Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_.
[Illustration: J. Sturgess del. et lith. M&N. Hanhart imp.
WYLE COP. SHREWSBURY. A MINUTE TO 12.]
AN OLD COACHMAN'S CHATTER
WITH SOME
Practical Remarks on Driving.
BY
A SEMI-PROFESSIONAL,
EDWARD CORBETT,
_Colonel late Shropshire Militia_.
_With Eight full-page Illustrations on Stone, by_
JOHN STURGESS.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1890.
[_The right of Translation and all other rights reserved._]
TO
MY QUONDAM PASSENGERS
OF
DAYS GONE BY
I Venture to Dedicate this Volume,
THANKING THEM FOR THEIR FORMER SUPPORT
AND
HOPING FOR THEIR KIND PATRONAGE
OF
THIS LITTLE BOOK.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I.
THE ROYAL MAILS 9
CHAPTER II.
THE ROYAL MAILS (_continued_) 25
CHAPTER III.
ACCIDENTS 48
CHAPTER IV.
COMBATING WITH SNOW, FOGS, AND FLOODS 65
CHAPTER V.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN 75
CHAPTER VI.
HORSES 80
CHAPTER VII.
THE ROADS 96
CHAPTER VIII.
A SCIENTIFIC CHAPTER 104
CHAPTER IX.
A NOTE ON THE HORN 120
CHAPTER X.
THE HOLYHEAD ROAD 125
CHAPTER XI.
THE BRIGHTON ROAD 140
CHAPTER XII.
EARLY DAYS 152
CHAPTER XIII.
OLD TIMES 162
CHAPTER XIV.
COACHMEN: WHERE DID THEY COME FROM 169
CHAPTER XV.
GUARDS 186
CHAPTER XVI.
WHERE DID THEY ALL GO TO? 192
CHAPTER XVII.
SOME CHARACTERS 196
CHAPTER XVIII.
MONOTONY 205
CHAPTER XIX.
TANDEM 209
CHAPTER XX.
THE CONVICT SHIP 224
CHAPTER XXI.
DRIVING 235
CHAPTER XXII.
DRIVING (_continued_) 253
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 278
APPENDIX 285-308
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_ON STONE_
BY JOHN STURGESS.
I. WYLE COP, SHREWSBURY, "A MINUTE BEFORE TWELVE" _Frontispiece._
II. HORSES IN A HEAP, LEADER DOWN, WHEELERS
FALLING OVER HIM _to face page_ 50
III. WENT OVER BANK AND HEDGE " 52
IV. OBSTRUCTION ON THE BRIDGE " 120
V. GALLOPED THE FIVE MILE STAGE IN EIGHTEEN MINUTES " 130
VI. EXTRA PAIR OF HORSES FOR FAST COACHES FOR
STEEP ASCENTS " 172
VII. ONCE MORE RUNNING A STEEPLECHASE " 244
VIII. WE MET THE LOOSE HORSE TEARING DOWN THE HILL " 246
_ON WOOD._
THE EXTRA COACH AT CHRISTMAS " 233
DIAGRAMS.
I. A NEAT MEETING " 248
II. A MUFFISH MEETING " 248
III. DOWN HILL " 254
IV. A SUDDEN EMERGENCY " 254
V. THE TEAM EXTENDED " 256
VI. THE TEAM GATHERED " 256
AN OLD COACHMAN'S CHATTER,
WITH SOME REMARKS ON DRIVING.
INTRODUCTION.
I think it is Dr. Johnson who has somewhere remarked, that "everyone
who writes a book should either help men to enjoy life or to endure
it."
Whether these few pages will have the former effect I know not, but if
they only help to dispel _ennui_ for an hour or two, they will not
have been written quite in vain, and, at any rate, I trust they will
not be found so unendurable as to be unceremoniously thrown out of the
railway carriage window, or behind the fire.
Though several books on the same subject have been already published,
I entertain a hope that this may not prove "one too many," as the
interest taken in coaching, so far from diminishing, would appear to
be increasing, judging by the number of coaches running out of London
and other places, some even facing the inclemency of winter in the
love for the road. The number of private drags also never was so
large. "Nimrod" put it at twenty to thirty in the early part of the
century. It must be nearly four times that now.
