), an Act was passed providing that each parish should elect
two surveyors of highways to see to the maintenance of their
repairs by compulsory labour, the preamble reciting that
"highwaies are now both verie noisome and tedious to travell in,
and dangerous to all passengers and cariages;" and to this day
parish and cross roads are maintained on the principle of Mary's
Act, though the compulsory labour has since been commuted into a
compulsory tax.
In the reigns of Elizabeth and James, other road Acts were passed;
but, from the statements of contemporary writers, it would appear
that they were followed by very little substantial progress, and
travelling continued to be attended with many difficulties. Even in
the neighbourhood of the metropolis, the highways were in certain
seasons scarcely passable. The great Western road into London was
especially bad, and about Knightsbridge, in winter, the traveller
had to wade through deep mud. Wyatt's men entered the city by this
approach in the rebellion of 1554, and were called the "draggle-tails"
because of their wretched plight. The ways were equally bad as far
as Windsor, which, in the reign of Elizabeth, is described by Pote,
in his history of that town, as being "not much past half a day's
journeye removed from the flourishing citie of London."
At a greater distance from the metropolis, the roads were still
worse. They were in many cases but rude tracks across heaths and
commons, as furrowed with deep ruts as ploughed fields; and in
winter to pass along one of them was like travelling in a ditch.
The attempts made by the adjoining occupiers to mend them, were for
the most part confined to throwing large stones into the bigger
holes to fill them up. It was easier to allow new tracks to be
made than to mend the old ones. The land of the country was still
mostly unenclosed, and it was possible, in fine weather, to get
from place to place, in one way or another, with the help of a
guide. In the absence of bridges, guides were necessary to point
out the safest fords as well as to pick out the least miry tracks.
The most frequented lines of road were struck out from time to time
by the drivers of pack-horses, who, to avoid the bogs and sloughs,
were usually careful to keep along the higher grounds; but, to
prevent those horsemen who departed from the beaten track being
swallowed up in quagmires, beacons were erected to warn them
against the more dangerous places.*[2]
In some of the older-settled districts of England, the old roads
are still to be traced in the hollow Ways or Lanes, which are to
be met with, in some places, eight and ten feet deep. They were
horse-tracks in summer, and rivulets in winter. By dint of
weather and travel, the earth was gradually worn into these deep
furrows, many of which, in Wilts, Somerset, and Devon, represent
the tracks of roads as old as, if not older than, the Conquest.
When the ridgeways of the earliest settlers on Dartmoor, above
alluded to, were abandoned, the tracks were formed through the
valleys, but the new roads were no better than the old ones.
They were narrow and deep, fitted only for a horse passing along
laden with its crooks, as so graphically described in the ballad
of "The Devonshire Lane."*[3]
Similar roads existed until recently in the immediate neighbourhood
of Birmingham, now the centre of an immense traffic. The sandy
soil was sawn through, as it were, by generation after generation
of human feet, and by packhorses, helped by the rains, until in
some places the tracks were as much as from twelve to fourteen
yards deep; one of these, partly filled up, retaining to this day
the name of Holloway Head. In the neighbourhood of London there
was also a Hollow way, which now gives its name to a populous
metropolitan parish. Hagbush Lane was another of such roads.
Before the formation of the Great North Road, it was one of the
principal bridle-paths leading from London to the northern parts of
England; but it was so narrow as barely to afford passage for more
than a single horseman, and so deep that the rider's head was
beneath the level of the ground on either side.
The roads of Sussex long preserved an infamous notoriety.
Chancellor Cowper, when a barrister on circuit, wrote to his wife
in 1690, that "the Sussex ways are bad and ruinous beyond
imagination. I vow 'tis melancholy consideration that mankind will
in habit such a heap of dirt for a poor livelihood. The country is
a sink of about fourteen miles broad, which receives all the water
that falls from two long ranges of hills on both sides of it,
and not being furnished with convenient draining, is kept moist
and soft by the water till the middle of a dry summer, which is only
able to make it tolerable to ride for a short time."
It was almost as difficult for old persons to get to church in
Sussex during winter as it was in the Lincoln Fens, where they were
rowed thither in boats. Fuller saw an old lady being drawn to
church in her own coach by the aid of six oxen. The Sussex roads
were indeed so bad as to pass into a by-word. A contemporary
writer says, that in travelling a slough of extraordinary miryness,
it used to be called "the Sussex bit of the road;" and he
satirically alleged that the reason why the Sussex girls were so
long-limbed was because of the tenacity of the mud in that county;
the practice of pulling the foot out of it "by the strength of the
ancle" tending to stretch the muscle and lengthen the bone!*[4]
But the roads in the immediate neighbourhood of London long
continued almost as bad as those in Sussex. Thus, when the poet
Cowley retired to Chertsey, in 1665, he wrote to his friend Sprat
to visit him, and, by way of encouragement, told him that he
might sleep the first night at Hampton town; thus occupying; two
days in the performance of a journey of twenty-two miles in the
immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis. As late as 1736 we
find Lord Hervey, writing from Kensington, complaining that
"the road between this place and London is grown so infamously bad
that we live here in the same solitude as we would do if cast on
a rock in the middle of the ocean; and all the Londoners tell us
that there is between them and us an impassable gulf of mud."
Nor was the mud any respecter of persons; for we are informed that
the carriage of Queen Caroline could not, in bad weather,
be dragged from St. James's Palace to Kensington in less than two
hours, and occasionally the royal coach stuck fast in a rut,
or was even capsized in the mud. About the same time, the streets
of London themselves were little better, the kennel being still
permitted to flow in the middle of the road, which was paved with
round stones,--flag-stones for the convenience of pedestrians
being as yet unknown. In short, the streets in the towns and the
roads in the country were alike rude and wretched,--indicating a
degree of social stagnation and discomfort which it is now
difficult to estimate, and almost impossible to describe.
Footnotes for chapter I
*[1] Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante, describes a journey made
by him from London to Oxford about the end of the thirteenth
century, resting by the way at Shirburn Castle. He says,
"Our journey from London to Oxford was, with some difficulty and
danger, made in two days; for the roads are bad, and we had to
climb hills of hazardous ascent, and which to descend are equally
perilous. We passed through many woods, considered here as
dangerous places, as they are infested with robbers, which indeed
is the case with most of the roads in England. This is a
circumstance connived at by the neighbouring barons, on
consideration of sharing in the booty, and of these robbers serving
as their protectors on all occasions, personally, and with the
whole strength of their band. However, as our company was
numerous, we had less to fear. Accordingly, we arrived the first
night at Shirburn Castle, in the neighbourhood of Watlington, under
the chain of hills over which we passed at Stokenchurch." This
passage is given in Mr. Edward's work on 'Libraries' (p. 328),
as supplied to him by Lady Macclesfield.
*[2] See Ogilby's 'Britannia Depicta,' the traveller's ordinary
guidebook between 1675 and 1717, as Bradshaw's Railway Time-book is
now. The Grand Duke Cosmo, in his 'Travels in England in 1669,'
speaks of the country between Northampton and Oxford as for the
most part unenclosed and uncultivated, abounding in weeds. From
Ogilby's fourth edition, published in 1749, it appears that the
roads in the midland and northern districts of England were still,
for the most part, entirely unenclosed.
*[3] This ballad is so descriptive of the old roads of the
south-west of England that we are tempted to quote it at length.
It was written by the Rev. John Marriott, sometime vicar of
Broadclist, Devon; and Mr. Rowe, vicar of Crediton, says, in his
'Perambulation of Dartmoor,' that he can readily imagine the
identical lane near Broadclist, leading towards Poltemore, which
might have sat for the portrait.
In a Devonshire lane, as I trotted along
T'other day, much in want of a subject for song,
Thinks I to myself, half-inspired by the rain,
Sure marriage is much like a Devonshire lane.
In the first place 'tis long, and when once you are in it,
It holds you as fast as a cage does a linnet;
For howe'er rough and dirty the road may be found,
Drive forward you must, there is no turning round.
But tho' 'tis so long, it is not very wide,
For two are the most that together can ride;
And e'en then, 'tis a chance but they get in a pother,
And jostle and cross and run foul of each other.
Oft poverty meets them with mendicant looks,
And care pushes by them with dirt-laden crooks;
And strife's grazing wheels try between them to pass,
And stubbornness blocks up the way on her ass,
Then the banks are so high, to the left hand and right,
That they shut up the beauties around them from sight;
And hence, you'll allow, 'tis an inference plain,
That marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.
But thinks I, too, these banks, within which we are pent,
With bud, blossom, and berry, are richly besprent;
And the conjugal fence, which forbids us to roam,
Looks lovely, when deck'd with the comforts of home.
In the rock's gloomy crevice the bright holly grows;
The ivy waves fresh o'er the withering rose,
And the ever-green love of a virtuous wife
Soothes the roughness of care, cheers the winter of life.
Then long be the journey, and narrow the way,
I'll rejoice that I've seldom a turnpike to pay;
And whate'er others say, be the last to complain,
Though marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.
*[4] Iter Sussexiense.' By Dr. John Burton.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY MODES OF CONVEYANCE.
Such being the ancient state of the roads, the only practicable
modes of travelling were on foot and on horseback. The poor walked
and the rich rode. Kings rode and Queens rode. Judges rode circuit
in jack-boots. Gentlemen rode and robbers rode. The Bar sometimes
walked and sometimes rode. Chaucer's ride to Canterbury will be
remembered as long as the English language lasts. Hooker rode to
London on a hard-paced nag, that he might be in time to preach his
first sermon at St. Paul's. Ladies rode on pillions, holding on by
the gentleman or the serving-man mounted before.
Shakespeare incidentally describes the ancient style of travelling
among the humbler classes in his 'Henry IV.'*[1]
The Party, afterwards set upon by Falstaff and his companions,
bound from Rochester to London, were up by two in the morning,
expecting to perform the journey of thirty miles by close of day,
and to get to town "in time to go to bed with a candle." Two are
carriers, one of whom has "a gammon of bacon and two razes of
ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross;" the other has his
panniers full of turkeys. There is also a franklin of Kent,
and another, "a kind of auditor," probably a tax-collector,
with several more, forming in all a company of eight or ten, who
travel together for mutual protection. Their robbery on Gad's Hill,
as painted by Shakespeare, is but a picture, by no means exaggerated,
of the adventures and dangers of the road at the time of which he
wrote.
Distinguished personages sometimes rode in horse-litters; but
riding on horseback was generally preferred. Queen Elizabeth made
most of her journeys in this way,*[2] and when she went into the
City she rode on a pillion behind her Lord Chancellor. The Queen,
however, was at length provided with a coach, which must have been
a very remarkable machine. This royal vehicle is said to have been
one of the first coaches used in England, and it was introduced by
the Queen's own coachman, one Boomen, a Dutchman. It was little
better than a cart without springs, the body resting solid upon the
axles. Taking the bad roads and ill-paved streets into account,
it must have been an excessively painful means of conveyance.
At one of the first audiences which the Queen gave to the French
ambassador in 1568, she feelingly described to him "the aching
pains she was suffering in consequence of having been knocked about
in a coach which had been driven a little too fast, only a few days
before."*[3]
Such coaches were at first only used on state occasions.
The roads, even in the immediate neighbourhood of London, were so
bad and so narrow that the vehicles could not be taken into the
country. But, as the roads became improved, the fashion of using
them spread. When the aristocracy removed from the City to the
western parts of the metropolis, they could be better accommodated,
and in course of time they became gradually adopted. They were
still, however, neither more nor less than waggons, and, indeed,
were called by that name; but wherever they went they excited great
wonder. It is related of "that valyant knyght Sir Harry Sidney,"
that on a certain day in the year 1583 he entered Shrewsbury in his
waggon, "with his Trompeter blowynge, verey joyfull to behold and
see."*[4]
From this time the use of coaches gradually spread, more
particularly amongst the nobility, superseding the horse-litters
which had till then been used for the conveyance of ladies and
others unable to bear the fatigue of riding on horseback.
The first carriages were heavy and lumbering: and upon the execrable
roads of the time they went pitching over the stones and into the
ruts, with the pole dipping and rising like a ship in a rolling sea.
That they had no springs, is clear enough from the statement of
Taylor, the water-poet--who deplored the introduction of carriages
as a national calamity--that in the paved streets of London men and
women were "tossed, tumbled, rumbled, and jumbled about in them."
Although the road from London to Dover, along the old Roman
Watling-street, was then one of the best in England, the French
household of Queen Henrietta, when they were sent forth from
the palace of Charles I., occupied four tedious days before they
reached Dover.
But it was only a few of the main roads leading from the metropolis
that were practicable for coaches; and on the occasion of a royal
progress, or the visit of a lord-lieutenant, there was a general
turn out of labourers and masons to mend the ways and render the
bridges at least temporarily secure. Of one of Queen Elizabeth's
journeys it is said:-- "It was marvellous for ease and expedition,
for such is the perfect evenness of the new highway that Her
Majesty left the coach only once, while the hinds and the folk of a
base sort lifted it on with their poles."
Sussex long continued impracticable for coach travelling at certain
seasons. As late as 1708, Prince George of Denmark had the
greatest difficulty in making his way to Petworth to meet Charles VI.
of Spain. "The last nine miles of the way," says the reporter,
"cost us six hours to conquer them." One of the couriers in
attendance complained that during fourteen hours he never once
alighted, except when the coach overturned, or stuck in the mud.
When the judges, usually old men and bad riders, took to going the
circuit in their coaches, juries were often kept waiting until
their lordships could be dug out of a bog or hauled out of a slough
by the aid of plough-horses. In the seventeenth century, scarcely
a Quarter Session passed without presentments from the grand jury
against certain districts on account of the bad state of the roads,
and many were the fines which the judges imposed upon them as a
set-off against their bruises and other damages while on circuit.
For a long time the roads continued barely practicable for wheeled
vehicles of the rudest sort, though Fynes Morison (writing in the
time of James I.) gives an account of "carryers, who have long
covered waggons, in which they carry passengers from place to
place; but this kind of journeying," he says, "is so tedious, by
reason they must take waggon very early and come very late to their
innes, that none but women and people of inferior condition travel
in this sort."
[Image] The Old Stage Waggon.
The waggons of which Morison wrote, made only from ten to fifteen
miles in a long summer's day; that is, supposing them not to have
broken down by pitching over the boulders laid along the road, or
stuck fast in a quagmire, when they had to wait for the arrival of
the next team of horses to help to drag them out. The waggon,
however, continued to be adopted as a popular mode of travelling
until late in the eighteenth century; and Hogarth's picture
illustrating the practice will be remembered, of the cassocked
parson on his lean horse, attending his daughter newly alighted
from the York waggon.
A curious description of the state of the Great North Road, in the
time of Charles II., is to be found in a tract published in 1675 by
Thomas Mace, one of the clerks of Trinity College, Cambridge. The
writer there addressed himself to the King, partly in prose and
partly in verse; complaining greatly of the "wayes, which are so
grossly foul and bad;" and suggesting various remedies. He pointed
out that much ground "is now spoiled and trampled down in all wide
roads, where coaches and carts take liberty to pick and chuse for
their best advantages; besides, such sprawling and straggling of
coaches and carts utterly confound the road in all wide places, so
that it is not only unpleasurable, but extreme perplexin and
cumbersome both to themselves and all horse travellers." It would
thus appear that the country on either side of the road was as yet
entirely unenclosed.
But Mace's principal complaint was of the "innumerable
controversies, quarrellings, and disturbances" caused by the
packhorse-men, in their struggles as to which convoy should pass
along the cleaner parts of the road. From what he states, it would
seem that these "disturbances, daily committed by uncivil,
refractory, and rude Russian-like rake-shames, in contesting for
the way, too often proved mortal, and certainly were of very bad
consequences to many." He recommended a quick and prompt punishment
in all such cases. "No man," said he, "should be pestered by
giving the way (sometimes) to hundreds of pack-horses, panniers,
whifflers (i.e. paltry fellows), coaches, waggons, wains, carts,
or whatsoever others, which continually are very grievous to weary
and loaden travellers; but more especially near the city and upon a
market day, when, a man having travelled a long and tedious
journey, his horse well nigh spent, shall sometimes be compelled to
cross out of his way twenty times in one mile's riding, by the
irregularity and peevish crossness of such-like whifflers and
market women; yea, although their panniers be clearly empty, they
will stoutly contend for the way with weary travellers, be they
never so many, or almost of what quality soever." "Nay," said he
further, "I have often known many travellers, and myself very
often, to have been necessitated to stand stock still behind a
standing cart or waggon, on most beastly and unsufferable deep wet
wayes, to the great endangering of our horses, and neglect of
important business: nor durst we adventure to stirr (for most
imminent danger of those deep rutts, and unreasonable ridges) till
it has pleased Mister Garter to jog on, which we have taken very
kindly."
Mr. Mace's plan of road reform was not extravagant. He mainly
urged that only two good tracks should be maintained, and the road
be not allowed to spread out into as many as half-a-dozen very bad
ones, presenting high ridges and deep ruts, full of big stones,
and many quagmires. Breaking out into verse, he said --
"First let the wayes be regularly brought
To artificial form, and truly wrought;
So that we can suppose them firmly mended,
And in all parts the work well ended,
That not a stone's amiss; but all compleat,
All lying smooth, round, firm, and wondrous neat."
After a good deal more in the same strain, he concluded--
"There's only one thing yet worth thinking on
which is, to put this work in execution."*[5]
But we shall find that more than a hundred years passed before the
roads throughout England were placed in a more satisfactory state
than they were in the time of Mr. Mace.
The introduction of stage-coaches about the middle of the
seventeenth century formed a new era in the history of travelling
by road. At first they were only a better sort of waggon, and
confined to the more practicable highways near London. Their pace
did not exceed four miles an hour, and the jolting of the
unfortunate passengers conveyed in them must have been very hard to
bear. It used to be said of their drivers that they were "seldom
sober, never Civil, and always late."
The first mention of coaches for public accommodation is made by
Sir William Dugdale in his Diary, from which it appears that a
Coventry coach was on the road in 1659. But probably the first
coaches, or rather waggons, were run between London and Dover, as
one of the most practicable routes for the purpose. M. Sobriere,
a French man of letters, who landed at Dover on his way to London
in the time of Charles II., alludes to the existence of a
stagecoach, but it seems to have had no charms for him, as the
following passage will show: "That I might not," he says,
"take post or be obliged to use the stage-coach, I went from Dover
to London in a waggon. I was drawn by six horses, one before another,
and driven by a waggoner, who walked by the side of it. He was
clothed in black, and appointed in all things like another St. George.
He had a brave montrero on his head and was a merry fellow, fancied
he made a figure, and seemed mightily pleased with himself."
Shortly after, coaches seem to have been running as far north as
Preston in Lancashire, as appears by a letter from one Edward
Parker to his father, dated November, 1663, in which he says,
"I got to London on Saturday last; but my journey was noe ways
pleasant, being forced to ride in the boote all the waye.
Ye company yt came up with mee were persons of greate quality,
as knights and ladyes. My journey's expense was 30s. This traval
hath soe indisposed mee, yt I am resolved never to ride up againe
in ye coatch."*[6]
These vehicles must, however, have considerably increased, as we
find a popular agitation was got up against them. The Londoners
nicknamed them "hell-carts;" pamphlets were written recommending
their abolition; and attempts were even made to have them
suppressed by Act of Parliament.
Thoresby occasionally alludes to stage-coaches in his Diary,
speaking of one that ran between Hull and York in 1679, from which
latter place he had to proceed by Leeds in the usual way on
horseback. This Hull vehicle did not run in winter, because of the
state of the roads; stagecoaches being usually laid up in that
season like ships during Arctic frosts.*[7]
Afterwards, when a coach was put on between York and Leeds, it
performed the journey of twenty-four miles in eight hours;*[8]
but the road was so bad and dangerous that the travellers were
accustomed to get out and walk the greater part of the way.
Thoresby often waxes eloquent upon the subject of his manifold
deliverances from the dangers of travelling by coach. He was
especially thankful when he had passed the ferry over the Trent in
journeying between Leeds and London, having on several occasions
narrowly escaped drowning there. Once, on his journey to London,
some showers fell, which "raised the washes upon the road near Ware
to that height that passengers from London that were upon that road
swam, and a poor higgler was drowned, which prevented me travelling
for many hours; yet towards evening we adventured with some country
people, who conducted us over the meadows, whereby we missed the
deepest of the Wash at Cheshunt, though we rode to the
saddle-skirts for a considerable way, but got safe to Waltham
Cross, where we lodged."*[9] On another occasion Thoresby was
detained four days at Stamford by the state of the roads, and was
only extricated from his position by a company of fourteen members
of the House of Commons travelling towards London, who took him
into their convoy, and set out on their way southward attended by
competent guides. When the "waters were out," as the saying went,
the country became closed, the roads being simply impassable.