I have not the vanity to suppose that I can contribute anything more
racy or better told than much that has gone before, but having engaged
in coaching as a matter of business, and in partnership with business
men, when and where coaches were the only means of public travelling,
and having driven professionally for upwards of four years, I have had
the opportunity of looking behind the scenes, and have had experiences
which cannot have fallen to the lot of most gentlemen coachmen, and
certainly will fall to the lot of no others again.
I lay no claim to literary merit, nor will what I offer savour much of
the sensational or perhaps of novelty; but this I can say, that it is
all drawn from personal knowledge, and that, with the exception of one
old friend, who has had great experience on some of the best coaches
in England, I am indebted to no one for my facts, which has not been
the case in all which has been published, judging from some
inaccuracies I have met with. To mention only one, which, if
considered for a moment, is so improbable, not to say impossible, that
it surely must be a misprint.
In "Highways and Horses" we are told that the fare for one passenger
by mails was eight shillings outside and twelve inside for a hundred
miles. Why, this is less than Parliamentary trains! It would have been
impossible to have horsed coaches at such prices. The real rate was
from fourpence to fivepence per mile inside, and from twopence to
threepence outside for that distance. The highest fares were charged
by the mails and fast day coaches, the heavy night coaches having to
be content with the lower rate.
The reader will observe that I do not confine myself to what were
called, _par excellence_, "the palmy days of coaching," but have
brought it down to a period twenty years later, when the coaches,
though comparatively few, were still running in considerable numbers
in out-of-the-way districts, upon the old lines, and by those who had
learned their business in those palmy days. The pace was not generally
so great, judged by the number of miles to the hour, but, taking into
consideration the great inferiority of the roads, there was little or
no falling off. Indeed, I doubt whether over some roads, eight miles
an hour was not harder to accomplish than ten had been over the better
roads. Of course, as in earlier days, the work was unequally done,
sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes indifferent.
If these pages should happen to fall into the hands of any of the many
thousand passengers I have had the pleasure of driving, and on whom I
hope Father Time has laid benevolent hands, perhaps some of them may
recognize scenes which they themselves experienced; and to others
memory may bring back the recollection of happy wanderings, thereby
causing renewed pleasure. For, as the poet says:
"When time, which steals our hours away,
Shall steal our pleasures too,
The memory of the past shall stay,
And half our joys renew."
In the remarks on driving, I do not profess to have written a treatise
or to have by any means exhausted the subject--that, indeed, were hard
to do; a coachman should be always learning;--they are the result of
having carefully watched old and experienced hands, together with such
instructions as they gave me, followed up by long and continuous
practice. I know that some, whose opinions are entitled to the
greatest respect, hold different views upon some points; but, at any
rate, whether others agree with me or not, they will see, from the
examples I have given, that I have practical reasons for all that I
advance.
I should like to add that these pages were in MS. previously to the
publication of the seventh volume of the Badminton Library, and,
indeed, I have not yet had the pleasure of reading it; therefore, if I
have enunciated doctrines the same as are there given, I cannot be
accused of plagiarism. I have felt compelled to make this statement on
account of the very high authority of the writers in that book, and
when we agree, I shall experience the satisfaction of knowing that I
travel in good company.
I have been led on by my subject to spread my wings, and fly to
southern latitudes; indeed, I have ventured, like Mr. Cook, to take my
readers a personally-conducted tour round the world, I will not say
exactly in search of knowledge, though, to most, what I have
introduced them to must be an unknown world. So fast, indeed, has the
world travelled in the last half century, that it has now become
ancient history, indeed, sufficiently out of date to afford interest
to an antiquary.
"_Seated on the old mail-coach, we needed no evidence out of ourselves
to indicate the velocity. The vital experience of the glad animal
sensibilities made doubts impossible. We heard our speed, we saw it,
we felt it as a thrilling; and this speed was not the product of blind
insensate agencies that had no sympathy to give, but was incarnated in
the fiery eyeballs of the noblest among brutes, in his dilated
nostril, spasmodic muscles, and thunder-beating hoofs._"--DE QUINCEY.