During the Civil Wars eight hundred horse were taken prisoners
while sticking in the mud.*[10] When rain fell, pedestrians,
horsemen, and coaches alike came to a standstill until the roads
dried again and enabled the wayfarers to proceed. Thus we read of
two travellers stopped by the rains within a few miles of Oxford,
who found it impossible to accomplish their journey in consequence
of the waters that covered the country thereabout.
A curious account has been preserved of the journey of an Irish
Viceroy across North Wales towards Dublin in 1685. The roads were
so horrible that instead of the Viceroy being borne along in his
coach, the coach itself had to be borne after him the greater part
of the way. He was five hours in travelling between St. Asaph and
Conway, a distance of only fourteen miles. Between Conway and
Beaumaris he was forced to walk, while his wife was borne along in
a litter. The carriages were usually taken to pieces at Conway and
carried on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants to be embarked at
the Straits of Menai.
The introduction of stage-coaches, like every other public
improvement, was at first regarded with prejudice, and had
considerable obloquy to encounter. In a curious book published in
1673, entitled 'The Grand Concern of England Explained in several
Proposals to Parliament,'*[11] stagecoaches and caravans were
denounced as among the greatest evils that had happened to the
kingdom, Being alike mischievous to the public, destructive to
trade, and prejudicial to the landed interest. It was alleged that
travelling by coach was calculated to destroy the breed of horses,
and make men careless of good horsemanship,--that it hindered the
training of watermen and seamen, and interfered with the public
resources. The reasons given are curious. It was said that those
who were accustomed to travel in coaches became weary and listless
when they rode a few miles, and were unwilling to get on horseback
--"not being able to endure frost, snow, or rain, or to lodge in
the fields;" that to save their clothes and keep themselves clean
and dry, people rode in coaches, and thus contracted an idle habit
of body; that this was ruinous to trade, for that "most gentlemen,
before they travelled in coaches, used to ride with swords, belts,
pistols, holsters, portmanteaus, and hat-cases, which, in these
coaches, they have little or no occasion for: for, when they rode
on horseback, they rode in one suit and carried another to wear
when they camp to their journey's end, or lay by the way; but in
coaches a silk suit and an Indian gown, with a sash, silk
stockings, and beaver-hats, men ride in, and carry no other with
them, because they escape the wet and dirt, which on horseback they
cannot avoid; whereas, in two or three journeys on horseback, these
clothes and hats were wont to be spoiled; which done, they were
forced to have new very often, and that increased the consumption
of the manufactures and the employment of the manufacturers; which
travelling in coaches doth in no way do."*[12] The writer of the
same protest against coaches gives some idea of the extent of
travelling by them in those days; for to show the gigantic nature
of the evil he was contending against, he averred that between
London and the three principal towns of York, Chester, and Exeter,
not fewer than eighteen persons, making the journey in five days,
travelled by them weekly the coaches running thrice in the week),
and a like number back; "which come, in the whole, to eighteen
hundred and seventy-two in the year." Another great nuisance,
the writer alleged, which flowed from the establishment of the
stage-coaches, was, that not only did the gentlemen from the
country come to London in them oftener than they need, but their
ladies either came with them or quickly followed them. "And when
they are there they must be in the mode, have all the new fashions,
buy all their clothes there, and go to plays, balls, and treats,
where they get such a habit of jollity and a love to gaiety and
pleasure, that nothing afterwards in the country will serve them ,
if ever they should fix their minds to live there again; but they
must have all from London, whatever it costs."
Then there were the grievous discomforts of stage-coach travelling,
to be set against the more noble method of travelling by horseback,
as of yore. "What advantage is it to men's health," says the
writer, waxing wroth, "to be called out of their beds into these
coaches, an hour before day in the morning; to be hurried in them
from place to place, till one hour, two, or three within night;
insomuch that, after sitting all day in the summer-time stifled
with heat and choked with dust, or in the winter-time starving and
freezing with cold or choked with filthy fogs, they are often
brought into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit
up to get a supper; and next morning they are forced into the coach
so early that they can get no breakfast? What addition is this to
men's health or business to ride all day with strangers, oftentimes
sick, antient, diseased persons, or young children crying; to whose
humours they are obliged to be subject, forced to bear with, and
many times are poisoned with their nasty scents and crippled by the
crowd of boxes and bundles? Is it for a man's health to travel with
tired jades, to be laid fast in the foul ways and forced to wade up
to the knees in mire; afterwards sit in the cold till teams of
horses can be sent to pull the coach out? Is it for their health to
travel in rotten coaches and to have their tackle, perch, or
axle-tree broken, and then to wait three or four hours (sometimes
half a day) to have them mended, and then to travel all night to
make good their stage? Is it for a man's pleasure, or advantageous
to his health and business, to travel with a mixed company that he
knows not how to converse with; to be affronted by the rudeness of
a surly, dogged, cursing, ill-natured coachman; necessitated to
lodge or bait at the worst inn on the road, where there is no
accommodation fit for gentlemen; and this merely because the owners
of the inns and the coachmen are agreed together to cheat the
guests?" Hence the writer loudly called for the immediate
suppression of stagecoaches as a great nuisance and crying evil.
Travelling by coach was in early times a very deliberate affair.
Time was of less consequence than safety, and coaches were
advertised to start "God willing," and "about" such and such an
hour "as shall seem good" to the majority of the passengers.
The difference of a day in the journey from London to York was a
small matter, and Thoresby was even accustomed to leave the coach
and go in search of fossil shells in the fields on either side the
road while making the journey between the two places. The long coach
"put up" at sun-down, and "slept on the road." Whether the coach
was to proceed or to stop at some favourite inn, was determined by
the vote of the passengers, who usually appointed a chairman at the
beginning of the journey.
In 1700, York was a week distant from London, and Tunbridge Wells,
now reached in an hour, was two days. Salisbury and Oxford were
also each a two days journey, Dover was three days, and Exeter
five. The Fly coach from London to Exeter slept at the latter place
the fifth night from town; the coach proceeding next morning to
Axminster, where it breakfasted, and there a woman Barber "shaved
the coach."*[13]
Between London and Edinburgh, as late as 1763, a fortnight was
consumed, the coach only starting once a month.*[14] The risk of
breaks-down in driving over the execrable roads may be inferred
from the circumstance that every coach carried with it a box of
carpenter's tools, and the hatchets were occasionally used in
lopping off the branches of trees overhanging the road and
obstructing the travellers' progress.
Some fastidious persons, disliking the slow travelling, as well as
the promiscuous company which they ran the risk of encountering in
the stage, were accustomed to advertise for partners in a postchaise,
to share the charges and lessen the dangers of the road; and,
indeed, to a sensitive person anything must have been preferable to
the misery of travelling by the Canterbury stage, as thus described
by a contemporary writer:--
"On both sides squeez'd, how highly was I blest,
Between two plump old women to be presst!
A corp'ral fierce, a nurse, a child that cry'd,
And a fat landlord, filled the other side.
Scarce dawns the morning ere the cumbrous load
Boils roughly rumbling o'er the rugged road:
One old wife coughs and wheezes in my ears,
Loud scolds the other, and the soldier swears;
Sour unconcocted breath escapes 'mine host,'
The sick'ning child returns his milk and toast!"
When Samuel Johnson was taken by his mother to London in 1712, to
have him touched by Queen Anne for "the evil," he relates,--
"We went in the stage-coach and returned in the waggon, as my mother
said, because my cough was violent; but the hope of saving a few
shillings was no slight motive.... She sewed two guineas in her
petticoat lest she should be robbed.... We were troublesome to the
passengers; but to suffer such inconveniences in the stage-coach
was common in those days to parsons in much higher rank."
Mr. Pennant has left us the following account of his journey in
the Chester stage to London in 1789-40: "The first day," says he,
"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.
We were constantly out two hours before day, and as late at night,
and in the depth of winter proportionally later. The single
gentlemen, then a hardy race, equipped in jackboots and trowsers,
up to their middle, rode post through thick and thin, and, guarded
against the mire, defied the frequent stumble and fall, arose and
pursued their journey with alacrity; while, in these days, their
enervated posterity sleep away their rapid journeys in easy
chaises, fitted for the conveyance of the soft inhabitants of
Sybaris."
No wonder, therefore, that a great deal of the travelling of the
country continued to be performed on horseback, this being by far
the pleasantest as well as most expeditious mode of journeying.
On his marriage-day, Dr. Johnson rode from Birmingham to Derby with
his Tetty, taking the opportunity of the journey to give his bride
her first lesson in marital discipline. At a later period James
Watt rode from Glasgow to London, when proceeding thither to learn
the art of mathematical instrument making.
And it was a cheap and pleasant method of travelling when the
weather was fine. The usual practice was, to buy a horse at the
beginning of such a journey, and to sell the animal at the end of
it. Dr. Skene, of Aberdeen, travelled from London to Edinburgh in
1753, being nineteen days on the road, the whole expenses of the
journey amounting to only four guineas. The mare on which he rode,
cost him eight guineas in London, and he sold her for the same
price on his arrival in Edinburgh.
Nearly all the commercial gentlemen rode their own horses, carrying
their samples and luggage in two bags at the saddle-bow; and hence
their appellation of Riders or Bagmen. For safety's sake, they
usually journeyed in company; for the dangers of travelling were
not confined merely to the ruggedness of the roads. The highways
were infested by troops of robbers and vagabonds who lived by
plunder. Turpin and Bradshaw beset the Great North Road; Duval,
Macheath, Maclean, and hundreds of notorious highwaymen infested
Hounslow Heath, Finchley Common, Shooter's Hill, and all the
approaches to the metropolis. A very common sight then, was a
gibbet erected by the roadside, with the skeleton of some
malefactor hanging from it in chains; and " Hangman's-lanes" were
especially numerous in the neighbourhood of London.*[15] It was
considered most unsafe to travel after dark, and when the first
"night coach" was started, the risk was thought too great, and it
was not patronised.
[Image] The Night Coach
Travellers armed themselves on setting out upon a journey as if
they were going to battle, and a blunderbuss was considered as
indispensable for a coachman as a whip. Dorsetshire and Hampshire,
like most other counties, were beset with gangs of highwaymen; and
when the Grand Duke Cosmo set out from Dorchester to travel to
London in 1669, he was "convoyed by a great many horse-soldiers
belonging to the militia of the county, to secure him from
robbers."*[16]
Thoresby, in his Diary, alludes with awe to his having passed
safely "the great common where Sir Ralph Wharton slew the
highwayman," and he also makes special mention of Stonegate Hole,
"a notorious robbing place" near Grantham. Like every other
traveller, that good man carried loaded pistols in his bags, and on
one occasion he was thrown into great consternation near Topcliffe,
in Yorkshire, on missing them, believing that they had been
abstracted by some designing rogues at the inn where he had last
slept.*[17] No wonder that, before setting out on a journey in
those days, men were accustomed to make their wills.
When Mrs. Calderwood, of Coltness, travelled from Edinburgh to
London in 1756, she relates in her Diary that she travelled in her
own postchaise, attended by John Rattray, her stout serving man, on
horseback, with pistols at his holsters, and a good broad sword by
his side. The lady had also with her in the carriage a case of
pistols, for use upon an emergency. Robberies were then of
frequent occurrence in the neighbourhood of Bawtry, in Yorkshire;
and one day a suspicious-looking character, whom they took to be a
highwayman, made his appearance; but "John Rattray talking about
powder and ball to the postboy, and showing his whanger, the fellow
made off" Mrs. Calderwood started from Edinburgh on the 3rd of
June, when the roads were dry and the weather was fine, and she
reached London on the evening of the 10th, which was considered a
rapid journey in those days.
The danger, however, from footpads and highwaymen was not greatest
in remote country places, but in and about the metropolis itself.
The proprietors of Bellsize House and gardens, in the
Hampstead-road, then one of the principal places of amusement, had
the way to London patrolled during the season by twelve "lusty
fellows;" and Sadler's Wells, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh advertised
similar advantages. Foot passengers proceeding towards Kensington
and Paddington in the evening, would wait until a sufficiently
numerous band had collected to set footpads at defiance, and then
they started in company at known intervals, of which a bell gave
due warning. Carriages were stopped in broad daylight in Hyde
Park, and even in Piccadilly itself, and pistols presented at the
breasts of fashionable people, who were called upon to deliver up
their purses. Horace Walpole relates a number of curious instances
of this sort, he himself having been robbed in broad day, with Lord
Eglinton, Sir Thomas Robinson, Lady Albemarle, and many more.
A curious robbery of the Portsmouth mail, in 1757, illustrates the
imperfect postal communication of the period. The boy who carried
the post had dismounted at Hammersmith, about three miles from Hyde
Park Corner, and called for beer, when some thieves took the
opportunity of cutting the mail-bag from off the horse's crupper
and got away undiscovered!
The means adopted for the transport of merchandise were as tedious
and difficult as those ordinarily employed for the conveyance of
passengers. Corn and wool were sent to market on horses'
backs,*[18] manure was carried to the fields in panniers, and fuel
was conveyed from the moss or the forest in the same way. During
the winter months, the markets were inaccessible; and while in some
localities the supplies of food were distressingly deficient, in
others the superabundance actually rotted from the impossibility
of consuming it or of transporting it to places where it was
needed. The little coal used in the southern counties was
principally sea-borne, though pack-horses occasionally carried coal
inland for the supply of the blacksmiths' forges. When Wollaton
Hall was built by John of Padua for Sir Francis Willoughby in 1580,
the stone was all brought on horses' backs from Ancaster, in
Lincolnshire, thirty-five miles distant, and they loaded back with
coal, which was taken in exchange for the stone.
[Image] The Pack-horse Convoy
The little trade which existed between one part of the kingdom and
another was carried on by means of packhorses, along roads little
better than bridle-paths. These horses travelled in lines, with
the bales or panniers strapped across their backs. The foremost
horse bore a bell or a collar of bells, and was hence called the
"bell-horse." He was selected because of his sagacity; and by the
tinkling of the bells he carried, the movements of his followers
were regulated. The bells also gave notice of the approach of the
convoy to those who might be advancing from the opposite direction.
This was a matter of some importance, as in many parts of the path
there was not room for two loaded horses to pass each other, and
quarrels and fights between the drivers of the pack-horse trains
were frequent as to which of the meeting convoys was to pass down
into the dirt and allow the other to pass along the bridleway. The
pack-horses not only carried merchandise but passengers, and at
certain times scholars proceeding to and from Oxford and Cambridge.
When Smollett went from Glasgow to London, he travelled partly on
pack-horse, partly by waggon, and partly on foot; and the
adventures which he described as having befallen Roderick Random
are supposed to have been drawn in a great measure from his own
experiences during; the journey.
A cross-country merchandise traffic gradually sprang up between the
northern counties, since become pre-eminently the manufacturing
districts of England; and long lines of pack-horses laden with
bales of wool and cotton traversed the hill ranges which divide
Yorkshire from Lancashire. Whitaker says that as late as 1753 the
roads near Leeds consisted of a narrow hollow way little wider than
a ditch, barely allowing of the passage of a vehicle drawn in a
single line; this deep narrow road being flanked by an elevated
causeway covered with flags or boulder stones. When travellers
encountered each other on this narrow track, they often tried to
wear out each other's patience rather than descend into the dirt
alongside. The raw wool and bale goods of the district were nearly
all carried along these flagged ways on the backs of single horses;
and it is difficult to imagine the delay, the toil, and the perils
by which the conduct of the traffic was attended. On horseback
before daybreak and long after nightfall, these hardy sons of trade
pursued their object with the spirit and intrepidity of foxhunters;
and the boldest of their country neighbours had no reason to
despise either their horsemanship or their courage.*[19]
The Manchester trade was carried on in the same way. The chapmen
used to keep gangs of pack-horses, which accompanied them to all the
principal towns, bearing their goods in packs, which they sold to
their customers, bringing back sheep's wool and other raw materials
of manufacture.
The only records of this long-superseded mode of communication are
now to be traced on the signboards of wayside public-houses.
Many of the old roads still exist in Yorkshire and Lancashire; but
all that remains of the former traffic is the pack-horse still
painted on village sign-boards -- things as retentive of odd bygone
facts as the picture-writing of the ancient Mexicans.*[20]
Footnotes for Chapter II.
*[1] King Henry the Fourth (Part I.), Act II. Scene 1.
*[2] Part of the riding road along which the Queen was accustomed
to pass on horseback between her palaces at Greenwich and Eltham is
still in existence, a little to the south of Morden College,
Blackheath. It winds irregularly through the fields, broad in some
places, and narrow in others. Probably it is very little different
from what it was when used as a royal road. It is now very
appropriately termed "Muddy Lane."
*[3] 'Depeches de La Mothe Fenelon,' 8vo., 1858. Vol. i. p. 27.
*[4] Nichols's ' Progresses,' vol. ii., 309.
*[5] The title of Mace's tract (British Museum) is "The Profit,
Conveniency, and Pleasure for the whole nation: being a short
rational Discourse lately presented to his Majesty concerning the
Highways of England: their badness, the causes thereof, the reasons
of these causes, the impossibility of ever having them well mended
according to the old way of mending: but may most certainly be
done, and for ever so maintained (according to this NEW WAY)
substantially and with very much ease, &c., &c. Printed for the
public good in the year 1675."
*[6] See Archaelogia, xx., pp. 443-76.
*[7] "4th May, 1714. Morning: we dined at Grantham, had the annual
solemnity (this being the first time the coach passed the road in
May), and the coachman and horses being decked with ribbons and
flowers, the town music and young people in couples before us; we
lodged at Stamford, a scurvy, dear town. 5th May: had other
passengers, which, though females, were more chargeable with wine
and brandy than the former part of the journey, wherein we had
neither; but the next day we gave them leave to treat themselves."
--Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 207.
*[8] "May 22, 1708. At York. Rose between three and four, the
coach being hasted by Captain Crome (whose company we had) upon the
Queen's business, that we got to Leeds by noon; blessed be God for
mercies to me and my poor family."--Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. ii., 7.
*[9] Thoresby's 'Diary,' vol. i.,295.
*[10] Waylen's 'Marlborough.'
*[11] Reprinted in the 'Harleian Miscellany,' vol. viii., p. 547.
supposed to have been written by one John Gressot, of the
Charterhouse.
*[12] There were other publications of the time as absurd (viewed
by the light of the present day) as Gressot's. Thus, "A Country
Tradesman," addressing the public in 1678, in a pamphlet entitled
'The Ancient Trades decayed, repaired again,--wherein are
declared the several abuses that have utterly impaired all the
ancient trades in the Kingdom,' urges that the chief cause of the
evil had been the setting up of Stage-coaches some twenty years
before. Besides the reasons for suppressing; them set forth in the
treatise referred to in the text, he says, "Were it not' for them
(the Stage-coaches), there would be more Wine, Beer, and Ale, drunk
in the Inns than is now, which would be a means to augment the
King's Custom and Excise. Furthermore they hinder the breed of
horses in this kingdom [the same argument was used against Railways],
because many would be necessitated to keep a good horse that keeps
none now. Seeing, then, that there are few that are gainers by them,
and that they are against the common and general good of the
Nation, and are only a conveniency to some that have occasion to go
to London, who might still have the same wages as before these
coaches were in use, therefore there is good reason they should be
suppressed. Not but that it may be lawful to hire a coach upon
occasion, but that it should be unlawful only to keep a coach that
should go long journeys constantly, from one stage or place to
another, upon certain days of the week as they do now"-- p. 27.
*[13] Roberts's 'Social History of the Southern Counties,' p. 494.
Little more than a century ago, we find the following advertisement
of a Newcastle flying coach:-- "May 9, 1734.--A coach will set out
towards the end of next week for London, or any place on the road.
To be performed in nine days,--being three days sooner than any
other coach that travels the road; for which purpose eight stout
horses are stationed at proper distances."
*[14] In 1710 a Manchester manufacturer taking his family up to
London, hired a coach for the whole way, which, in the then state
of the roads, must have made it a journey of probably eight or ten
days. And, in 1742, the system of travelling had so little
improved, that a lady, wanting to come with her niece from
Worcester to Manchester, wrote to a friend in the latter place to
send her a hired coach, because the man knew the road, having
brought from thence a family some time before."--Aikin's 'Manchester.'
*[15] Lord Campbell mentions the remarkable circumstance that
Popham, afterwards Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Elizabeth,
took to the road in early life, and robbed travellers on Gad's
Hill. Highway robbery could not, however, have been considered a
very ignominious pursuit at that time, as during Popham's youth a
statute was made by which, on a first conviction for robbery, a
peer of the realm or lord of parliament was entitled to have
benefit of clergy, "though he cannot read!" What is still more
extraordinary is, that Popham is supposed to have continued in his
course as 'a highwayman even after he was called to the Bar.
This seems to have been quite notorious, for when he was made Serjeant
the wags reported that he served up some wine destined for an
Alderman of London, which he had intercepted on its way from
Southampton.--Aubrey, iii., 492.--Campbell's 'Chief Justices,' i.,
210.
*[16] Travels of Cosmo the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany,' p. 147.
*[17] "It is as common a custom, as a cunning policie in thieves,
to place chamberlains in such great inns where cloathiers and
graziers do lye; and by their large bribes to infect others, who
were not of their own preferring; who noting your purses when you
draw them, they'l gripe your cloak-bags, and feel the weight, and
so inform the master thieves of what they think, and not those
alone, but the Host himself is oft as base as they, if it be left
in charge with them all night; he to his roaring guests either
gives item, or shews the purse itself, who spend liberally, in hope
of a speedie recruit." See 'A Brief yet Notable Discovery of
Housebreakers,' &c., 1659. See also 'Street Robberies Considered;
a Warning for Housekeepers,' 1676; 'Hanging not Punishment Enough,'
1701; &c.
*[18] The food of London was then principally brought to town in
panniers. The population being comparatively small, the feeding of
London was still practicable in this way; besides, the city always
possessed the great advantage of the Thames, which secured a supply
of food by sea. In 'The Grand Concern of England Explained,' it is
stated that the hay, straw, beans, peas, and oats, used in London,
were principally raised within a circuit of twenty miles of the
metropolis; but large quantities were also brought from
Henley-on-thames and other western parts, as well as from below
Gravesend, by water; and many ships laden with beans came from
Hull, and with oats from Lynn and Boston.
*[19] 'Loides and Elmete, by T.D. Whitaker, LL.D., 1816, p. 81.
Notwithstanding its dangers, Dr. Whitaker seems to have been of
opinion that the old mode of travelling was even safer than that
which immediately followed it; "Under the old state of roads and
manners," he says, "it was impossible that more than one death
could happen at once; what, by any possibility, could take place
analogous to a race betwixt two stage-coaches, in which the lives
of thirty or forty distressed and helpless individuals are at the
mercy of two intoxicated brutes?"
*[20] In the curious collection of old coins at the Guildhall there
are several halfpenny tokens issued by the proprietors of inns
bearing the sign of the pack-horse, Some of these would indicate
that packhorses were kept for hire. We append a couple of
illustrations of these curious old coins.
[Image]
CHAPTER III.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS INFLUENCED BY THE STATE OF THE ROADS.
While the road communications of the country remained thus imperfect,
the people of one part of England knew next to nothing of the other.
When a shower of rain had the effect of rendering the highways
impassable, even horsemen were cautious in venturing far from home.
But only a very limited number of persons could then afford to
travel on horseback. The labouring people journeyed on foot,
while the middle class used the waggon or the coach. But the amount
of intercourse between the people of different districts
--then exceedingly limited at all times--was, in a country so wet
as England, necessarily suspended for all classes during the greater
part of the year.
The imperfect communication existing between districts had the
effect of perpetuating numerous local dialects, local prejudices,
and local customs, which survive to a certain extent to this day;
though they are rapidly disappearing, to the regret of many, under
the influence of improved facilities for travelling. Every village
had its witches, sometimes of different sorts, and there was
scarcely an old house but had its white lady or moaning old man
with a long beard. There were ghosts in the fens which walked on
stilts, while the sprites of the hill country rode on flashes of
fire. But the village witches and local ghosts have long since
disappeared, excepting perhaps in a few of the less penetrable
districts, where they may still survive. It is curious to find
that down even to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the
inhabitants of the southern districts of the island regarded those
of the north as a kind of ogres. Lancashire was supposed to be
almost impenetrable-- as indeed it was to a considerable
extent,--and inhabited by a half-savage race. Camden vaguely
described it, previous to his visit in 1607, as that part of the
country " lying beyond the mountains towards the Western Ocean."
He acknowledged that he approached the Lancashire people "with a
kind of dread," but determined at length "to run the hazard of the
attempt," trusting in the Divine assistance. Camden was exposed to
still greater risks in his survey of Cumberland. When he went into
that county for the purpose of exploring the remains of antiquity
it contained for the purposes of his great work, he travelled along
the line of the Roman Wall as far as Thirlwall castle, near
Haltwhistle; but there the limits of civilization and security
ended; for such was the wildness of the country and of its lawless
inhabitants beyond, that he was obliged to desist from his
pilgrimage, and leave the most important and interesting objects of
his journey unexplored.
About a century later, in 1700, the Rev. Mr. Brome, rector of
Cheriton in Kent, entered upon a series of travels in England as if
it had been a newly-discovered country. He set out in spring so
soon as the roads had become passable. His friends convoyed him on
the first stage of his journey, and left him, commending him to the
Divine protection. He was, however, careful to employ guides to
conduct him from one place to another, and in the course of his
three years' travels he saw many new and wonderful things. He was
under the necessity of suspending his travels when the winter or
wet weather set in, and to lay up, like an arctic voyager, for
several months, until the spring came round again. Mr. Brome
passed through Northumberland into Scotland, then down the western
side of the island towards Devonshire, where he found the farmers
gathering in their corn on horse-back, the roads being so narrow
that it was impossible for them to use waggons. He desired to
travel into Cornwall, the boundaries of which he reached, but was
prevented proceeding farther by the rains, and accordingly he made
the best of his way home.*[1] The vicar of Cheriton was considered
a wonderful man in his day,-- almost as as venturous as we should
now regard a traveller in Arabia. Twenty miles of slough, or an
unbridged river between two parishes, were greater impediments to
intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean now is between England and
America. Considerable towns situated in the same county, were then
more widely separated, for practical purposes, than London and
Glasgow are at the present day. There were many districts which
travellers never visited, and where the appearance of a stranger
produced as great an excitement as the arrival of a white man in an
African village.*[2]
The author of 'Adam Bede' has given us a poet's picture of the
leisure of last century, which has "gone where the spinning-wheels
are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the
pedlars who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. "Old
Leisure" lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and
homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree walls, and
scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning
sunshine, or sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon,
when the summer pears were falling." But this picture has also its
obverse side. Whole generations then lived a monotonous, ignorant,
prejudiced, and humdrum life. They had no enterprize, no energy,
little industry, and were content to die where they were born. The
seclusion in which they were compelled to live, produced a
picturesqueness of manners which is pleasant to look back upon, now
that it is a thing of the past; but it was also accompanied with a
degree of grossness and brutality much less pleasant to regard, and
of which the occasional popular amusements of bull-running,
cock-fighting, cock-throwing, the saturnalia of Plough-Monday, and
such like, were the fitting exponents.
People then knew little except of their own narrow district. The
world beyond was as good as closed against them. Almost the only
intelligence of general affairs which reached them was communicated
by pedlars and packmen, who were accustomed to retail to their
customers the news of the day with their wares; or, at most, a
newsletter from London, after it had been read nearly to pieces at
the great house of the district, would find its way to the village,
and its driblets of information would thus become diffused among
the little community. Matters of public interest were long in
becoming known in the remoter districts of the country. Macaulay
relates that the death of Queen Elizabeth was not heard of in some
parts of Devon until the courtiers of her successor had ceased to
wear mourning for her. The news of Cromwell's being made Protector
only reached Bridgewater nineteen days after the event, when the
bells were set a-ringing; and the churches in the Orkneys continued
to put up the usual prayers for James II. three months after he
had taken up his abode at St. Germains. There were then no shops
in the smaller towns or villages, and comparatively few in the
larger; and these were badly furnished with articles for general
use. The country people were irregularly supplied by hawkers, who
sometimes bore their whole stook upon their back, or occasionally
on that of their pack-horses. Pots, pans, and household utensils
were sold from door to door. Until a comparatively recent period,
the whole of the pottery-ware manufactured in Staffordshire was
hawked about and disposed of in this way. The pedlars carried
frames resembling camp-stools, on which they were accustomed to
display their wares when the opportunity occurred for showing them
to advantage. The articles which they sold were chiefly of a
fanciful kind--ribbons, laces, and female finery; the housewives'
great reliance for the supply of general clothing in those days
being on domestic industry.
Every autumn, the mistress of the household was accustomed to lay
in a store of articles sufficient to serve for the entire winter.
It was like laying in a stock of provisions and clothing for a
siege during the time that the roads were closed. The greater part
of the meat required for winter's use was killed and salted down at
Martinmas, while stockfish and baconed herrings were provided for
Lent. Scatcherd says that in his district the clothiers united in
groups of three or four, and at the Leeds winter fair they would
purchase an ox, which, having divided, they salted and hung the
pieces for their winter's food.*[3] There was also the winter's
stock of firewood to be provided, and the rushes with which to
strew the floors--carpets being a comparatively modern invention;
besides, there was the store of wheat and barley for bread, the
malt for ale, the honey for sweetening (then used for sugar), the
salt, the spiceries, and the savoury herbs so much employed in the
ancient cookery. When the stores were laid in, the housewife was
in a position to bid defiance to bad roads for six months to come.
This was the case of the well-to-do; but the poorer classes, who
could not lay in a store for winter, were often very badly off both
for food and firing, and in many hard seasons they literally
starved. But charity was active in those days, and many a poor
man's store was eked out by his wealthier neighbour.
When the household supply was thus laid in, the mistress, with her
daughters and servants, sat down to their distaffs and spinning-wheels;
for the manufacture of the family clothing was usually the work of
the winter months. The fabrics then worn were almost entirely of
wool, silk and cotton being scarcely known. The wool, when not
grown on the farm, was purchased in a raw state, and was carded,
spun, dyed, and in many cases woven at home: so also with the linen
clothing, which, until quite a recent date, was entirely the
produce of female fingers and household spinning-wheels. This kind
of work occupied the winter months, occasionally alternated with
knitting, embroidery, and tapestry work. Many of our country
houses continue to bear witness to the steady industry of the
ladies of even the highest ranks in those times, in the fine
tapestry hangings with which the walls of many of the older rooms
in such mansions are covered.
Among the humbler classes, the same winter's work went on.
The women sat round log fires knitting, plaiting, and spinning by
fire-light, even in the daytime. Glass had not yet come into
general use, and the openings in the wall which in summer-time
served for windows, had necessarily to be shut close with boards to
keep out the cold, though at the same time they shut out the light.
The chimney, usually of lath and plaster, ending overhead in a cone
and funnel for the smoke, was so roomy in old cottages as to
accommodate almost the whole family sitting around the fire of logs
piled in the reredosse in the middle, and there they carried on
their winter's work.
Such was the domestic occupation of women in the rural districts in
olden times; and it may perhaps be questioned whether the
revolution in our social system, which has taken out of their hands
so many branches of household manufacture and useful domestic
employment, be an altogether unmixed blessing.
Winter at an end, and the roads once more available for travelling,
the Fair of the locality was looked forward to with interest. Fairs
were among the most important institutions of past times, and were
rendered necessary by the imperfect road communications. The right
of holding them was regarded as a valuable privilege, conceded by
the sovereign to the lords of the manors, who adopted all manner of
devices to draw crowds to their markets. They were usually held at
the entrances to valleys closed against locomotion during winter,
or in the middle of rich grazing districts, or, more frequently, in
the neighbourhood of famous cathedrals or churches frequented by
flocks of pilgrims. The devotion of the people being turned to
account, many of the fairs were held on Sundays in the churchyards;
and almost in every parish a market was instituted on the day on
which the parishioners were called together to do honour to their
patron saint.
The local fair, which was usually held at the beginning or end of
winter, often at both times, became the great festival as well as
market of the district; and the business as well as the gaiety of
the neighbourhood usually centred on such occasions. High courts
were held by the Bishop or Lord of the Manor, to accommodate which
special buildings were erected, used only at fair time. Among the
fairs of the first class in England were Winchester, St. Botolph's
Town (Boston), and St. Ives. We find the great London merchants
travelling thither in caravans, bearing with them all manner of
goods, and bringing back the wool purchased by them in exchange.
Winchester Great Fair attracted merchants from all parts of Europe.
It was held on the hill of St. Giles, and was divided into streets
of booths, named after the merchants of the different countries who
exposed their wares in them. "The passes through the great woody
districts, which English merchants coming from London and the West
would be compelled to traverse, were on this occasion carefully
guarded by mounted 'serjeants-at-arms,' since the wealth which was
being conveyed to St. Giles's-hill attracted bands of outlaws from
all parts of the country."*[4] Weyhill Fair, near Andover, was
another of the great fairs in the same district, which was to the
West country agriculturists and clothiers what Winchester St.
Giles's Fair was to the general merchants.
The principal fair in the northern districts was that of
St. Botolph's Town (Boston), which was resorted to by people from
great distances to buy and sell commodities of various kinds.
Thus we find, from the 'Compotus' of Bolton Priory,*[5] that the
monks of that house sent their wool to St. Botolph's Fair to be sold,
though it was a good hundred miles distant; buying in return their
winter supply of groceries, spiceries, and other necessary
articles. That fair, too, was often beset by robbers, and on one
occasion a strong party of them, under the disguise of monks,
attacked and robbed certain booths, setting fire to the rest; and
such was the amount of destroyed wealth, that it is said the veins
of molten gold and silver ran along the streets.
The concourse of persons attending these fairs was immense.
The nobility and gentry, the heads of the religions houses, the
yeomanry and the commons, resorted to them to buy and sell all
manner of agricultural produce. The farmers there sold their wool
and cattle, and hired their servants; while their wives disposed of
the surplus produce of their winter's industry, and bought their
cutlery, bijouterie, and more tasteful articles of apparel.
There were caterers there for all customers; and stuffs and wares
were offered for sale from all countries. And in the wake of this
business part of the fair there invariably followed a crowd of
ministers to the popular tastes-- quack doctors and merry andrews,
jugglers and minstrels, singlestick players, grinners through
horse-collars, and sportmakers of every kind.
Smaller fairs were held in most districts for similar purposes of
exchange. At these the staples of the locality were sold and
servants usually hired. Many were for special purposes--cattle
fairs, leather fairs, cloth fairs, bonnet fairs, fruit fairs.
Scatcherd says that less than a century ago a large fair was held
between Huddersfield and Leeds, in a field still called Fairstead,
near Birstal, which used to be a great mart for fruit, onions, and
such like; and that the clothiers resorted thither from all the
country round to purchase the articles, which were stowed away in
barns, and sold at booths by lamplight in the morning.*[6] Even
Dartmoor had its fair, on the site of an ancient British village or
temple near Merivale Bridge, testifying to its great antiquity; for
it is surprising how an ancient fair lingers about the place on
which it has been accustomed to be held, long after the necessity
for it has ceased. The site of this old fair at Merivale Bridge is
the more curious, as in its immediate neighbourhood, on the road
between Two Bridges and Tavistock, is found the singular-looking
granite rock, bearing so remarkable a resemblance to the Egyptian
sphynx, in a mutilated state. It is of similarly colossal
proportions, and stands in a district almost as lonely as that in
which the Egyptian sphynx looks forth over the sands of the
Memphean Desert.*[7]
[Image] Site of an ancient British village and fair on Dartmoor.
The last occasion on which the fair was held in this secluded spot
was in the year 1625, when the plague raged at Tavistock; and there
is a part of the ground, situated amidst a line of pillars marking
a stone avenue--a characteristic feature of the ancient aboriginal
worship--which is to this day pointed out and called by the name of
the "Potatoe market."
But the glory of the great fairs has long since departed. They
declined with the extension of turnpikes, and railroads gave them
their death-blow. Shops now exist in every little town and
village, drawing their supplies regularly by road and canal from
the most distant parts. St. Bartholomew, the great fair of
London,*[8] and Donnybrook, the great fair of Dublin, have been
suppressed as nuisances; and nearly all that remains of the dead
but long potent institution of the Fair, is the occasional
exhibition at periodic times in country places, of pig-faced
ladies, dwarfs, giants, double-bodied calves, and such-like
wonders, amidst a blatant clangour of drums, gongs, and cymbals.
Like the sign of the Pack-Horse over the village inn door, the
modern village fair, of which the principal article of merchandise
is gingerbread-nuts, is but the vestige of a state of things that
has long since passed away.
There were, however, remote and almost impenetrable districts which
long resisted modern inroads. Of such was Dartmoor, which we have
already more than once referred to. The difficulties of
road-engineering in that quarter, as well as the sterility of a
large proportion of the moor, had the effect of preventing its
becoming opened up to modern traffic; and it is accordingly curious
to find how much of its old manners, customs, traditions, and
language has been preserved. It looks like a piece of England of
the Middle Ages, left behind on the march. Witches still hold
their sway on Dartmoor, where there exist no less than three
distinct kinds-- white, black, and grey,*[9]--and there are still
professors of witchcraft, male as well as female, in most of the
villages.
As might be expected, the pack-horses held their ground in Dartmoor
the longest, and in some parts of North Devon they are not yet
extinct. When our artist was in the neighbourhood, sketching the
ancient bridge on the moor and the site of the old fair, a farmer
said to him, "I well remember the train of pack-horses and the
effect of their jingling bells on the silence of Dartmoor.
My grandfather, a respectable farmer in the north of Devon, was the
first to use a 'butt' (a square box without wheels, dragged by a
horse) to carry manure to field; he was also the first man in the
district to use an umbrella, which on Sundays he hung in the
church-porch, an object of curiosity to the villagers." We are also
informed by a gentleman who resided for some time at South Brent',
on the borders of the Moor, that the introduction of the first cart
in that district is remembered by many now living, the bridges
having been shortly afterwards widened to accommodate the wheeled
vehicles.
The primitive features of this secluded district are perhaps best
represented by the interesting little town of Chagford, situated in
the valley of the North Teign, an ancient stannary and market town
backed by a wide stretch of moor. The houses of the place are
built of moor stone--grey, venerable-looking, and substantial--some
with projecting porch and parvise room over, and granite-mullioned
windows; the ancient church, built of granite, with a stout old
steeple of the same material, its embattled porch and granite-groined
vault springing from low columns with Norman-looking capitals,
forming the sturdy centre of this ancient town clump.
A post-chaise is still a phenomenon in Chagford, the roads and
lanes leading to it being so steep and rugged as to be ill adapted
for springed vehicles of any sort. The upland road or track to
Tavistock scales an almost precipitous hill, and though well enough
adapted for the pack-horse of the last century, it is quite
unfitted for the cart and waggon traffic of this. Hence the horse
with panniers maintains its ground in the Chagford district; and
the double-horse, furnished with a pillion for the lady riding
behind, is still to be met with in the country roads.
Among the patriarchs of the hills, the straight-breasted blue coat
may yet be seen, with the shoe fastened with buckle and strap as in
the days when George III. was king; and old women are still found
retaining the cloak and hood of their youth. Old agricultural
implements continue in use. The slide or sledge is seen in the
fields; the flail, with its monotonous strokes, resounds from the
barn-floors; the corn is sifted by the windstow--the wind merely
blowing away the chaff from the grain when shaken out of sieves by
the motion of the hand on some elevated spot; the old wooden plough
is still at work, and the goad is still used to urge the yoke of
oxen in dragging it along.
[Image] The Devonshire Crooks
"In such a place as Chagford," says Mr. Rowe, "the cooper or rough
carpenter will still find a demand for the pack-saddle, with its
accompanying furniture of crooks, crubs, or dung-pots. Before the
general introduction of carts, these rough and ready contrivances
were found of great utility in the various operations of husbandry,
and still prove exceedingly convenient in situations almost, or
altogether, inaccessible to wheel-carriages. The long crooks are
used for the carriage of corn in sheaf from the harvest-field to
the mowstead or barn, for the removal of furze, browse,
faggot-wood, and other light materials. The writer of one of the
happiest effusions of the local muse,*[10] with fidelity to nature
equal to Cowper or Crabbe, has introduced the figure of a
Devonshire pack-horse bending under the 'swagging load' of the
high-piled crooks as an emblem of care toiling along the narrow and
rugged path of life. The force and point of the imagery must be
lost to those who have never seen (and, as in an instance which
came under my own knowledge, never heard of) this unique specimen
of provincial agricultural machinery. The crooks are formed of two
poles,*[11] about ten feet long, bent, when green, into the
required curve, and when dried in that shape are connected by
horizontal bars. A pair of crooks, thus completed, is slung over
the pack-saddle--one 'swinging on each side to make the balance
true.' The short crooks, or crubs, are slung in a similar manner.