AN
OLD COACHMAN'S CHATTER,
WITH SOME REMARKS ON DRIVING.
"GOING DOWN WITH VICTORY.
"_The absolute perfection of all the appointments, their strength,
their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful simplicity, but more than
all the royal magnificence of the horses were, what might first have
fixed the attention. On any night the spectacle was beautiful. But the
night before us is a night of victory, and, behold, to the ordinary
display what a heart-shaking addition! Horses, men, carriages, all are
dressed in laurels and flowers, oak-leaves and ribbons. The guards as
officially His Majesty's servants, and such coachmen as are within the
privilege of the Post Office, wear the royal liveries of course, and
on this evening exposed to view without upper coats. Such costume, and
the laurels in their hats dilate their hearts by giving them a
personal connection with the great news. One heart, one pride, one
glory, connects every man by the transcendent bond of his national
blood. The spectators, numerous beyond precedent, express their
sympathy with these fervent feelings by continual hurrahs. Every
moment are shouted aloud by the Post-Office servants and summoned to
draw up the great ancestral names of cities known to history through a
thousand years--Lincoln, Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford,
Bristol, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth,
Stirling, Aberdeen--expressing the grandeur of the Empire by the
antiquity of its towns, and the grandeur of the mail establishment by
the diffusive radiation of its separate missions. Every moment you
hear the thunder of lids locked down upon the mail-bags. That sound to
each individual mail is the signal for drawing off which is the finest
part of the entire spectacle. Then come the horses into play. Horses!
can these be horses that bound off with the action and gestures of
leopards? What stir! what ferment! what a thundering of wheels! what a
trampling of hoofs! what a sounding of trumpets! what farewell cheers!
what peals of congratulation, connecting the name of the particular
mail, 'Liverpool for ever,' with the name of the particular Victory,
'Salamanca for ever,' The consciousness that all night long, and all
the next day, perhaps even longer, many of these mails like fire
racing along a train of gunpowder, will be kindling at every instant
new successions of burning joy, has an obscure effect of multiplying
the victory itself_"--THOMAS DE QUINCEY, _The English Mail-Coach_.
CHAPTER I.
THE ROYAL MAILS.
It is not within the scope of a book on coaching to go behind the time
when mail bags were conveyed on wheels, and the coaches became public
conveyances, carrying passengers as well as mail bags.
The first mail coach was put on the road between Bristol and London in
the year 1784, and it is worthy of remark that it was originated by a
man who had previously had no practical knowledge of either post
office or road work. In this respect, curiously enough, the same
remark applies to what became so very large a business in the Sister
Isle, as to be quite a national institution. In the former case Mr.
Palmer, to whose energy and perseverance the mail coach owed its
existence, was by profession a theatrical manager, whilst the
inaugurator of the Irish car business, which grew to such large
dimensions as to employ more than a thousand horses, was a pedlar,
neither of which businesses would appear to lead to horse and road
work.
Bianconi's cars involuntary bring to my mind a recipe given me many
years ago by one of his foremen for preventing crib-biting in horses.
It would hardly pass muster with the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, but he declared it was always effective if applied
in the first instance. It was to nip off a very small piece from the
tip of the horse's tongue. I never tried it, but can quite understand
why it was a cure, as horses almost invariably commence the vice by
licking the manger, and this process rendered the tongue so tender as
to put a summary end to this preliminary proceeding.
But this by the way. Before, however, carrying the history of the
mails further, I am tempted to introduce the reader to an account of a
highway robbery of mail bags, which occurred in Yorkshire in the year
1798, and which shows that the change in the way of conveying the
mails was not commenced before it was wanted.
The following letter from the Post-office in York, gives a full and
graphic account of the circumstance.
"POST-OFFICE, YORK,
_February 22nd, 1798_.