These are of stouter fabric, and angular shape, and are used for
carrying logs of wood and other heavy materials. The dung-pots, as
the name implies, were also much in use in past times, for the
removal of dung and other manure from the farmyard to the fallow or
plough lands. The slide, or sledge, may also still occasionally
be seen in the hay or corn fields, sometimes without, and in other
cases mounted on low wheels, rudely but substantially formed of
thick plank, such as might have brought the ancient Roman's harvest
load to the barn some twenty centuries ago."
Mrs. Bray says the crooks are called by the country people
"Devil's tooth-picks." A correspondent informs us that the queer
old crook-packs represented in our illustration are still in use in
North Devon. He adds: "The pack-horses were so accustomed to their
position when travelling in line (going in double file) and so
jealous of their respective places, that if one got wrong and took
another's place, the animal interfered with would strike at the
offender with his crooks."
Footnotes for Chapter III.
*[1] 'Three Years' Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales.'
By James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton, Kent. London, 1726.
*[2] The treatment the stranger received was often very rude.
When William Hutton, of Birmingham, accompanied by another gentleman,
went to view the field of Bosworth, in 1770, "the inhabitants,"
he says, "set their dogs at us in the street, merely because we were
strangers. Human figures not their own are seldom seen in these
inhospitable regions. Surrounded with impassable roads, no
intercourse with man to humanise the mind. nor commerce to smooth
their rugged manners, they continue the boors of Nature."
In certain villages in Lancashire and Yorkshire, not very remote from
large towns, the appearance of a stranger, down to a comparatively
recent period, excited a similar commotion amongst the villagers,
and the word would pass from door to door, "Dost knaw'im?" "Naya."
"Is 'e straunger?" "Ey, for sewer." "Then paus' 'im-- 'Eave a duck
[stone] at 'im-- Fettle 'im!" And the "straunger" would straightway
find the "ducks" flying about his head, and be glad to make his
escape from the village with his life.
*[3] Scatcherd, 'History of Morley.'
*[4] Murray's ' Handbook of Surrey, Hants, and Isle of Wight,' 168.
*[5] Whitaker's 'History of Craven.'
*[6] Scatcherd's 'History of Morley,' 226.
*[7] Vixen Tor is the name of this singular-looking rock. But it
is proper to add, that its appearance is probably accidental, the
head of the Sphynx being produced by the three angular blocks of
rock seen in profile. Mr. Borlase, however, in his ' Antiquities
of Cornwall,' expresses the opinion that the rock-basins on the
summit of the rock were used by the Druids for purposes connected
with their religious ceremonies.
*[8] The provisioning of London, now grown so populous, would be
almost impossible but for the perfect system of roads now
converging on it from all parts. In early times, London, like
country places, had to lay in its stock of salt-provisions against
winter, drawing its supplies of vegetables from the country within
easy reach of the capital. Hence the London market-gardeners
petitioned against the extension of tumpike-roads about a century
ago, as they afterwards petitioned against the extension of
railways, fearing lest their trade should be destroyed by the
competition of country-grown cabbages. But the extension of the
roads had become a matter of absolute necessity, in order to feed
the huge and ever-increasing mouth of the Great Metropolis, the
population of which has grown in about two centuries from four
hundred thousand to three millions. This enormous population has,
perhaps, never at any time more than a fortnight's supply of food
in stock, and most families not more than a few days; yet no one
ever entertains the slightest apprehension of a failure in the
supply, or even of a variation in the price from day to day in
consequence of any possible shortcoming. That this should be so,
would be one of the most surprising things in the history of modern
London, but that it is sufficiently accounted for by the
magnificent system of roads, canals, and railways, which connect it
with the remotest corners of the kingdom. Modern London is mainly
fed by steam. The Express Meat-Train, which runs nightly from
Aberdeen to London, drawn by two engines and makes the journey in
twenty-four hours, is but a single illustration of the rapid and
certain method by which modem London is fed. The north Highlands
of Scotland have thus, by means of railways, become grazing-grounds
for the metropolis. Express fish trains from Dunbar and Eyemouth
(Smeaton's harbours), augmented by fish-trucks from Cullercoats and
Tynemouth on the Northumberland coast, and from Redcar, Whitby, and
Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast, also arrive in London every
morning. And what with steam-vessels bearing cattle, and meat and
fish arriving by sea, and canal-boats laden with potatoes from
inland, and railway-vans laden with butter and milk drawn from a
wide circuit of country, and road-vans piled high with vegetables
within easy drive of Covent Garden, the Great Mouth is thus from
day to day regularly, satisfactorily, and expeditiously filled.
*[9] The white witches are kindly disposed, the black cast the
"evil eye," and the grey are consulted for the discovery of theft,
&c.
*[10] See 'The Devonshire Lane', above quoted
*[11] Willow saplings, crooked and dried in the required form.
CHAPTER IV.
ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND IN THE LAST CENTURY.
The internal communications of Scotland, which Telford did so much
in the course of his life to improve, were, if possible, even worse
than those of England about the middle of last century. The land
was more sterile, and the people were much poorer. Indeed, nothing
could be more dreary than the aspect which Scotland then presented.
Her fields lay untilled, her mines unexplored, and her fisheries
uncultivated. The Scotch towns were for the most part collections
of thatched mud cottages, giving scant shelter to a miserable
population. The whole country was desponding, gaunt, and haggard,
like Ireland in its worst times. The common people were badly fed
and wretchedly clothed, those in the country for the most part
living in huts with their cattle. Lord Kaimes said of the Scotch
tenantry of the early part of last century, that they were so
benumbed by oppression and poverty that the most able instructors
in husbandry could have made nothing of them. A writer in the
'Farmer's Magazine' sums up his account of Scotland at that time in
these words:--"Except in a few instances, it was little better than
a barren waste."*[1]
The modern traveller through the Lothians--which now exhibit
perhaps the finest agriculture in the world--will scarcely believe
that less than a century ago these counties were mostly in the
state in which Nature had left them. In the interior there was
little to be seen but bleak moors and quaking bogs. The chief part
of each farm consisted of "out-field," or unenclosed land, no
better than moorland, from which the hardy black cattle could
scarcely gather herbage enough in winter to keep them from
starving. The "in-field" was an enclosed patch of illcultivated
ground, on which oats and "bear," or barley, were grown; but the
principal crop was weeds.
Of the small quantity of corn raised in the country, nine-tenths
were grown within five miles of the coast; and of wheat very little
was raised--not a blade north of the Lothians. When the first crop
of that grain was tried on a field near Edinburgh, about the middle
of last century, people flocked to it as a wonder. Clover,
turnips, and potatoes had not yet been introduced, and no cattle
were fattened: it was with difficulty they could be kept alive.
All loads were as yet carried on horseback; but when the farm was
too small, or the crofter too poor to keep a horse, his own or his
wife's back bore the load. The horse brought peats from the bog,
carried the oats or barley to market, and bore the manure a-field.
But the uses of manure were as yet so little understood that, if a
stream were near, it was usually thrown in and floated away, and in
summer it was burnt.
What will scarcely be credited, now that the industry of Scotland
has become educated by a century's discipline of work, was the
inconceivable listlessness and idleness of the people. They left
the bog unreclaimed, and the swamp undrained. They would not be at
the trouble to enclose lands easily capable of cultivation.
There was, perhaps, but little inducement on the part of the
agricultural class to be industrious; for they were too liable to
be robbed by those who preferred to be idle. Andrew Fletcher,
of Saltoun--commonly known as "The Patriot," because he was so
strongly opposed to the union of Scotland with England*[2]--
published a pamphlet, in 1698, strikingly illustrative of the
lawless and uncivilized state of the country at that time.
After giving a dreadful picture of the then state of Scotland:
two hundred thousand vagabonds begging from door to door and robbing
and plundering the poor people,-- "in years of plenty many
thousands of them meeting together in the mountains, where they
feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets,
burials, and other like public occasions, they are to be seen, both
men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and
fighting together,"--he proceeded to urge that every man of a
certain estate should be obliged to take a proportionate number of
these vagabonds and compel them to work for him; and further,
that such serfs, with their wives and children, should be incapable
of alienating their service from their master or owner until he had
been reimbursed for the money he had expended on them: in other
words, their owner was to have the power of selling them.
"The Patriot" was, however, aware that "great address, diligence,
and severity" were required to carry out his scheme; "for," said he,
"that sort of people are so desperately wicked, such enemies of all
work and labour, and, which is yet more amazing, so proud in
esteeming their own condition above that which they will be sure to
call Slavery, that unless prevented by the utmost industry and
diligence, upon the first publication of any orders necessary for
putting in execution such a design, they will rather die with
hunger in caves and dens, and murder their young children, than
appear abroad to have them and themselves taken into such
service."*[3]
Although the recommendations of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun were
embodied in no Act of Parliament, the magistrates of some of the
larger towns did not hesitate to kidnap and sell into slavery lads
and men found lurking in the streets, which they continued to do
down to a comparatively recent period. This, however, was not so
surprising as that at the time of which we are speaking, and,
indeed, until the end of last century, there was a veritable slave
class in Scotland--the class of colliers and salters--who were
bought and sold with the estates to which they belonged, as forming
part of the stook. When they ran away, they were advertised for
as negroes were in the American States until within the last few
years. It is curious, in turning over an old volume of the 'Scots
Magazine,' to find a General Assembly's petition to Parliament for
the abolition of slavery in America almost alongside the report of
a trial of some colliers who had absconded from a mine near
Stirling to which they belonged. But the degraded condition of the
home slaves then excited comparatively little interest. Indeed, it
was not until the very last year of the last century that praedial
slavery was abolished in Scotland--only three short reigns ago,
almost within the memory of men still living.*[4] The greatest
resistance was offered to the introduction of improvements in
agriculture, though it was only at rare intervals that these were
attempted. There was no class possessed of enterprise or wealth.
An idea of the general poverty of the country may be inferred from
the fact that about the middle of last century the whole circulating
medium of the two Edinburgh banks--the only institutions of the
kind then in Scotland--amounted to only 200,000L., which was
sufficient for the purposes of trade, commerce, and industry.
Money was then so scarce that Adam Smith says it was not uncommon
for workmen, in certain parts of Scotland, to carry nails instead
of pence to the baker's or the alehouse. A middle class could
scarcely as yet be said to exist, or any condition between the
starving cottiers and the impoverished proprietors, whose available
means were principally expended in hard drinking.*[5]
The latter were, for the most part, too proud and too ignorant to
interest themselves in the improvement of their estates; and the few
who did so had very little encouragement to persevere. Miss Craig,
in describing the efforts made by her father, William Craig,
laird of Arbigland, in Kirkcudbright, says, "The indolent obstinacy
of the lower class of the people was found to be almost
unconquerable. Amongst other instances of their laziness, I have
heard him say that, upon the introduction of the mode of dressing
the grain at night which had been thrashed during the day, all the
servants in the neighbourhood refused to adopt the measure, and
even threatened to destroy the houses of their employers by fire if
they continued to insist upon the business. My father speedily
perceived that a forcible remedy was required for the evil.
He gave his servants the choice of removing the thrashed grain in
the evening, or becoming inhabitants of Kirkcudbright gaol: they
preferred the former alternative, and open murmurings were no
longer heard."*[6]
The wages paid to the labouring classes were then very low. Even
in East Lothian, which was probably in advance of the other Scotch
counties, the ordinary day's wage of a labouring man was only five
pence in winter and six pence in summer. Their food was wholly
vegetable, and was insufficient in quantity as well as bad in
quality. The little butcher's meat consumed by the better class
was salted beef and mutton, stored up in Ladner time (between
Michaelmas and Martinmas) for the year's consumption. Mr. Buchan
Hepburn says the Sheriff of East Lothian informed him that he
remembered when not a bullock was slaughtered in Haddington market
for a whole year, except at that time; and, when Sir David Kinloch,
of Gilmerton sold ten wedders to an Edinburgh butcher, he
stipulated for three several terms to take them away, to prevent
the Edinburgh market from being overstocked with fresh butcher's
meat!*[7]
The rest of Scotland was in no better state: in some parts it was
even worse. The rich and fertile county of Ayr, which now glories
in the name of "the garden of Scotland," was for the most part a
wild and dreary waste, with here and there a poor, miserable,
comfortless hut, where the farmer and his family lodged. There
were no enclosures of land, except one or two about a proprietor's
residence; and black cattle roamed at large over the face of the
country. When an attempt was made to enclose the lands for the
purposes of agriculture, the fences were levelled by the
dispossessed squatters. Famines were frequent among the poorer
classes; the western counties not producing food enough for the
sustenance of the inhabitants, few though they were in number.
This was also the case in Dumfries, where the chief part of the grain
required for the population was brought in "tumbling-cars" from the
sandbeds of Esk; "and when the waters were high by reason of spates
[or floods], and there being no bridges, so that the cars could not
come with the meal, the tradesmen's wives might be seen in the
streets of Dumfries, crying; because there was no food to be
had."*[8]
The misery of the country was enormously aggravated by the wretched
state of the roads. There were, indeed, scarcely any made roads
throughout the country. Hence the communication between one town
and another was always difficult, especially in winter. There were
only rough tracks across moors, and when one track became too
deep, another alongside of it was chosen, and was in its turn
abandoned, until the whole became equally impassable. In wet
weather these tracks became "mere sloughs, in which the carts or
carriages had to slumper through in a half-swimming state, whilst,
in times of drought it was a continual jolting out of one hole into
another."*[9]
Such being the state of the highways, it will be obvious that very
little communication could exist between one part of the country
and another. Single-horse traffickers, called cadgers, plied
between the country towns and the villages, supplying the
inhabitants with salt, fish, earthenware, and articles of clothing,
which they carried in sacks or creels hung across their horses'
backs. Even the trade between Edinburgh and Glasgow was carried on
in the same primitive way, the principal route being along the high
grounds west of Boroughstoness, near which the remains of the old
pack-horse road are still to be seen.
It was long before vehicles of any sort could be used on the Scotch
roads. Rude sledges and tumbling-cars were employed near towns,
and afterwards carts, the wheels of which were first made of
boards. It was long before travelling by coach could be introduced
in Scotland. When Smollett travelled from Glasgow to Edinburgh on
his way to London, in 1739, there was neither coach, cart, nor
waggon on the road. He accordingly accompanied the pack-horse
carriers as far as Newcastle, "sitting upon a pack-saddle between
two baskets, one of which," he says, "contained my goods in a
knapsack."
In 1743 an attempt was made by the Town Council of Glasgow to set
up a stage-coach or "lando." It was to be drawn by six horses,
carry six passengers, and run between Glasgow and Edinburgh, a
distance of forty-four miles, once a week in winter, and twice a
week in summer. The project, however, seems to have been thought
too bold for the time, for the "lando" was never started. It was
not until the year 1749 that the first public conveyance, called
"The Glasgow and Edinburgh Caravan," was started between the two
cities, and it made the journey between the one place and the other
in two days. Ten years later another vehicle was started, named
"The Fly" because of its unusual speed, and it contrived to make
the journey in rather less than a day and a half.
About the same time, a coach with four horses was started between
Haddington and Edinburgh, and it took a full winter's day to
perform the journey of sixteen miles: the effort being to reach
Musselburgh in time for dinner, and go into town in the evening.
As late as 1763 there was as only one stage-coach in all Scotland
in communication with London, and that set out from Edinburgh only
once a month. The journey to London occupied from ten to fifteen
days, according to the state of the weather; and those who
undertook so dangerous a journey usually took the precaution of
making their wills before starting.
When carriers' carts were established, the time occupied by them on
the road will now appear almost incredible. Thus the common
carrier between Selkirk and Edinburgh, a distance of only
thirty-eight miles, took about a fortnight to perform the double
journey. Part of the road lay along Gala Water, and in summer time,
when the river-bed was dry, the carrier used it as a road. The
townsmen of this adventurous individual, on the morning of his
way-going, were accustomed to turn out and take leave of him,
wishing him a safe return from his perilous journey. In winter the
route was simply impracticable, and the communication was suspended
until the return of dry weather.
While such was the state of the communications in the immediate
neighbourhood of the metropolis of Scotland, matters were, if
possible, still worse in the remoter parts of the country. Down to
the middle of last century, there were no made roads of any kind in
the south-western counties. The only inland trade was in black
cattle; the tracks were impracticable for vehicles, of which there
were only a few--carts and tumbling-cars--employed in the immediate
neighbourhood of the towns. When the Marquis of Downshire
attempted to make a journey through Galloway in his coach, about
the year 1760, a party of labourers with tools attended him, to
lift the vehicle out of the ruts and put on the wheels when it got
dismounted. Even with this assistance, however, his Lordship
occasionally stuck fast, and when within about three miles of the
village of Creetown, near Wigton, he was obliged to send away the
attendants, and pass the night in his coach on the Corse of Slakes
with his family.
Matters were, of course, still worse in the Highlands, where the
rugged character of the country offered formidable difficulties to
the formation of practicable roads, and where none existed save
those made through the rebel districts by General Wade shortly
after the rebellion of 1715. The people were also more lawless
and, if possible, more idle, than those of the Lowland districts
about the same period. The latter regarded their northern
neighbours as the settlers in America did the Red Indians round
their borders--like so many savages always ready to burst in upon
them, fire their buildings, and carry off their cattle.*[10]
Very little corn was grown in the neighbourhood of the Highlands,
on account of its being liable to be reaped and carried off by the
caterans, and that before it was ripe. The only method by which
security of a certain sort could be obtained was by the payment of
blackmail to some of the principal chiefs, though this was not
sufficient to protect them against the lesser marauders. Regular
contracts were drawn up between proprietors in the counties of
Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton, and the Macgregors, in which it was
stipulated that if less than seven cattle were stolen--which
peccadillo was known as picking--no redress should be required; but
if the number stolen exceeded seven--such amount of theft being
raised to the dignity of lifting--then the Macgregors were bound to
recover. This blackmail was regularly levied as far south as
Campsie--then within six miles of Glasgow, but now almost forming
part of it--down to within a few months of the outbreak of the
Rebellion of 1745.*[11]
Under such circumstances, agricultural improvement was altogether
impossible. The most fertile tracts were allowed to lie waste, for
men would not plough or sow where they had not the certain prospect
of gathering in the crop. Another serious evil was, that the
lawless habits of their neighbours tended to make the Lowland
borderers almost as ferocious as the Higlanders themselves. Feuds
were of constant occurrence between neighbouring baronies, and even
contiguous parishes; and the country fairs, which were tacitly
recognised as the occasions for settling quarrels, were the scenes
of as bloody faction fights as were ever known in Ireland even in
its worst days. When such was the state of Scotland only a century
ago, what may we not hope for from Ireland when the civilizing
influences of roads, schools, and industry have made more general
progress amongst her people?
Yet Scotland had not always been in this miserable condition. There
is good reason to believe that as early as the thirteenth century,
agriculture was in a much more advanced state than we find it to
have been the eighteenth. It would appear from the extant
chartularies of monastic establishments, which then existed all
over the Lowlands, that a considerable portion of their revenue was
derived from wheat, which also formed no inconsiderable part of
their living. The remarkable fact is mentioned by Walter de
Hemingford, the English historian, that when the castle of
Dirleton, in East Lothian, was besieged by the army of Edward I.,
in the beginning of July, 1298, the men, being reduced to great
extremities for provisions, were fain to subsist on the pease and
beans which they gathered in the fields.*[12] This statement is all
the more remarkable on two accounts: first, that pease and beans
should then have been so plentiful as to afford anything like
sustenance for an army; and second, that they should have been fit
for use so early in the season, even allowing for the difference
between the old and new styles in the reckoning of time.
The magnificent old abbeys and churches of Scotland in early times
also indicate that at some remote period a degree of civilization
and prosperity prevailed, from which the country had gradually
fallen. The ruins of the ancient edifices of Melrose, Kilwinning,
Aberborthwick, Elgin, and other religious establishments, show that
architecture must then have made great progress in the North,
and lead us to the conclusion that the other arts had reached a like
stage of advancement. This is borne out by the fact of the number
of well-designed and well-built bridges of olden times which still
exist in different parts of Scotland. "And when we consider," says
Professor Innes, "the long and united efforts required in the early
state of the arts for throwing a bridge over any considerable
river, the early occurrence of bridges may well be admitted as one
of the best tests of civilization and national prosperity."*[13]
As in England, so in Scotland, the reclamation of lands, the
improvement of agriculture, and the building of bridges were mainly
due to the skill and industry of the old churchmen. When their
ecclesiastical organization was destroyed, the country speedily
relapsed into the state from which they had raised it; and Scotland
continued to lie in ruins almost till our own day, when it has
again been rescued from barrenness, more effectually even than
before, by the combined influences of roads, education, and industry.
Footnotes for Chapter IV.
*[1] 'Farmer's Magazine,' 1803. No. xiii. p. 101.
*[2] Bad although the condition of Scotland was at the beginning of
last century, there were many who believed that it would be made
worse by the carrying of the Act of Union. The Earl of Wigton was
one of these. Possessing large estates in the county of Stirling,
and desirous of taking every precaution against what he supposed to
be impending ruin, he made over to his tenants, on condition that
they continued to pay him their then low rents, his extensive
estates in the parishes of Denny, Kirkintulloch, and Cumbernauld,
retaining only a few fields round the family mansion ['Farmer's
Magazine,' 1808, No. xxxiv. p. 193]. Fletcher of Saltoun also
feared the ruinous results of the Union, though he was less
precipitate in his conduct than the Earl of Wigton. We need
scarcely say how entirely such apprehensions were falsified by the
actual results.
*[3] 'Fletcher's Political Works,' London, 1737, p. 149. As the
population of Scotland was then only about 1,200,000, the beggars
of the country, according to the above account, must have
constituted about one-sixth of the whole community.
*[4] Act 39th George III. c. 56. See 'Lord Cockburn's
Memorials,' pp. 76-9. As not many persons may be aware how recent
has been the abolition of slavery in Britain, the author of this
book may mention the fact that he personally knew a man who had
been "born a slave in Scotland," to use his own words, and lived to
tell it. He had resisted being transferred to another owner on the
sale of the estate to which he was "bound," and refused to "go below,"
on which he was imprisoned in Edinburgh gaol, where he lay for a
considerable time. The case excited much interest, and probably
had some effect in leading to the alteration in the law relating
to colliers and salters which shortly after followed.
*[5] See 'Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle,' passim.
*[6] 'Farmer's Magazine.' June. 1811. No. xlvi. p. 155.
*[7] See Buchan Hepburn's 'General View of the Agriculture and
Economy of East Lothian,' 1794, p. 55.
*[8]Letter of John Maxwell, in Appendix to Macdiarmid's 'Picture of
Dumfries,' 1823
*[9] Robertson's 'Rural Recollections,' p. 38.
*[10] Very little was known of the geography of the Highlands down
to the beginning of the seventeenth century The principal
information on the subject being derived from Danish materials.
It appears, however, that in 1608, one Timothy Pont, a young man
without fortune or patronage, formed the singular resolution of
travelling over the whole of Scotland, with the sole view of
informing himself as to the geography of the country, and he
persevered to the end of his task through every kind of difficulty;
exploring 'all the islands with the zeal of a missionary, though
often pillaged and stript of everything; by the then barbarous
inhabitant's. The enterprising youth received no recognition nor
reward for his exertions, and he died in obscurity, leaving his
maps and papers to his heirs. Fortunately, James I. heard of the
existence of Pont's papers, and purchased them for public use. They
lay, however, unused for a long time in the offices of the Scotch
Court of Chancery, until they were at length brought to light by
Mr. Robert Gordon, of Straloch, who made them the basis of the
first map of Scotland having any pretensions to accuracy that was
ever published.
*[11] Mr. Grant, of Corrymorry, used to relate that his father,
when speaking of the Rebellion of 1745, always insisted that a
rising in the Highlands was absolutely necessary to give employment
to the numerous bands of lawless and idle young men who infested
every property.--Anderson's 'Highlands and Islands of Scotland,'
p. 432.
*[12] 'Lord Hailes Annals,' i., 379.
*[13] Professor Innes's 'Sketches of Early Scottish History.' The
principal ancient bridges in Scotland were those over the Tay at
Perth (erected in the thirteenth century) over the Esk at Brechin
and Marykirk; over the Bee at Kincardine, O'Neil, and Aberdeen;
over the Don, near the same city; over the Spey at Orkhill; over
the Clyde at Glasgow; over the Forth at Stirling; and over the Tyne
at Haddington.
CHAPTER V.
ROADS AND TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND TOWARDS THE END OF LAST CENTURY.
The progress made in the improvement of the roads throughout
England was exceedingly slow. Though some of the main throughfares
were mended so as to admit of stage-coach travelling at the rate of
from four to six miles an hour, the less frequented roads continued
to be all but impassable. Travelling was still difficult, tedious,
and dangerous. Only those who could not well avoid it ever thought
of undertaking a journey, and travelling for pleasure was out of
the question. A writer in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' in 1752 says
that a Londoner at that time would no more think of travelling into
the west of England for pleasure than of going to Nubia.
But signs of progress were not awanting. In 1749 Birmingham
started a stage-coach, which made the journey to London in three
days.*[1] In 1754 some enterprising Manchester men advertised a
"flying coach" for the conveyance of passengers between that town
and the metropolis; and, lest they should be classed with
projectors of the Munchausen kind, they heralded their enterprise
with this statement: "However incredible it may appear, this coach
will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and
a half after leaving Manchester!"
Fast coaches were also established on several of the northern
roads, though not with very extraordinary results as to speed.
When John Scott, afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon, travelled from
Newcastle to Oxford in 1766, he mentions that he journeyed in what
was denominated "a fly," because of its rapid travelling; yet he
was three or four days and nights on the road. There was no such
velocity, however, as to endanger overturning or other mischief.
On the panels of the coach were painted the appropriate motto of
Sat cito si sat bene--quick enough if well enough--a motto which
the future Lord Chancellor made his own.*[2]
The journey by coach between London and Edinburgh still occupied
six days or more, according to the state of the weather. Between
Bath or Birmingham and London occupied between two and three days
as late as 1763. The road across Hounslow Heath was so bad, that
it was stated before a Parliamentary Committee that it was
frequently known to be two feet deep in mud. The rate of
travelling was about six and a half miles an hour; but the work was
so heavy that it "tore the horses' hearts out," as the common
saying went, so that they only lasted two or three years.
When the Bath road became improved, Burke was enabled, in the
summer of 1774, to travel from London to Bristol, to meet the
electors there, in little more than four and twenty hours; but his
biographer takes care to relate that he "travelled with incredible
speed." Glasgow was still ten days' distance from the metropolis,
and the arrival of the mail there was so important an event that a
gun was fired to announce its coming in. Sheffield set up a
"flying machine on steel springs" to London in 1760: it "slept" the
first night at the Black Man's Head Inn, Nottingham; the second at
the Angel, Northampton; and arrived at the Swan with Two Necks,
Lad-lane, on the evening of the third day. The fare was 1L. l7s.,
and 14 lbs. of luggage was allowed. But the principal part of the
expense of travelling was for living and lodging on the road, not
to mention the fees to guards and drivers.
Though the Dover road was still one of the best in the kingdom, the
Dover flying-machine, carrying only four passengers, took a long
summer's day to perform the journey. It set out from Dover at four
o'clock in the morning, breakfasted at the Red Lion, Canterbury,
and the passengers ate their way up to town at various inns on the
road, arriving in London in time for supper. Smollett complained
of the innkeepers along that route as the greatest set of
extortioners in England. The deliberate style in which journeys
were performed may be inferred from the circumstance that on one
occasion, when a quarrel took place between the guard and a
passenger, the coach stopped to see them fight it out on the road.
Foreigners who visited England were peculiarly observant of the
defective modes of conveyance then in use. Thus, one Don Manoel
Gonzales, a Portuguese merchant, who travelled through Great
Britain, in 1740, speaking of Yarmouth, says, "They have a comical
way of carrying people all over the town and from the seaside, for
six pence. They call it their coach, but it is only a wheel-barrow,
drawn by one horse, without any covering." Another foreigner, Herr
Alberti, a Hanoverian professor of theology, when on a visit to
Oxford in 1750, desiring to proceed to Cambridge, found there was
no means of doing so without returning to London and there taking
coach for Cambridge. There was not even the convenience of a
carrier's waggon between the two universities. But the most
amusing account of an actual journey by stage-coach that we know
of, is that given by a Prussian clergyman, Charles H. Moritz, who
thus describes his adventures on the road between Leicester and
London in 1782:--
"Being obliged," he says, "to bestir myself to get
back to London, as the time drew near when the
Hamburgh captain with whom I intended to return had
fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as
far as Northampton on the outside. But this ride from
Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long as I live.
"The coach drove from the yard through a part of the
house. The inside passengers got in from the yard,
but we on the outside were obliged to clamber up in
the street, because we should have had no room for
our heads to pass under the gateway. My companions on
the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man very
decently dressed, and a black-a-moor. The getting up
alone was at the risk of one's life, and when I was
up I was obliged to sit just at the corner of the
coach, with nothing to hold by but a sort of little
handle fastened on the side. I sat nearest the wheel,
and the moment that we set off I fancied that I saw
certain death before me. All I could do was to take
still tighter hold of the handle, and to be strictly
careful to preserve my balance. The machine rolled
along with prodigious rapidity over the stones
through the town, and every moment we seemed to fly
into the air, so much so that it appeared to me a
complete miracle that we stuck to the coach at all.
But we were completely on the wing as often as we
passed through a village or went down a hill.
"This continual fear of death at last became
insupportable to me, and, therefore, no sooner were
we crawling up a rather steep hill, and consequently
proceeding slower than usual, then I carefully crept
from the top of the coach, and was lucky enough to
get myself snugly ensconced in the basket behind.
"'O,Sir, you will be shaken to death!' said the
black-a-moor; but I heeded him not, trusting that he
was exaggerating the unpleasantness of my new
situation. And truly, as long as we went on slowly up
the hill it was easy and pleasant enough; and I was
just on the point of falling asleep among the
surrounding trunks and packages, having had no rest
the night before, when on a sudden the coach
proceeded at a rapid rate down the hill. Then all the
boxes, iron-nailed and copper-fastened, began, as it
were, to dance around me; everything in the basket
appeared to be alive, and every moment I received
such violent blows that I thought my last hour had
come. The black-a-moor had been right, I now saw
clearly; but repentance was useless, and I was
obliged to suffer horrible torture for nearly an
hour, which seemed to me an eternity. At last we came
to another hill, when, quite shaken to pieces,
bleeding, and sore, I ruefully crept back to the top
of the coach to my former seat. 'Ah, did I not tell
you that you would be shaken to death?' inquired the
black man, when I was creeping along on my stomach.
But I gave him no reply. Indeed, I was ashamed; and I
now write this as a warning to all strangers who are
inclined to ride in English stage-coaches, and take
an outside at, or, worse still, horror of horrors, a
seat in the basket.
"From Harborough to Northampton I had a most dreadful
journey. It rained incessantly, and as before we had
been covered with dust, so now we were soaked with
rain. My neighbour, the young man who sat next me in
the middle, every now and then fell asleep; and when
in this state he perpetually bolted and rolled
against me, with the whole weight of his body, more
than once nearly pushing me from my seat, to which I
clung with the last strength of despair. My forces
were nearly giving way, when at last, happily, we
reached Northampton, on the evening of the 14th July,
1782, an ever-memorable day to me.
"On the next morning, I took an inside place for
London. We started early in the morning. The journey
from Northampton to the metropolis, however, I can
scarcely call a ride, for it was a perpetual motion,
or endless jolt from one place to another, in a close
wooden box, over what appeared to be a heap of unhewn
stones and trunks of trees scattered by a hurricane.
To make my happiness complete, I had three travelling
companions, all farmers, who slept so soundly that
even the hearty knocks with which they hammered their
heads against each other and against mine did not
awake them. Their faces, bloated and discoloured by
ale and brandy and the knocks aforesaid, looked, as
they lay before me, like so many lumps of dead flesh.
"I looked, and certainly felt, like a crazy fool when
we arrived at London in the afternoon."*[3]
[Image] The Basket Coach, 1780.
Arthur Young, in his books, inveighs strongly against the execrable
state of the roads in all parts of England towards the end of last
century. In Essex he found the ruts "of an incredible depth,"
and he almost swore at one near Tilbury. "Of all the cursed roads,
"he says, "that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of
barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's
Head at Tilbury. It is for near twelve miles so narrow that a
mouse cannot pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his
waggon to assist me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge.
To add to all the infamous circumstances which concur to plague a
traveller, I must not forget the eternally meeting with chalk
waggons, themselves frequently stuck fast, till a collection of
them are in the same situation, and twenty or thirty horses may be
tacked to each to draw them out one by one!"*[4] Yet will it be
believed, the proposal to form a turnpike-road from Chelmsford to
Tilbury was resisted "by the Bruins of the country, whose horses
were worried to death with bringing chalk through those vile
roads!"
Arthur Young did not find the turnpike any better between Bury and
Sudbury, in Suffolk: "I was forced to move as slow in it," he says,
"as in any unmended lane in Wales. For, ponds of liquid dirt, and
a scattering of loose flints just sufficient to lame every horse
that moves near them, with the addition of cutting vile grips
across the road under the pretence of letting the water off, but
without effect, altogether render at least twelve out of these
sixteen miles as infamous a turnpike as ever was beheld." Between
Tetsworth and Oxford he found the so-called turnpike abounding in
loose stones as large as one's head, full of holes, deep ruts, and
withal so narrow that with great difficulty he got his chaise out
of the way of the Witney waggons. "Barbarous" and "execrable" are
the words which he constantly employs in speaking of the roads;
parish and turnpike, all seemed to be alike bad. From Gloucester
to Newnham, a distance of twelve miles, he found a "cursed road,"
"infamously stony," with "ruts all the way." From Newnham to
Chepstow he noted another bad feature in the roads, and that was
the perpetual hills; "for," he says, "you will form a clear idea of
them if you suppose the country to represent the roofs of houses
joined, and the road to run across them." It was at one time even
matter of grave dispute whether it would not cost as little money
to make that between Leominster and Kington navigable as to make
it hard. Passing still further west, the unfortunate traveller,
who seems scarcely able to find words to express his sufferings,
continues:--
"But, my dear Sir, what am I to say of the roads in
this country! the turnpikes! as they have the
assurance to call them and the hardiness to make one
pay for? From Chepstow to the half-way house between
Newport and Cardiff they continue mere rocky lanes,
full of hugeous stones as big as one's horse, and
abominable holes. The first six miles from Newport
they were so detestable, and without either
direction-posts or milestones, that I could not well
persuade myself I was on the turnpike, but had
mistook the road, and therefore asked every one I
met, who answered me, to my astonishment, 'Ya-as!'
Whatever business carries you into this country,
avoid it, at least till they have good roads: if they
were good, travelling would be very pleasant."*[5]
At a subsequent period Arthur Young visited the northern counties;
but his account of the roads in that quarter is not more
satisfactory. Between Richmond and Darlington he found them like to
"dislocate his bones," being broken in many places into deep holes,
and almost impassable; "yet," says he, "the people will drink tea!"
--a decoction against the use of which the traveller is found
constantly declaiming. The roads in Lancashire made him almost
frantic, and he gasped for words to express his rage. Of the road
between Proud Preston and Wigan he says: "I know not in the whole
range of language terms sufficiently expressive to describe this
infernal road. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who
may accidentally propose to travel this terrible country, to avoid
it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one 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 a winter? The only mending it receives
is tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose than
jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These are not
merely opinions, but facts; for I actually passed three carts
broken down in those eighteen miles of execrable memory."*[6]
It would even appear that the bad state of the roads in the Midland
counties, about the same time, had nearly caused the death of the
heir to the throne. On the 2nd of September, 1789, the Prince of
Wales left Wentworth Hall, where he had been on a visit to Earl
Fitzwilliam, and took the road for London in his carriage. When
about two miles from Newark the Prince's coach was overturned by a
cart in a narrow part of the road; it rolled down a slope, turning
over three times, and landed at the bottom, shivered to pieces.
Fortunately the Prince escaped with only a few bruises and a
sprain; but the incident had no effect in stirring up the local
authorities to make any improvement in the road, which remained in
the same wretched state until a comparatively recent period.
When Palmer's new mail-coaches were introduced, an attempt was made
to diminish the jolting of the passengers by having the carriages
hung upon new patent springs, but with very indifferent results.
Mathew Boulton, the engineer, thus described their effect upon
himself in a journey he made in one of them from London into
Devonshire, in 1787:--
"I had the most disagreeable journey I ever
experienced the night after I left you, owing to the
new improved patent coach, a vehicle loaded with iron
trappings and the greatest complication of
unmechanical contrivances jumbled together, that I
have ever witnessed. The coach swings sideways, with
a sickly sway without any vertical spring; the point
of suspense bearing upon an arch called a spring,
though it is nothing of the sort, The severity of the
jolting occasioned me such disorder, that I was
obliged to stop at Axminster and go to bed very ill.
However, I was able next day to proceed in a
post-chaise. The landlady in the London Inn, at
Exeter, assured me that the passengers who arrived
every night were in general so ill that they were
obliged to go supperless to bed; and, unless they go
back to the old-fashioned coach, hung a little lower,
the mail-coaches will lose all their custom."*[7]
We may briefly refer to the several stages of improvement --if
improvement it could be called--in the most frequented highways of
the kingdom, and to the action of the legislature with reference to
the extension of turnpikes. The trade and industry of the country
had been steadily improving; but the greatest obstacle to their
further progress was always felt to be the disgraceful state of the
roads. As long ago as the year 1663 an Act was passed*[8]
authorising the first toll-gates or turnpikes to be erected, at
which collectors were stationed to levy small sums from those using
the road, for the purpose of defraying the needful expenses of
their maintenance. This Act, however, only applied to a portion of
the Great North Road between London and York, and it authorised the
new toll-bars to be erected at Wade's Mill in Hertfordshire, at
Caxton in Cambridgeshire, and at Stilton in Huntingdonshire.*[9]
The Act was not followed by any others for a quarter of a century,
and even after that lapse of time such Acts as were passed of a
similar character were very few and far between.
For nearly a century more, travellers from Edinburgh to London met
with no turnpikes until within about 110 miles of the metropolis.
North of that point there was only a narrow causeway fit for
pack-horses, flanked with clay sloughs on either side. It is,
however, stated that the Duke of Cumberland and the Earl of
Albemarle, when on their way to Scotland in pursuit of the rebels
in 1746, did contrive to reach Durham in a coach and six; but there
the roads were found so wretched, that they were under the
necessity of taking to horse, and Mr. George Bowes, the county
member, made His Royal Highness a present of his nag to enable him
to proceed on his journey. The roads west of Newcastle were so bad,
that in the previous year the royal forces under General Wade,
which left Newcastle for Carlisle to intercept the Pretender and
his army, halted the first night at Ovingham, and the second at
Hexham, being able to travel only twenty miles in two days.*[10]
The rebellion of 1745 gave a great impulse to the construction of
roads for military as well as civil purposes. The nimble
Highlanders, without baggage or waggons, had been able to cross the
border and penetrate almost to the centre of England before any
definite knowledge of their proceedings had reached the rest of the
kingdom. In the metropolis itself little information could be
obtained of the movements of the rebel army for several days after
they had left Edinburgh. Light of foot, they outstripped the
cavalry and artillery of the royal army, which were delayed at all
points by impassable roads. No sooner, however, was the rebellion
put down, than Government directed its attention to the best means
of securing the permanent subordination of the Highlands, and with
this object the construction of good highways was declared to be
indispensable. The expediency of opening up the communication
between the capital and the principal towns of Scotland was also
generally admitted; and from that time, though slowly, the
construction of the main high routes between north and south made
steady progress.
The extension of the turnpike system, however, encountered violent
opposition from the people, being regarded as a grievous tax upon
their freedom of movement from place to place. Armed bodies of men
assembled to destroy the turnpikes; and they burnt down the
toll-houses and blew up the posts with gunpowder. The resistance
was the greatest in Yorkshire, along the line of the Great North
Road towards Scotland, though riots also took place in
Somersetshire and Gloucestershire, and even in the immediate
neighbourhood of London. One fine May morning, at Selby, in
Yorkshire, the public bellman summoned the inhabitants to assemble
with their hatchets and axes that night at midnight, and cut down
the turnpikes erected by Act of Parliament; nor were they slow to
act upon his summons. Soldiers were then sent into the district to
protect the toll-bars and the toll-takers; but this was a difficult
matter, for the toll-gates were numerous, and wherever a "pike" was
left unprotected at night, it was found destroyed in the morning.