"SIR,--I am sorry to acquaint you that the post-boy coming from
Selby to this city, was robbed of his mail, between six and seven
o'clock this evening. About three miles this side Selby, he was
accosted by a man on foot with a gun in his hand, who asked him if
he was the post-boy, and at the same time seizing hold of the
bridle. Without waiting for any answer, he told the boy he must
immediately unstrap the mail and give it to him, pointing the
muzzle of the gun at him whilst he did it. When he had given up
the mail, the boy begged he would not hurt him, to which the man
replied, 'He need not be afraid,' and at the same time pulled the
bridle from the horse's head. The horse immediately galloped off
with the boy who had never dismounted. He was a stout man dressed
in a drab jacket and had the appearance of a heckler. The boy was
too much frightened to make any other remark upon his person, and
says he was totally unknown to him.
"The mail contained bags for Howden and London, Howden and York,
and Selby and York. I have informed the surveyors of the robbery,
and have forwarded handbills this night to be distributed in the
country, and will take care to insert it in the first paper
published here. Waiting your further instructions, I remain with
respect, Sir,
"Your Obliged and Obedient Humble Servant,
"THOS. OLDFIELD."
Although two hundred pounds' reward was offered nothing more was ever
found out about this transaction for about eighty years, when the
missing bag was discovered in a very unexpected manner, which is so
well described in a notice contained in the _Daily Telegraph_
newspaper of August 24th, 1876, that I cannot do better than give
their account. After describing the nature of the robbery it goes on
to say, "So the matter rested for nearly eighty years, and it would
probably have been altogether forgotten but for a strange discovery
which was made a few days ago. As an old wayside public-house,
standing by the side of the high road near Selby, in a district known
as Churchhill, was being pulled down, the workmen found in the roof a
worn and rotten coat, a southwester hat, and a mail bag marked Selby.
This led to further search, and we are told that in digging fresh
foundations on the site of the old hostel, a large number of skeletons
were found, buried at a small distance beneath the surface. There can
be no doubt that in what were affectionately known as 'good old
times,' strange scenes occurred at road-side inns, especially on the
great roads running north and west from London. The highwaymen of
those days were a sort of local Robin Hood, and were only too often on
best of terms with the innkeepers. Nothing, indeed, is more likely
than for the relic of the highwayman's plunder to be brought to light
from out of the mouldering thatch of an old wayside inn. The
unearthing of the skeletons is a more serious matter, and looks as if
the Selby hostel had, as many old houses have, a dark history of its
own."
The existence of the skeletons was, however, accounted for by
archæologists in a more natural, if less sensational manner. They
arrived at the conclusion that the spot had been the site of a very
old Christian burial ground, whence called Churchhill; and this
opinion would appear to be borne out by the fact of the skeletons
having been encased in a very primitive sort of coffin, consisting of
nothing more than the trunk of a tree, which had been sawn asunder and
hollowed out to receive the body, the two halves being afterwards
closed together again. If they had been the victims of foul play, they
would probably have been buried without any coffins at all.
The old mail bag, after some dispute about ownership, came into the
possession of the Post-Office, and is to be seen in the library of
that establishment at the present time.
Like all other new inventions, the change in the manner of conveying
the mails was not without its adversaries, and among the different
objections raised one was that it would lead to bloodshed. These
objectors, who were, I suppose, the humanitarians of the day, grounded
their argument on the fact that the post-boys were so helplessly in
the power of the highwaymen, that they made no attempt to defend the
property in their charge, but only thought of saving their own lives
and limbs; and it is clearly shown by the case adduced that this is
what did happen upon such meetings, and small blame to the boys
either. But they went on to prophesy, which is not a safe thing to do.
They said that when the bags were in the charge of two men, coachman
and guard, well armed, they would be obliged to show fight, which
would lead to carnage. It was rather a Quaker sort of argument, but,
perhaps, it was "Friends" who employed it.
Possibly the change did not all at once put a stop to the attentions
of the gentlemen of the road, but as I have not found in the archives
at the General Post-Office--which are very complete--any records of an
attack upon the mail coaches, we may infer that none of any moment
did occur. At any rate, the scheme seems to have met with popular
approval, judging by two cuttings I have seen from newspapers of the
period, which I introduce as conveying the public opinion of the time.