The Yeadon and Otley mobs, near Leeds, were especially violent. On
the 18th of June, 1753, they made quite a raid upon the turnpikes,
burning or destroying about a dozen in one week. A score of the
rioters were apprehended, and while on their way to York Castle a
rescue was attempted, when the soldiers were under the necessity of
firing, and many persons were killed and wounded. The prejudices
entertained against the turnpikes were so strong, that in some
places the country people would not even use the improved roads
after they were made.*[11] For instance, the driver of the
Marlborough coach obstinately refused to use the New Bath road, but
stuck to the old waggon-track, called "Ramsbury." He was an old
man, he said: his grandfather and father had driven the aforesaid
way before him, and he would continue in the old track till
death.*[12] Petitions were also presented to Parliament against
the extension of turnpikes; but the opposition represented by the
petitioners was of a much less honest character than that of the
misguided and prejudiced country folks, who burnt down the
toll-houses. It was principally got up by the agriculturists in the
neighbourhood of the metropolis, who, having secured the advantages
which the turnpike-roads first constructed had conferred upon them,
desired to retain a monopoly of the improved means of
communication. They alleged that if turnpike-roads were extended
into the remoter counties, the greater cheapness of labour there
would enable the distant farmers to sell their grass and corn
cheaper in the London market than themselves, and that thus they
would be ruined.*[13]
This opposition, however, did not prevent the progress of turnpike
and highway legislation; and we find that, from l760 to l774, no
fewer than four hundred and fifty-two Acts were passed for making
and repairing highways. Nevertheless the roads of the kingdom long
continued in a very unsatisfactory state, chiefly arising from the
extremely imperfect manner in which they were made.
Road-making as a profession was as yet unknown. Deviations were
made in the old roads to make them more easy and straight; but the
deep ruts were merely filled up with any materials that lay nearest
at hand, and stones taken from the quarry, instead of being broken
and laid on carefully to a proper depth, were tumbled down and
roughly spread, the country road-maker trusting to the operation of
cart-wheels and waggons to crush them into a proper shape. Men of
eminence as engineers--and there were very few such at the time--
considered road-making beneath their consideration; and it was even
thought singular that, in 1768, the distinguished Smeaton should
have condescended to make a road across the valley of the Trent,
between Markham and Newark.
The making of the new roads was thus left to such persons as might
choose to take up the trade, special skill not being thought at all
necessary on the part of a road-maker. It is only in this way that
we can account for the remarkable fact, that the first extensive
maker of roads who pursued it as a business, was not an engineer,
nor even a mechanic, but a Blind Man, bred to no trade, and
possessing no experience whatever in the arts of surveying or
bridge-building, yet a man possessed of extraordinary natural
gifts, and unquestionably most successful as a road-maker.
We allude to John Metcalf, commonly known as "Blind Jack of
Knaresborough," to whose biography, as the constructor of nearly
two hundred miles of capital roads--as, indeed, the first great
English road-maker--we propose to devote the next chapter.
Footnotes for Chapter V.
*[1] Lady Luxborough, in a letter to Shenstone the poet, in 1749,
says,--"A Birmingham coach is newly established to our great
emolument. Would it not be a good scheme (this dirty weather, when
riding is no more a pleasure) for you to come some Monday in the
said stage-coach from Birmingham to breakfast at Barrells,
(for they always breakfast at Henley); and on the Saturday following
it would convey you back to Birmingham, unless you would stay longer,
which would be better still, and equally easy; for the stage goes
every week the same road. It breakfasts at Henley, and lies at
Chipping Horton; goes early next day to Oxford, stays there all day
and night, and gets on the third day to London; which from
Birmingham at this season is pretty well, considering how long they
are at Oxford; and it is much more agreeable as to the country than
the Warwick way was."
*[2] We may incidentally mention three other journeys south by
future Lords Chancellors. Mansfield rode up from Scotland to
London when a boy, taking two months to make the journey on his pony.
Wedderburn's journey by coach from Edinburgh to London, in 1757,
occupied him six days. "When I first reached London," said
the late Lord Campbell, "I performed the same journey in three
nights and two days, Mr. Palmer's mail-coaches being then
established; but this swift travelling was considered dangerous as
well as wonderful, and I was gravely advised to stay a day at York,
as several passengers who had gone through without stopping had
died of apoplexy from the rapidity of the motion!"
*[3] C. H. Moritz: 'Reise eines Deutschen in England im Jahre 1782.'
Berlin, 1783.
*[4] Arthur Young's 'Six Weeks' Tour in the Southern Counties of
England and Wales,' 2nd ed., 1769, pp. 88-9.
*[5] 'Six Weeks Tour' in the Southern Counties of England and
Wales,' pp. 153-5. The roads all over South Wales were equally
bad down to the beginning of the present century. At Halfway, near
Trecastle, in Breconshire, South Wales, a small obelisk is still to
be seen, which was erected to commemorate the turn over and
destruction of the mail coach over a steep of l30 feet; the driver
and passengers escaping unhurt.
*[6] 'A Six Months' Tour through the North of England,' vol. iv.,
p. 431.
*[7] Letter to Wyatt, October 5th, 1787, MS.
*[8] Act 15 Car. II., c. 1.
*[9] The preamble of the Act recites that "The ancient highway and
post-road leading from London to York, and so into Scotland, and
likewise from London into Lincolnshire, lieth for many miles in the
counties of Hertford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, in many of which
places the road, by reason of the great and many loads which are
weekly drawn in waggons through the said places, as well as by
reason of the great trade of barley and malt that cometh to Ware,
and so is conveyed by water to the city of London, as well as other
carriages, both from the north parts as also from the city of
Norwich, St. Edmondsbury, and the town of Cambridge, to London, is
very ruinous, and become almost impassable, insomuch that it is
become very dangerous to all his Majesty's liege people that pass
that way," &c.
*[10] Down to the year 1756, Newcastle and Carlisle were only
connected by a bridle way. In that year, Marshal Wade employed his
army to construct a road by way of Harlaw and Cholterford,
following for thirty miles the line of the old Roman Wall, the
materials of which he used to construct his "agger" and culverts.
This was long after known as "the military road."
*[11] The Blandford waggoner said, "Roads had but one object--for
waggon-driving. He required but four-foot width in a lane, and all
the rest might go to the devil." He added, "The gentry ought to
stay at home, and be d----d, and not run gossiping up and down the
country."--Roberts's 'Social History of the Southern Counties.'
*[12] 'Gentleman's Magazine' for December, 1752.
*[13] Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,' book i., chap. xi., part i.
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN METCALF, ROAD-MAKER.
[Image] Metcalf's birthplace Knaresborough
John Metcalf was born at Knaresborough in 1717, the son of poor
working people. When only six years old he was seized with
virulent small-pox, which totally destroyed his sight. The blind
boy, when sufficiently recovered to go abroad, first learnt to
grope from door to door along the walls on either side of his
parents' dwelling. In about six months he was able to feel his way
to the end of the street and back without a guide, and in three
years he could go on a message to any part of the town. He grew
strong and healthy, and longed to join in the sports of boys of his
age. He went bird-nesting with them, and climbed the trees while
the boys below directed him to the nests, receiving his share of
eggs and young birds. Thus he shortly became an expert climber,
and could mount with ease any tree that he was able to grasp.
He rambled into the lanes and fields alone, and soon knew every foot
of the ground for miles round Knaresborough. He next learnt to
ride, delighting above all things in a gallop. He contrived to
keep a dog and coursed hares: indeed, the boy was the marvel of the
neighbourhood. His unrestrainable activity, his acuteness of sense,
his shrewdness, and his cleverness, astonished everybody.
The boy's confidence in himself was such, that though blind, he was
ready to undertake almost any adventure. Among his other arts he
learned to swim in the Nidd, and became so expert that on one
occasion he saved the lives of three of his companions. Once, when
two men were drowned in a deep part of the river, Metcalf was sent
for to dive for them, which he did, and brought up one of the
bodies at the fourth diving: the other had been carried down the
stream. He thus also saved a manufacturer's yarn, a large quantity
of which had been carried by a sudden flood into a deep hole under
the High Bridge. At home, in the evenings, he learnt to play the
fiddle, and became so skilled on the instrument, that he was shortly
able to earn money by playing dance music at country parties.
At Christmas time he played waits, and during the Harrogate season
he played to the assemblies at the Queen's Head and the Green Dragon.
On one occasion, towards dusk, he acted as guide to a belated
gentleman along the difficult road from York to Harrogate.
The road was then full of windings and turnings, and in many places
it was no better than a track across unenclosed moors. Metcalf
brought the gentleman safe to his inn, "The Granby," late at night,
and was invited to join in a tankard of negus. On Metcalf leaving
the room, the gentleman observed to the landlord--"I think,
landlord, my guide must have drunk a great deal of spirits since we
came here." "Why so, Sir?" "Well, I judge so, from the appearance
of his eyes." "Eyes! bless you, Sir," rejoined the landlord, "don't
yon know that he is blind?" "Blind! What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, Sir, that he cannot see--he is as blind as a stone.
"Well, landlord," said the gentleman, "this is really too much:
call him in." Enter Metcalf. "My friend, are you really blind?"
"Yes, Sir," said he, "I lost my sight when six years old." "Had I
known that, I would not have ventured with you on that road from
York for a hundred pounds." "And I, Sir," said Metcalf, "would not
have lost my way for a thousand."
Metcalf having thriven and saved money, bought and rode a horse of
his own. He had a great affection for the animal, and when he
called, it would immediately answer him by neighing. The most
surprising thing is that he was a good huntsman; and to follow the
hounds was one of his greatest pleasures. He was as bold as a
rider as ever took the field. He trusted much, no doubt, to the
sagacity of his horse; but he himself was apparently regardless of
danger. The hunting adventures which are related of him,
considering his blindness, seem altogether marvellous. He would
also run his horse for the petty prizes or plates given at the
"feasts" in the neighbourhood, and he attended the races at York
and other places, where he made bets with considerable skill,
keeping well in his memory the winning and losing horses.
After the races, he would return to Knaresborough late at night,
guiding others who but for him could never have made out the way.
On one occasion he rode his horse in a match in Knaresborough
Forest. The ground was marked out by posts, including a circle of
a mile, and the race was three times round. Great odds were laid
against the blind man, because of his supposed inability to keep
the course. But his ingenuity was never at fault. He procured a
number of dinner-bells from the Harrogate inns and set men to ring
them at the several posts. Their sound was enough to direct him
during the race, and the blind man came in the winner! After the
race was over, a gentleman who owned a notorious runaway horse came
up and offered to lay a bet with Metcalf that he could not gallop
the horse fifty yards and stop it within two hundred. Metcalf
accepted the bet, with the condition that he might choose his
ground. This was agreed to, but there was to be neither hedge nor
wall in the distance. Metcalf forthwith proceeded to the
neighbourhood of the large bog near the Harrogate Old Spa, and
having placed a person on the line in which he proposed to ride,
who was to sing a song to guide him by its sound, he mounted and
rode straight into the bog, where he had the horse effectually
stopped within the stipulated two hundred yards, stuck up to his
saddle-girths in the mire. Metcalf scrambled out and claimed his
wager; but it was with the greatest difficulty that the horse could
be extricated.
The blind man also played at bowls very successfully, receiving the
odds of a bowl extra for the deficiency of each eye. He had thus
three bowls for the other's one; and he took care to place one
friend at the jack and another midway, who, keeping up a constant
discourse with him, enabled him readily to judge of the distance.
In athletic sports, such as wrestling and boxing, he was also a
great adept; and being now a full-grown man, of great strength and
robustness, about six feet two in height, few durst try upon him
the practical jokes which cowardly persons are sometimes disposed
to play upon the blind.
Notwithstanding his mischievous tricks and youthful wildness, there
must have been something exceedingly winning about the man,
possessed, as he was, of a strong, manly, and affectionate nature;
and we are not, therefore, surprised to learn that the land lord's
daughter of "The Granby" fairly fell in love with Blind Jack and
married him, much to the disgust of her relatives. When asked how
it was that she could marry such a man, her woman-like reply was,
"Because I could not be happy without him: his actions are so
singular, and his spirit so manly and enterprising, that I could
not help loving him." But, after all, Dolly was not so far wrong in
the choice as her parents thought her. As the result proved,
Metcalf had in him elements of success in life, which, even according
to the world's estimate, made him eventually a very "good match,"
and the woman's clear sight in this case stood her in good stead.
But before this marriage was consummated, Metcalf had wandered far
and "seen" a good deal of the world, as he termed it. He travelled
on horseback to Whitby, and from thence he sailed for London,
taking with him his fiddle, by the aid of which he continued to
earn enough to maintain himself for several weeks in the
metropolis. Returning to Whitby, He sailed from thence to
Newcastle to "see" some friends there, whom he had known at
Harrogate while visiting that watering-place. He was welcomed by
many families and spent an agreeable month, afterwards visiting
Sunderland, still supporting himself by his violin playing.
Then he returned to Whitby for his horse, and rode homeward alone to
Knaresborough by Pickering, Malton, and York, over very bad roads,
the greater part of which he had never travelled before, yet
without once missing his way. When he arrived at York, it was the
dead of night, and he found the city gates at Middlethorp shut.
They were of strong planks, with iron spikes fixed on the top; but
throwing his horse's bridle-rein over one of the spikes, he climbed
up, and by the help of a corner of the wall that joined the gates,
he got safely over: then opening; them from the inside, he led his
horse through.
After another season at Harrogate, he made a second visit to
London, in the company of a North countryman who played the small
pipes. He was kindly entertained by Colonel Liddell, of Ravensworth
Castle, who gave him a general invitation to his house. During
this visit which was in 1730-1, Metcalf ranged freely over the
metropolis, visiting Maidenhead and Reading, and returning by
Windsor and Hampton Court. The Harrogate season being at hand,
he prepared to proceed thither,--Colonel Liddell, who was also about
setting out for Harrogate, offering him a seat behind his coach.
Metcalf thanked him, but declined the offer, observing that he
could, with great ease, walk as, far in a day as he, the Colonel,
was likely to travel in his carriage; besides, he preferred the
walking. That a blind man should undertake to walk a distance of
two hundred miles over an unknown road, in the same time that it
took a gentleman to perform the same distance in his coach, dragged
by post-horses, seems almost incredible; yet Metcalf actually
arrived at Harrogate before the Colonel, and that without hurrying
by the way. The circumstance is easily accounted for by the
deplorable state of the roads, which made travelling by foot on the
whole considerably more expeditious than travelling by coach.
The story is even extant of a man with a wooden leg being once offered
a lift upon a stage-coach; but he declined, with "Thank'ee, I can't
wait; I'm in a hurry." And he stumped on, ahead of the coach.
The account of Metcalf's journey on foot from London to Harrogate
is not without a special bearing on our subject, as illustrative of
the state of the roads at the time. He started on a Monday
morning, about an hour before the Colonel in his carriage, with his
suite, which consisted of sixteen servants on horseback. It was
arranged that they should sleep that night at Welwyn, in
Hertfordshire. Metcalf made his way to Barnet; but a little north
of that town, where the road branches off to St. Albans, he took
the wrong way, and thus made a considerable detour. Nevertheless
he arrived at Welwyn first, to the surprise of the Colonel. Next
morning he set off as before, and reached Biggleswade; but there he
found the river swollen and no bridge provided to enable travellers
to cross to the further side. He made a considerable circuit, in
the hope of finding some method of crossing the stream, and was so
fortunate as to fall in with a fellow wayfarer, who led the way
across some planks, Metcalf following the sound of his feet.
Arrived at the other side, Metcalf, taking some pence from his
pocket, said, "Here, my good fellow, take that and get a pint of beer."
The stranger declined, saying he was welcome to his services.
Metcalf, however, pressed upon his guide the small reward, when the
other asked, "Pray, can you see very well?" "Not remarkably well,"
said Metcalf. "My friend," said the stranger, "I do not mean to
tithe you: I am the rector of this parish; so God bless you,
and I wish you a good journey. " Metcalf set forward again with
the blessing, and reached his journey's end safely, again before the
Colonel. On the Saturday after their setting out from London,
the travellers reached Wetherby, where Colonel Liddell desired to
rest until the Monday; but Metcalf proceeded on to Harrogate, thus
completing the journey in six days,--the Colonel arriving two days
later.
He now renewed his musical performances at Harrogate, and was also
in considerable request at the Ripon assemblies, which were
attended by most of the families of distinction in that
neighbourhood. When the season at Harrogate was over, he retired
to Knaresborough with his young wife, and having purchased an old
house, he had it pulled down and another built on its site,--he
himself getting the requisite stones for the masonry out of the bed
of the adjoining river. The uncertainty of the income derived from
musical performances led him to think of following some more
settled pursuit, now that he had a wife to maintain as well as
himself. He accordingly set up a four-wheeled and a one-horse
chaise for the public accommodation,--Harrogate up to that time
being without any vehicle for hire. The innkeepers of the town
having followed his example, and abstracted most of his business,
Metcalf next took to fish-dealing. He bought fish at the coast,
which he conveyed on horseback to Leeds and other towns for sale.
He continued indefatigable at this trade for some time, being on
the road often for nights together; but he was at length forced to
abandon it in consequence of the inadequacy of the returns. He was
therefore under the necessity of again taking up his violin; and he
was employed as a musician in the Long Room at Harrogate, at the
time of the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1745.
The news of the rout of the Royal army at Prestonpans, and the
intended march of the Highlanders southwards, put a stop to
business as well as pleasure, and caused a general consternation
throughout the northern counties. The great bulk of the people
were, however, comparatively indifferent to the measures of defence
which were adopted; and but for the energy displayed by the country
gentlemen in raising forces in support of the established
government, the Stuarts might again have been seated on the throne
of Britain. Among the county gentlemen of York who distinguished
themselves on the occasion was William Thornton, Esq., of
Thornville Royal. The county having voted ninety thousand pounds
for raising, clothing, and maintaining a body of four thousand men,
Mr. Thornton proposed, at a public meeting held at York, that they
should be embodied with the regulars and march with the King's
forces to meet the Pretender in the field. This proposal was,
however, overruled, the majority of the meeting resolving that the
men should be retained at home for purposes merely of local
defence. On this decision being come to, Mr. Thornton determined
to raise a company of volunteers at his own expense, and to join
the Royal army with such force as he could muster. He then went
abroad among his tenantry and servants, and endeavoured to induce
them to follow him, but without success.
Still determined on raising his company, Mr. Thornton next cast
about him for other means; and who should he think of in his
emergency but Blind Jack! Metcalf had often played to his family at
Christmas time, and the Squire knew him to be one of the most
popular men in the neighbourhood. He accordingly proceeded to
Knaresborough to confer with Metcalf on the subject. It was then
about the beginning of October, only a fortnight after the battle
of Prestonpans. Sending for Jack to his inn, Mr. Thornton told
him of the state of affairs--that the French were coming to join
the rebels--and that if the country were allowed to fall into their
hands, no man's wife, daughter, nor sister would be safe. Jack's
loyalty was at once kindled. If no one else would join the Squire,
he would! Thus enlisted--perhaps carried away by his love of
adventure not less than by his feeling of patriotism Metcalf
proceeded to enlist others, and in two days a hundred and forty men
were obtained, from whom Mr. Thornton drafted sixty-four, the
intended number of his company. The men were immediately drilled
and brought into a state of as much efficiency as was practicable
in the time; and when they marched off to join General Wade's army
at Boroughbridge, the Captain said to them on setting out,
"My lads! you are going to form part of a ring-fence to the finest
estate in the world!" Blind Jack played a march at the head of the
company, dressed in blue and buff, and in a gold-laced hat.
The Captain said he would willingly give a hundred guineas for only
one eye to put in Jack's head: he was such a useful, spirited, handy
fellow.
On arriving at Newcastle, Captain Thornton's company was united to
Pulteney's regiment, one of the weakest. The army lay for a week
in tents on the Moor. Winter had set in, and the snow lay thick
on the ground; but intelligence arriving that Prince Charles, with
his Highlanders, was proceeding southwards by way of Carlisle,
General Wade gave orders for the immediate advance of the army on
Hexham, in the hope of intercepting them by that route. They set
out on their march amidst hail and snow; and in addition to the
obstruction caused by the weather, they had to overcome the
difficulties occasioned by the badness of the roads. The men were
often three or four-hours in marching a mile, the pioneers having
to fill up ditches and clear away many obstructions in making a
practicable passage for the artillery and baggage. The army was
only able to reach Ovingham, a distance of little more than ten
miles, after fifteen hours' marching. The night was bitter cold;
the ground was frozen so hard that but few of the tent-pins could
be driven; and the men lay down upon the earth amongst their straw.
Metcalf, to keep up the spirits of his company for sleep was next
to impossible --took out his fiddle and played lively tunes whilst
the men danced round the straw, which they set on fire.
Next day the army marched for Hexham; But the rebels having already
passed southward, General Wade retraced. his steps to Newcastle to
gain the high road leading to Yorkshire, whither he marched in all
haste; and for a time his army lay before Leeds on fields now
covered with streets, some of which still bear the names of
Wade-lane, Camp-road, and Camp-field, in consequence of the event.
On the retreat of Prince Charles from Derby, General Wade again
proceeded to Newcastle, while the Duke of Cumberland hung upon the
rear of the rebels along their line of retreat by Penrith and
Carlisle. Wade's army proceeded by forced marches into Scotland,
and at length came up with the Highlanders at Falkirk. Metcalf
continued with Captain Thornton and his company throughout all
these marchings and countermarchings, determined to be of service
to his master if he could, and at all events to see the end of the
campaign. At the battle of Falkirk he played his company to the
field; but it was a grossly-mismanaged battle on the part of the
Royalist General, and the result was a total defeat. Twenty of
Thornton's men were made prisoners, with the lieutenant and
ensign. The Captain himself only escaped by taking refuge in a
poor woman's house in the town of Falkirk, where he lay hidden for
many days; Metcalf returning to Edinburgh with the rest of the
defeated army.
Some of the Dragoon officers, hearing of Jack's escape, sent for
him to head-quarters at Holyrood, to question him about his
Captain. One of them took occasion to speak ironically of
Thornton's men, and asked Metcalf how he had contrived to escape.
"Oh!" said Jack, "I found it easy to follow the sound of the
Dragoons' horses-- they made such a clatter over the stones when
flying from the Highlandmen. Another asked him how he, a blind
man, durst venture upon such a service; to which Metcalf replied,
that had he possessed a pair of good eyes, perhaps he would not
have come there to risk the loss of them by gunpowder. No more
questions were asked, and Jack withdrew; but he was not satisfied
about the disappearance of Captain Thornton, and determined on
going back to Falkirk, within the enemy's lines, to get news of
him, and perhaps to rescue him, if that were still possible.
The rest of the company were very much disheartened at the loss of
their officers and so many of their comrades, and wished Metcalf to
furnish them with the means of returning home. But he would not
hear of such a thing, and strongly encouraged them to remain until,
at all events, he had got news of the Captain. He then set out for
Prince Charles's camp. On reaching the outposts of the English
army, he was urged by the officer in command to lay aside his
project, which would certainly cost him his life. But Metcalf was
not to be dissuaded, and he was permitted to proceed, which he did
in the company of one of the rebel spies, pretending that he wished
to be engaged as a musician in the Prince's army. A woman whom
they met returning to Edinburgh from the field of Falkirk, laden
with plunder, gave Metcalf a token to her husband, who was Lord
George Murray's cook, and this secured him an access to the
Prince's quarters; but, notwithstanding a most diligent search,
he could hear nothing of his master. Unfortunately for him, a person
who had seen him at Harrogate, pointed him out as a suspicions
character, and he was seized and put in confinement for three days,
after which he was tried by court martial; but as nothing could be
alleged against him, he was acquitted, and shortly after made his
escape from the rebel camp. On reaching Edinburgh, very much to his
delight he found Captain Thornton had arrived there before him.
On the 30th of January, 1746, the Duke of Cumberland reached
Edinburgh, and put himself at the head of the Royal army, which
proceeded northward in pursuit of the Highlanders. At Aberdeen,
where the Duke gave a ball, Metcalf was found to be the only
musician in camp who could play country dances, and he played to
the company, standing on a chair, for eight hours,--the Duke
several times, as he passed him, shouting out "Thornton, play up!"
Next morning the Duke sent him a present of two guineas; but as the
Captain would not allow him to receive such gifts while in his pay,
Metcalf spent the money, with his permission, in giving a treat to
the Duke's two body servants. The battle of Culloden, so
disastrous to the poor Highlanders; shortly followed; after which
Captain Thornton, Metcalf, and the Yorkshire Volunteer Company,
proceeded homewards. Metcalf's young wife had been in great fears
for the safety of her blind, fearless, and almost reckless partner;
but she received him with open arms, and his spirit of adventure
being now considerably allayed, he determined to settle quietly
down to the steady pursuit of business.
During his stay in Aberdeen, Metcalf had made himself familiar with
the articles of clothing manufactured at that place, and he came to
the conclusion that a profitable trade might be carried on by
buying them on the spot, and selling them by retail to customers in
Yorkshire. He accordingly proceeded to Aberdeen in the following
spring; and bought a considerable stock of cotton and worsted
stockings, which he found he could readily dispose of on his return
home. His knowledge of horseflesh--in which he was, of course,
mainly guided by his acute sense of feeling--also proved highly
serviceable to him, and he bought considerable numbers of horses in
Yorkshire for sale in Scotland, bringing back galloways in return.
It is supposed that at the same time he carried on a profitable
contraband trade in tea and such like articles.
After this, Metcalf began a new line of business, that of common
carrier between York and Knaresborough, plying the first
stage-waggon on that road. He made the journey twice a week in
summer and once a week in winter. He also undertook the conveyance
of army baggage, most other owners of carts at that time being
afraid of soldiers, regarding them as a wild rough set, with whom
it was dangerous to have any dealings. But the blind man knew them
better, and while he drove a profitable trade in carrying their
baggage from town to town, they never did him any harm. By these
means, he very shortly succeeded in realising a considerable store
of savings, besides being able to maintain his family in
respectability and comfort.
Metcalf, however, had not yet entered upon the main business of his
life. The reader will already have observed how strong of heart
and resolute of purpose he was. During his adventurous career he
had acquired a more than ordinary share of experience of the
world. Stone blind as he was from his childhood, he had not been
able to study books, but he had carefully studied men. He could
read characters with wonderful quickness, rapidly taking stock, as
he called it, of those with whom he came in contact. In his youth,
as we have seen, he could follow the hounds on horse or on foot,
and managed to be in at the death with the most expert riders.
His travels about the country as a guide to those who could see,
as a musician, soldier, chapman, fish-dealer, horse-dealer,
and waggoner, had given him a perfectly familiar acquaintance with
the northern roads. He could measure timber or hay in the stack,
and rapidly reduce their contents to feet and inches after a mental
process of his own. Withal he was endowed with an extraordinary
activity and spirit of enterprise, which, had his sight been spared
him, would probably have rendered him one of the most extraordinary
men of his age. As it was, Metcalf now became one of the greatest
of its road-makers and bridge-builders.
[Image] John Metcalf, the blind road-maker.
About the year 1765 an Act was passed empowering a turnpike-road to
be constructed between Harrogate and Boroughbridge. The business
of contractor had not yet come into existence, nor was the art of
road-making much understood; and in a remote country place such as
Knaresborough the surveyor had some difficulty in finding persons
capable of executing the necessary work. The shrewd Metcalf
discerned in the proposed enterprise the first of a series of
public roads of a similar kind throughout the northern counties,
for none knew better than he did how great was the need of them.
He determined, therefore, to enter upon this new line of business,
and offered to Mr. Ostler, the master surveyor, to construct three
miles of the proposed road between Minskip and Fearnsby. Ostler
knew the man well, and having the greatest confidence in his
abilities, he let him the contract. Metcalf sold his stage-waggons
and his interest in the carrying business between York and
Knaresborough, and at once proceeded with his new undertaking.
The materials for metaling the road were to be obtained from one
gravel-pit for the whole length, and he made his arrangements on a
large scale accordingly, hauling out the ballast with unusual
expedition and economy, at the same time proceeding with the
formation of the road at all points; by which means he was enabled
the first to complete his contract, to the entire satisfaction of
the surveyor and trustees.
This was only the first of a vast number of similar projects on
which Metcalf was afterwards engaged, extending over a period of
more than thirty years. By the time that he had finished the road,
the building of a bridge at Boroughbridge was advertised, and
Metcalf sent in his tender with many others. At the same time he
frankly stated that, though he wished to undertake the work, he had
not before executed anything of the kind. His tender being on the
whole the most favourable, the trustees sent for Metcalf, and on
his appearing before them, they asked him what he knew of a bridge.
He replied that he could readily describe his plan of the one they
proposed to build, if they would be good enough to write down his
figures. The span of the arch, 18 feet," said he, "being a
semicircle, makes 27: the arch-stones must be a foot deep, which,
if multiplied by 27, will be 486; and the basis will be 72 feet
more. This for the arch; but it will require good backing, for
which purpose there are proper stones in the old Roman wall at
Aldborough, which may be used for the purpose, if you please to
give directions to that effect." It is doubtful whether the
trustees were able to follow his rapid calculations; but they were
so much struck by his readiness and apparently complete knowledge
of the work he proposed to execute, that they gave him the contract
to build the bridge; and he completed it within the stipulated time
in a satisfactory and workmanlike manner.
He next agreed to make the mile and a half of turnpike-road between
his native town of Knaresborough and Harrogate--ground with which
he was more than ordinarily familiar. Walking one day over a
portion of the ground on which the road was to be made, while still
covered with grass, he told the workmen that he thought it differed
from the ground adjoining it, and he directed them to try for stone
or gravel underneath; and, strange to say, not many feet down, the
men came upon the stones of an old Roman causeway, from which he
obtained much valuable material for the making of his new road.
At another part of the contract there was a bog to be crossed, and
the surveyor thought it impossible to make a road over it. Metcalf
assured him that he could readily accomplish it; on which the other
offered, if he succeeded, to pay him for the straight road the
price which he would have to pay if the road were constructed round
the bog. Metcalf set to work accordingly, and had a large quantity
of furze and ling laid upon the bog, over which he spread layers of
gravel. The plan answered effectually, and when the materials had
become consolidated, it proved one of the best parts of the road.
It would be tedious to describe in detail the construction of the
various roads and bridges which Metcalf subsequently executed, but
a brief summary of the more important will suffice. In Yorkshire,
he made the roads between Harrogate and Harewood Bridge; between
Chapeltown and Leeds; between Broughton and Addingham; between Mill
Bridge and Halifax; between Wakefield and Dewsbury; between
Wakefield and Doncaster; between Wakefield, Huddersfield, and
Saddleworth (the Manchester road); between Standish and Thurston
Clough; between Huddersfield and Highmoor; between Huddersfield and
Halifax, and between Knaresborough and Wetherby.
In Lancashire also, Metcalf made a large extent of roads, which
were of the greatest importance in opening up the resources of that
county. Previous to their construction, almost the only means of
communication between districts was by horse-tracks and mill-roads,
of sufficient width to enable a laden horse to pass along them with
a pack of goods or a sack of corn slung across its back. Metcalf's
principal roads in Lancashire were those constructed by him between
Bury and Blackburn, with a branch to Accrington; between Bury and
Haslingden; and between Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch to
Blackburn. He also made some highly important main roads
connecting Yorkshire and Lancashire with each other at many parts:
as, for instance, those between Skipton, Colne, and Burnley; and
between Docklane Head and Ashton-under-Lyne. The roads from Ashton
to Stockport and from Stockport to Mottram Langdale were also his
work.
Our road-maker was also extensively employed in the same way in the
counties of Cheshire and Derby; constructing the roads between
Macclesfield and Chapel-le-Frith, between Whaley and Buxton,
between Congleton and the Red Bull (entering Staffordshire), and in
various other directions. The total mileage of the turnpike-roads
thus constructed was about one hundred and eighty miles, for which
Metcalf received in all about sixty-five thousand pounds.
The making of these roads also involved the building of many bridges,
retaining-walls, and culverts. We believe it was generally
admitted of the works constructed by Metcalf that they well stood
the test of time and use; and, with a degree of justifiable pride,
he was afterwards accustomed to point to his bridges, when others
were tumbling during floods, and boast that none of his had fallen.
This extraordinary man not only made the highways which were
designed for him by other surveyors, but himself personally
surveyed and laid out many of the most important roads which he
constructed, in difficult and mountainous parts of Yorkshire and
Lancashire. One who personally knew Metcalf thus wrote of him
during his life-time:. "With the assistance only of a long staff,
I have several times met this man traversing the roads, ascending
steep and rugged heights, exploring valleys and investigating their
several extents, forms, and situations, so as to answer his designs
in the best manner. The plans which he makes, and the estimates he
prepares, are done in a method peculiar to himself, and of which he
cannot well convey the meaning to others. His abilities in this
respect are, nevertheless, so great that he finds constant
employment. Most of the roads over the Peak in Derbyshire have
been altered by his directions, particularly those in the vicinity
of Buxton; and he is at this time constructing a new one betwixt
Wilmslow and Congleton, to open a communication with the great
London road, without being obliged to pass over the mountains.
I have met this blind projector while engaged in making his survey.
He was alone as usual, and, amongst other conversation, I made some
inquiries respecting this new road. It was really astonishing to
hear with what accuracy he described its course and the nature of
the different soils through which it was conducted. Having
mentioned to him a boggy piece of ground it passed through, he
observed that 'that was the only place he had doubts concerning,
and that he was apprehensive they had, contrary to his directions,
been too sparing of their materials.'"*[1]
Metcalf's skill in constructing his roads over boggy ground was
very great; and the following may be cited as an instance. When
the high-road from Huddersfield to Manchester was determined on,
he agreed to make it at so much a rood, though at that time the
line had not been marked out. When this was done, Metcalf, to his
dismay, found that the surveyor had laid it out across some deep
marshy ground on Pule and Standish Commons. On this he
expostulated with the trustees, alleging the much greater expense
that he must necessarily incur in carrying out the work after their
surveyor's plan. They told him, however, that if he succeeded in
making a complete road to their satisfaction, he should not be a
loser; but they pointed out that, according to their surveyor's
views, it would be requisite for him to dig out the bog until he
came to a solid bottom. Metcalf, on making his calculations, found
that in that case he would have to dig a trench some nine feet deep
and fourteen yards broad on the average, making about two hundred
and ninety-four solid yards of bog in every rood, to be excavated
and carried away. This, he naturally conceived, would have proved
both tedious as well as costly, and, after all, the road would in
wet weather have been no better than a broad ditch, and in winter
liable to be blocked up with snow. He strongly represented this
view to the trustees as well as the surveyor, but they were
immovable. It was, therefore, necessary for him to surmount the
difficulty in some other way, though he remained firm in his
resolution not to adopt the plan proposed by the surveyor.
After much cogitation he appeared again before the trustees,
and made this proposal to them: that he should make the road
across the marshes after his own plan, and then, if it should be
found not to answer, he would be at the expense of making it over
again after the surveyor's proposed method. This was agreed to;
and as he had undertaken to make nine miles of the road within ten
months, he immediately set to work with all despatch.
Nearly four hundred men were employed upon the work at six
different points, and their first operation was to cut a deep ditch
along either side of the intended road, and throw the excavated
stuff inwards so as to raise it to a circular form. His greatest
difficulty was in getting the stones laid to make the drains, there
being no firm footing for a horse in the more boggy places.
The Yorkshire clothiers, who passed that way to Huddersfield market
--by no means a soft-spoken race--ridiculed Metcalf's proceedings,
and declared that he and his men would some day have to be dragged
out of the bog by the hair of their heads! Undeterred, however,
by sarcasm, he persistently pursued his plan of making the road
practicable for laden vehicles; but he strictly enjoined his men
for the present to keep his manner of proceeding; a secret.
His plan was this. He ordered heather and ling to be pulled from
the adjacent ground, and after binding it together in little round
bundles, which could be grasped with the hand, these bundles were
placed close together in rows in the direction of the line of road,
after which other similar bundles were placed transversely over
them; and when all had been pressed well down, stone and gravel
were led on in broad-wheeled waggons, and spread over the bundles,
so as to make a firm and level way. When the first load was
brought and laid on, and the horses reached the firm ground again
in safety, loud cheers were set up by the persons who had assembled
in the expectation of seeing both horses and waggons disappear in
the bog. The whole length was finished in like manner, and it
proved one of the best, and even the driest, parts of the road,
standing in very little need of repair for nearly twelve years
after its construction. The plan adopted by Metcalf, we need
scarcely point out, was precisely similar to that afterwards
adopted by George Stephenson, under like circumstances, when
constructing the railway across Chat Moss. It consisted simply in a
large extension of the bearing surface, by which, in fact, the road
was made to float upon the surface of the bog; and the ingenuity of
the expedient proved the practical shrewdness and mother-wit of the
blind Metcalf, as it afterwards illustrated the promptitude as well
as skill of the clear-sighted George Stephenson.
Metcalf was upwards of seventy years old before he left off
road-making. He was still hale and hearty, wonderfully active for
so old a man, and always full of enterprise. Occupation was
absolutely necessary for his comfort, and even to the last day of
his life he could not bear to be idle. While engaged on road-making
in Cheshire, he brought his wife to Stockport for a time,
and there she died, after thirty-nine years of happy married life.
One of Metcalf's daughters became married to a person engaged in
the cotton business at Stockport, and, as that trade was then very
brisk, Metcalf himself commenced it in a small way. He began with
six spinning-jennies and a carding-engine, to which he afterwards
added looms for weaving calicoes, jeans, and velveteens. But trade
was fickle, and finding that he could not sell his yarns except at
a loss, he made over his jennies to his son-in-law, and again went
on with his road-making. The last line which he constructed was
one of the most difficult he had everundertaken,-- that between
Haslingden and Accrington, with a branch road to Bury. Numerous
canals being under construction at the same time, employment was
abundant and wages rose, so that though he honourably fulfilled his
contract, and was paid for it the sum of 3500L., he found himself a
loser of exactly 40L. after two years' labour and anxiety.
He completed the road in 1792, when he was seventy-five years of age,
after which he retired to his farm at Spofforth, near Wetherby,
where for some years longer he continued to do a little business in
his old line, buying and selling hay and standing wood, and
superintending the operations of his little farm, During the later
years of his career he occupied himself in dictating to an
amanuensis an account of the incidents in his remarkable life,
and finally, in the year 1810, this strong-hearted and resolute man
--his life's work over--laid down his staff and peacefully departed
in the ninety-third year of his age; leaving behind him four
children, twenty grand-children, and ninety great grand-children.
[Image] Metcalf's house at Spofforth.
The roads constructed by Metcalf and others had the effect of
greatly improving the communications of Yorkshire and Lancashire,
and opening up those counties to the trade then flowing into them
from all directions. But the administration of the highways and
turnpikes being entirely local, their good or bad management
depending upon the public spirit and enterprise of the gentlemen of
the locality, it frequently happened that while the roads of one
county were exceedingly good, those of the adjoining county were
altogether execrable.
Even in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis the Surrey roads
remained comparatively unimproved. Those through the interior of
Kent were wretched. When Mr. Rennie, the engineer, was engaged in
surveying the Weald with a view to the cutting of a canal through
it in 1802, he found the country almost destitute of practicable
roads, though so near to the metropolis on the one hand and to the
sea-coast on the other. The interior of the county was then
comparatively untraversed, except by bands of smugglers, who kept
the inhabitants in a state of constant terror. In an agricultural
report on the county of Northampton as late as the year 1813, it
was stated that the only way of getting along some of the main
lines of road in rainy weather, was by swimming!
In the neighbourhood of the city of Lincoln the communications were
little better, and there still stands upon what is called Lincoln
Heath--though a heath no longer--a curious memorial of the past in
the shape of Dunstan Pillar, a column seventy feet high, erected
about the middle of last century in the midst of the then dreary,
barren waste, for the purpose of serving as a mark to wayfarers by
day and a beacon to them by night.*[2]
[Image] Land Lighthouse on Lincoln Heath.
At that time the Heath was not only uncultivated, but it was also
unprovided with a road across it. When the late Lady Robert
Manners visited Lincoln from her residence at Bloxholm, she was
accustomed to send forward a groom to examine some track, that on
his return he might be able to report one that was practicable.
Travellers frequently lost themselves upon this heath. Thus a
family, returning from a ball at Lincoln, strayed from the track
twice in one night, and they were obliged to remain there until
morning. All this is now changed, and Lincoln Heath has become
covered with excellent roads and thriving farmsteads.
"This Dunstan Pillar," says Mr. Pusey, in his review of the
agriculture of Lincolnshire, in 1843, "lighted up no longer time
ago for so singular a purpose, did appear to me a striking witness
of the spirit of industry which, in our own days, has reared the
thriving homesteads around it, and spread a mantle of teeming
vegetation to its very base. And it was certainly surprising to
discover at once the finest farming I had ever seen and the only
land lighthouse ever raised.*[3] Now that the pillar has ceased to
cheer the wayfarer, it may serve as a beacon to encourage other
landowners in converting their dreary moors into similar scenes of
thriving industry."*[4] When the improvement of the high roads of
the country fairly set in, the progress made was very rapid.
This was greatly stimulated by the important inventions of tools,
machines, and engines, made towards the close of last century,
the products of which--more especially of the steam-engine and
spinning-machine--so largely increased the wealth of the nation.
Manufactures, commerce, and shipping, made unprecedented strides;
life became more active; persons and commodities circulated more
rapidly; every improvement in the internal communications being
followed by an increase of ease, rapidity, and economy in
locomotion. Turnpike and post roads were speedily extended all
over the country, and even the rugged mountain districts of North
Wales and the Scotch Highlands became as accessible as any English
county. The riding postman was superseded by the smartly appointed
mail-coach, performing its journeys with remarkable regularity at
the average speed of ten miles an hour. Slow stagecoaches gave
place to fast ones, splendidly horsed and "tooled," until
travelling by road in England was pronounced almost perfect.
But all this was not enough. The roads and canals, numerous and
perfect though they might be, were found altogether inadequate to
the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which had
increased, at a constantly accelerating ratio, with the increased
application of steam power to the purposes of productive industry.
At length steam itself was applied to remedy the inconveniences
which it had caused; the locomotive engine was invented, and
travelling by railway became generally adopted. The effect of
these several improvements in the means of locomotion, has been to
greatly increase the public activity, and to promote the general
comfort and well-being. They have tended to bring the country and
the town much closer together; and, by annihilating distance as
measured by time, to make the whole kingdom as one great city.
What the personal blessings of improved communication have been, no
one has described so well as the witty and sensible Sydney Smith:--
"It is of some importance," he wrote, "at what period
a man is born. A young man alive at this period
hardly knows to what improvement of human life he has
been introduced; and I would bring before his notice
the changes which have taken place in England since I
began to breathe the breath of life, a period
amounting to over eighty years. Gas was unknown;
I groped about the streets of London in the all but
utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the
protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric,
and exposed to every species of degradation and
insult. I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover
to Calais, before the invention of steam. It took me
nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath, before the
invention of railroads; and I now go in six hours
from Taunton to London! In going from Taunton to
Bath, I suffered between l0,000 and 12,000 severe
contusions, before stone-breaking Macadam was
born.... As the basket of stage-coaches in which
luggage was then carried had no springs, your clothes
were rubbed all to pieces; and, even in the best
society, one-third of the gentlemen at least were
always drunk..... I paid 15L. in a single year for
repairs of carriage-springs on the pavement of
London; and I now glide without noise or fracture on
wooden pavement. I can walk, by the assistance of the
police, from one end of London to the other without
molestation; or, if tired, get into a cheap and
active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels which
the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my
life..... Whatever miseries I suffered, there was no
post to whisk my complaints for a single penny to the
remotest comer of the empire; and yet, in spite of
all these privations, I lived on quietly, and am now
ashamed that I was not more discontented, and utterly
surprised that all these changes and inventions did
not occur two centuries ago.
With the history of these great improvements is also mixed up the
story of human labour and genius, and of the patience and
perseverance displayed in carrying them out. Probably one of the
best illustrations of character in connection with the development
of the inventions of the last century, is to be found in the life
of Thomas Telford, the greatest and most scientific road-maker of
his day, to which we proceed to direct the attention of the reader.
Footnotes for Chapter VI.
*[1] 'Observations on Blindness and on the Employment of the other
Senses to supply the Loss of Sight.' By Mr. Bew.--'Memoirs of the
Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,'
vol.i., pp. 172-174. Paper read 17th April, 1782.
*[2] The pillar was erected by Squire Dashwood in 1751; the lantern
on its summit was regularly lighted till 1788, and occasionally till
1808,, when it was thrown down and never replaced. The Earl of
Buckingham afterwards mounted a statue of George III. on the top.
*[3] Since the appearance of the first edition of this book, a
correspondent has informed us that there is another lighthouse
within 24 miles of London, not unlike that on Lincoln Heath. It is
situated a little to the south-east of the Woking station of the
South-western Railway, and is popularly known as "Woking Monument."
It stands on the verge of Woking Heath, which is a continuation of
the vast tract of heath land which extends in one direction as far
as Bagshot. The tradition among the inhabitants is, that one of the
kings of England was wont to hunt in the neighbourhood, when a fire
was lighted up in the beacon to guide him in case he should be
belated; but the probability is, that it was erected like that on
Lincoln Heath, for the guidance of ordinary wayfarers at night.
*[4] 'Journal of the Agricultural Society of England, 1843.'
LIFE OF THOMAS TELFORD.
CHAPTER I. ESKDALE.
[Image] Valley of "the Unblameable Shepherd", Eskdale
Thomas Telford was born in one of the most Solitary nooks of the
narrow valley of the Esk, in the eastern part of the county of
Dumfries, in Scotland. Eskdale runs north and south, its lower end
having been in former times the western march of the Scottish
border. Near the entrance to the dale is a tall column erected on
Langholm Hill, some twelve miles to the north of the Gretna Green
station of the Caledonian Railway,--which many travellers to and
from Scotland may have observed,--a monument to the late Sir John
Malcolm, Governor of Bombay, one of the distinguished natives of
the district. It looks far over the English border-lands, which
stretch away towards the south, and marks the entrance to the
mountainous parts of the dale, which lie to the north. From that
point upwards the valley gradually contracts, the road winding
along the river's banks, in some places high above the stream,
which rushes swiftly over the rocky bed below.
A few miles upward from the lower end of Eskdale lies the little
capital of the district, the town of Langholm; and there, in the
market-place, stands another monument to the virtues of the Malcolm
family in the statue erected to the memory of Admiral Sir Pulteney
Malcolm, a distinguished naval officer. Above Langholm, the country
becomes more hilly and moorland. In many places only a narrow strip
of land by the river's side is left available for cultivation;
until at length the dale contracts so much that the hills descend
to the very road, and there are only to be seen their steep
heathery sides sloping up towards the sky on either hand, and a
narrow stream plashing and winding along the bottom of the valley
among the rocks at their feet.
[Image] Telford's Native District
From this brief description of the character of Eskdale scenery,
it may readily be supposed that the district is very thinly peopled,
and that it never could have been capable of supporting a large
number of inhabitants. Indeed, previous to the union of the crowns
of England and Scotland, the principal branch of industry that
existed in the Dale was of a lawless kind. The people living on the
two sides of the border looked upon each other's cattle as their
own, provided only they had the strength to "lift" them. They were,
in truth, even during the time of peace, a kind of outcasts,
against whom the united powers of England and Scotland were often
employed. On the Scotch side of the Esk were the Johnstones and
Armstrongs, and on the English the Graemes of Netherby; both clans
being alike wild and lawless. It was a popular border saying that
"Elliots and Armstrongs ride thieves a';" and an old historian says
of the Graemes that "they were all stark moss-troopers and arrant
thieves; to England as well as Scotland outlawed." The neighbouring
chiefs were no better: Scott of Buccleugh, from whom the modern
Duke is descended, and Scott of Harden, the ancestor of the
novelist, being both renowned freebooters.
There stands at this day on the banks of the Esk, only a few miles
from the English border, the ruin of an old fortalice, called
Gilnockie Tower, in a situation which in point of natural beauty is
scarcely equalled even in Scotland. It was the stronghold of a
chief popularly known in his day as Johnnie Armstrong.*[1] He was a
mighty freebooter in the time of James V., and the terror of his
name is said to have extended as far as Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
between which town and his castle on the Esk he was accustomed to
levy black-mail, or "protection and forbearance money," as it was
called. The King, however, determining to put down by the strong
hand the depredations of the march men, made a sudden expedition
along the borders; and Johnnie Armstrong having been so ill-advised
as to make his appearance with his followers at a place called
Carlenrig, in Etterick Forest, between Hawick and Langholm, James
ordered him to instant execution. Had Johnnie Armstrong, like the
Scotts and Kers and Johnstones of like calling, been imprisoned
beforehand, he might possibly have lived to found a British
peerage; but as it was, the genius of the Armstrong dynasty was for
a time extinguished, only, however, to reappear, after the lapse
of a few centuries, in the person of the eminent engineer of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the inventor of the Armstrong gun.
The two centuries and a half which have elapsed since then have
indeed seen extraordinary changes.*[2] The energy which the old
borderers threw into their feuds has not become extinct, but
survives under more benignant aspects, exhibiting itself in efforts
to enlighten, fertilize, and enrich the country which their
wasteful ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish.
The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot family now sit in the British
House of Lords. The descendant of Scott of Harden has achieved a
world-wide reputation as a poet and novelist; and the late Sir
James Graham, the representative of the Graemes of Netherby, on the
English side of the border, was one of the most venerable and
respected of British statesmen. The border men, who used to make
such furious raids and forays, have now come to regard each other,
across the imaginary line which divides them, as friends and
neighbours; and they meet as competitors for victory only at
agricultural meetings, where they strive to win prizes for the
biggest turnips or the most effective reaping-machines; while the
men who followed their Johnstone or Armstrong chiefs as prickers or
hobilers to the fray have, like Telford, crossed the border with
powers of road-making and bridge-building which have proved a
source of increased civilization and well-being to the population
of the entire United Kingdom.
The hamlet of Westerkirk, with its parish church and school,
lies in a narrow part of the valley, a few miles above Langholm.
Westerkirk parish is long and narrow, its boundaries being the
hill-tops on either side of the dale. It is about seven miles long
and two broad, with a population of about 600 persons of all ages.
Yet this number is quite as much as the district is able to
support, as is proved by its remaining as nearly as possible
stationary from one generation to another.*[3] But what becomes of
the natural increase of families? "They swarm off!" was the
explanation given to us by a native of the valley. "If they
remained at home," said he, "we should all be sunk in poverty,
scrambling with each other amongst these hills for a bare living.
But our peasantry have a spirit above that: they will not consent
to sink; they look up; and our parish schools give them a power of
making their way in the world, each man for himself. So they swarm
off--some to America, some to Australia, some to India, and some,
like Telford, work their way across the border and up to London."
One would scarcely have expected to find the birthplace of the
builder of the Menai Bridge and other great national works in so
obscure a corner of the kingdom. Possibly it may already have
struck the reader with surprise, that not only were all the early
engineers self-taught in their profession, but they were brought up
mostly in remote country places, far from the active life of great
towns and cities. But genius is of no locality, and springs alike
from the farmhouse, the peasant's hut, or the herd's shieling.
Strange, indeed, it is that the men who have built our bridges,
docks, lighthouses, canals, and railways, should nearly all have
been country-bred boys: Edwards and Brindley, the sons of small
farmers; Smeaton, brought up in his father's country house at
Austhorpe; Rennie, the son of a farmer and freeholder; and
Stephenson, reared in a colliery village, an engine-tenter's son.
But Telford, even more than any of these, was a purely country-bred
boy, and was born and brought up in a valley so secluded that it
could not even boast of a cluster of houses of the dimensions of a
village.
Telford's father was a herd on the sheep-farm of Glendinning.
The farm consists of green hills, lying along the valley of the Meggat,
a little burn, which descends from the moorlands on the east, and
falls into the Esk near the hamlet of Westerkirk. John Telford's
cottage was little better than a shieling, consisting of four mud
walls, spanned by a thatched roof. It stood upon a knoll near the
lower end of a gully worn in the hillside by the torrents of many
winters.
The ground stretches away from it in a long sweeping slope up to
the sky, and is green to the top, except where the bare grey rocks
in some places crop out to the day. From the knoll may be seen
miles on miles of hills up and down the valley, winding in and out,
sometimes branching off into smaller glens, each with its gurgling
rivulet of peaty-brown water flowing down from the mosses above.
Only a narrow strip of arable land is here and there visible along
the bottom of the dale, all above being sheep-pasture, moors, and
rocks. At Glendinning you seem to have got almost to the world's end.
There the road ceases, and above it stretch trackless moors,
the solitude of which is broken only by the whimpling sound of the
burns on their way to the valley below, the hum of bees gathering
honey among the heather, the whirr of a blackcock on the wing, the
plaintive cry of the ewes at lambing-time, or the sharp bark of the
shepherd's dog gathering the flock together for the fauld.
[Image] Telford's Birthplace
In this cottage on the knoll Thomas Telford was born on the 9th of
August, 1757, and before the year was out he was already an orphan.
The shepherd, his father, died in the month of November, and was
buried in Westerkirk churchyard, leaving behind him his widow and
her only child altogether unprovided for. We may here mention that
one of the first things which that child did, when he had grown up
to manhood and could "cut a headstone," was to erect one with the
following inscription, hewn and lettered by himself, over his
father's grave: "IN MEMORY OF
JOHN TELFORD,
WHO AFTER LIVING 33 YEARS
AN UNBLAMEABLE SHEPHERD,
DIED AT GLENDINNING,
NOVEMBER, 1757,"
a simple but poetical epitaph, which Wordsworth himself might have
written.
The widow had a long and hard struggle with the world before her;
but she encountered it bravely. She had her boy to work for, and,
destitute though she was, she had him to educate. She was helped,
as the poor so often are, by those of her own condition, and there
is no sense of degradation in receiving such help. One of the
risks of benevolence is its tendency to lower the recipient to the
condition of an alms-taker. Doles from poor's-boxes have this
enfeebling effect; but a poor neighbour giving a destitute widow a
help in her time of need is felt to be a friendly act, and is alike
elevating to the character of both. Though misery such as is
witnessed in large towns was quite unknown in the valley, there was
poverty; but it was honest as well as hopeful, and none felt
ashamed of it. The farmers of the dale were very primitive*[4]
in their manners and habits, and being a warm-hearted, though by no
means a demonstrative race, they were kind to the widow and her
fatherless boy. They took him by turns to live with them at their
houses, and gave his mother occasional employment. In summer she
milked the ewes and made hay, and in harvest she went a-shearing;
contriving not only to live, but to be cheerful.
The house to which the widow and her son removed at the Whitsuntide
following the death of her husband was at a place called The Crooks,
about midway between Glendinning and Westerkirk. It was a thatched
cot-house, with two ends; in one of which lived Janet Telford
(more commonly known by her own name of Janet Jackson) and her son
Tom, and in the other her neighbour Elliot; one door being common to
both.
[Image] Cottage at the Crooks.
Young Telford grew up a healthy boy, and he was so full of fun and
humour that he became known in the valley by the name of "Laughing
Tam." When he was old enough to herd sheep he went to live with a
relative, a shepherd like his father, and he spent most of his time
with him in summer on the hill-side amidst the silence of nature.
In winter he lived with one or other of the neighbouring farmers.
He herded their cows or ran errands, receiving for recompense his
meat, a pair of stockings, and five shillings a year for clogs.
These were his first wages, and as he grew older they were
gradually increased.
But Tom must now be put to school, and, happily, small though the
parish of Westerkirk was, it possessed the advantage of that
admirable institution, the parish school. The legal provision made
at an early period for the education of the people in Scotland,
proved one of their greatest boons. By imparting the rudiments of
knowledge to all, the parish schools of the country placed the
children of the peasantry on a more equal footing with the children
of the rich; and to that extent redressed the inequalities of
fortune. To start a poor boy on the road of life without
instruction, is like starting one on a race with his eyes bandaged
or his leg tied up. Compared with the educated son of the rich man,
the former has but little chance of sighting the winning post.
To our orphan boy the merely elementary teaching provided at the
parish school of Westerkirk was an immense boon. To master this was
the first step of the ladder he was afterwards to mount: his own
industry, energy, and ability must do the rest. To school
accordingly he went, still working a-field or herding cattle during
the summer months. Perhaps his own "penny fee" helped to pay the
teacher's hire; but it is supposed that his cousin Jackson defrayed
the principal part of the expense of his instruction. It was not
much that he learnt; but in acquiring the arts of reading, writing,
and figures, he learnt the beginnings of a great deal. Apart from
the question of learning, there was another manifest advantage to
the poor boy in mixing freely at the parish school with the sons of
the neighbouring farmers and proprietors. Such intercourse has an
influence upon a youth's temper, manners, and tastes, which is
quite as important in the education of character as the lessons of
the master himself; and Telford often, in after life, referred with
pleasure to the benefits which he had derived from his early school
friendships. Among those to whom he was accustomed to look back
with most pride, were the two elder brothers of the Malcolm family,
both of whom rose to high rank in the service of their country;
William Telford, a youth of great promise, a naval surgeon,
who died young; and the brothers William and Andrew Little, the former
of whom settled down as a farmer in Eskdale, and the latter,
a surgeon, lost his eyesight when on service off the coast of Africa.
Andrew Little afterwards established himself as a teacher at
Langholm, where he educated, amongst others, General Sir Charles
Pasley, Dr. Irving, the Custodier of the Advocate's Library at
Edinburgh; and others known to fame beyond the bounds of their
native valley. Well might Telford say, when an old man, full of
years and honours, on sitting down to write his autobiography,
"I still recollect with pride and pleasure my native parish of
Westerkirk, on the banks of the Esk, where I was born."
[Image] Westerkirk Church and School.
Footnotes for Chapter I.
*[1] Sir Waiter Scott, in his notes to the 'Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border,' says that the common people of the high parts of
Liddlesdale and the country adjacent to this day hold the memory of
Johnnie Armstrong in very high respect.
*[2] It was long before the Reformation flowed into the secluded
valley of the Esk; but when it did, the energy of the Borderers
displayed itself in the extreme form of their opposition to the old
religion. The Eskdale people became as resolute in their
covenanting as they had before been in their free-booting; the
moorland fastnesses of the moss-troopers becoming the haunts of the
persecuted ministers in the reign of the second James. A little
above Langholm is a hill known as "Peden's View," and the well in
the green hollow at its foot is still called "Peden's Well"--that
place having been the haunt of Alexander Peden, the "prophet." His
hiding-place was among the alder-bushes in the hollow, while from
the hill-top he could look up the valley, and see whether the
Johnstones of Wester Hall were coming. Quite at the head of the
same valley, at a place called Craighaugh, on Eskdale Muir, one
Hislop, a young covenanter, was shot by Johnstone's men, and buried
where he fell; a gray slabstone still marking the place of his rest.
Since that time, however, quiet has reigned in Eskdale, and its
small population have gone about their daily industry from one
generation to another in peace. Yet though secluded and apparently
shut out by the surrounding hills from the outer world, there is
not a throb of the nation's heart but pulsates along the valley;
and when the author visited it some years since, he found that a
wave of the great Volunteer movement had flowed into Eskdale;
and the "lads of Langholm" were drilling and marching under their
chief, young Mr. Malcolm of the Burnfoot, with even more zeal than
in the populous towns and cities of the south.
*[3] The names of the families in the valley remain very nearly the
same as they were three hundred years ago--the Johnstones, Littles,
Scotts, and Beatties prevailing above Langholm; and the Armstrongs,
Bells, Irwins, and Graemes lower down towards Canobie and Netherby.
It is interesting to find that Sir David Lindesay, in his curious
drama published in 'Pinkerton's Scottish Poems' vol. ii., p. 156,
gives these as among the names of the borderers some three hundred
years since. One Common Thift, when sentenced to condign
punishment, thus remembers his Border friends in his dying speech:
"Adew! my bruther Annan thieves,
That holpit me in my mischeivis;
Adew! Grosaws, Niksonis, and Bells,
Oft have we fairne owrthreuch the fells:
Adew! Robsons, Howis, and Pylis,
That in our craft hes mony wilis:
Littlis, Trumbells, and Armestranges;
Baileowes, Erewynis, and Elwandis,
Speedy of flicht, and slicht of handis;
The Scotts of Eisdale, and the Gramis,
I haf na time to tell your nameis."
Telford, or Telfer, is an old name in the same neighbourhood,
commemorated in the well known border ballad of 'Jamie Telfer of
the fair Dodhead.' Sir W. Scott says, in the 'Minstrelsy,' that
"there is still a family of Telfers. residing near Langholm , who
pretend to derive their descent from the Telfers of the Dodhead."
A member of the family of "Pylis" above mentioned, is said to have
migrated from Ecclefechan southward to Blackburn, and there founded
the celebrated Peel family.
*[4] We were informed in the valley that about the time of Telford's
birth there were only two tea-kettles in the whole parish of
Westerkirk, one of which was in the house of Sir James Johnstone
of Wester Hall, and the other at "The Burn," the residence of
Mr. Pasley, grandfather of General Sir Charles Pasley.