The first is dated January 19th, 1784, and says, "Within these last few
days Ministers have had several meetings with the Postmaster-General,
Secretary, and other officers of the General Post-Office, on the
subject of the regulation of mails, which is to make a branch of the
Budget this year. It is proposed that instead of the mail-cart, there
shall be established carriages in the nature of stage coaches, in the
boot of which the mail shall be carried, and in the inside four
passengers. The advantages proposed from this regulation are various.
The passengers will defray the whole expense of the conveyance. The
progress of the post will be considerably quicker, as the coach is to
wait but a certain time in every place, and the time to be marked on
the messenger's express, that there be no intermediate delay. The
parcels which are now transmitted from one place to another by the
common stage coaches and diligences, to the injury of the revenue,
will by a restriction be confined to the mail coaches, and, indeed,
the public will prefer the security of the General Post-Office to that
of the private man; for the same reason of safety, persons will prefer
travelling in these carriages, as measures are to be taken to prevent
robbery. The plan is expected to produce a great deal of money, as
well as to afford facility and security to correspondence. It will
give a decisive blow to the common stages, and in so far will hurt the
late tax, but that loss will be amply recompensed. The plan is the
production of Mr. Palmer, manager of the Bath Theatre, and he has been
present at the conference on the subject."
The other cutting is of the same year, and says: "A scheme is on foot,
and will be put in execution on Monday se'ennight, to send by a post
coach from the Post-office at eight o'clock in the evening, letters
for Bath, Bristol, Bradford, Calne, Chippenham, Colnbrook, Devizes,
Henley, Hounslow, Maidenhead, Marlborough, Melksham, Nettlebed,
Newbury, Ramsbury, Reading, Trowbridge, Wallingford, and Windsor. The
coach is also to carry passengers."
As will be seen from these extracts the Post-office must have made a
very good bargain, as they only paid one penny a mile to the horse
contractors, which must have been considerably less than the cost of
the boys, carts, and horses. Who found the coaches is not stated, but,
in later years, though contracted for by the Post-office, they were
paid for by the coach proprietors. At any rate, the fares paid by the
passengers, of whom only four were carried, must have been very high,
for the coach had to pay to the exchequer a mileage duty of one penny,
thereby taking away all that was given by the Post-office for the
conveyance of the letters.
There are no records to show in what order of rotation the different
mail coaches came into existence; but I know that the one to
Shrewsbury commenced running in 1785, and many others must have been
put on the roads about that time, as I find that in 1786, no less than
twenty left London every evening, besides seven that were at work in
different parts of England. The work, however, appears to have, been
very imperfectly performed. The coaches must at first have been
cumbersome.
In the year 1786, the coach to Norwich, _viâ_ Newmarket, weighed 21
cwt. 2 qrs., and one to the same place, _viâ_ Colchester, weighed 18
cwt., which, however, must have been well constructed, as those
coaches were known to have carried as many as twenty-two passengers.
There was also what was called a caravan, or three-bodied coach, _via_
Ipswich, carrying twelve inside, weighing 21 cwt. 3 qrs., and is
stated to have followed the horses very well indeed.
In November, 1786, Bezant's patent coach was first submitted to the
post-office, and was first used on the coach roads in the spring of
1787. Previously the mail coaches were very heavy and badly
constructed, and made of such inferior materials that accidents were
general and of daily occurrence, so much so that the public became
afraid to venture their lives in them.
The general establishment of mail coaches took place in the spring of
1788. The terms on which Mr. Bezant, the patentee of the patent
coaches supplied then, was that he engaged to provide and keep them in
constant and thorough repair at two pence halfpenny the double mile.
At first, from want of system, these coaches were often sent on their
journeys without being greased, and generally even without being
washed and cleaned, with the result that seldom a day passed that a
coach wheel did not fire.
As the business became more and more matured, spare coaches were put
on the roads, so that each one on arriving in London should have two
complete days for repair. This increased the number of coaches to
nearly double. As each came into London it was sent to the factory at
Millbank, nearly five miles off, to be cleaned, greased, and examined,
for which the charge of one shilling was to be paid for each coach,
and this price included the drawing of the coach to Millbank and back.
Before this arrangement was made, it was nothing unusual for
passengers to be kept waiting for a couple of hours, whilst some
repairs were being done, which were only discovered to be necessary
just as the coach was about to start, and then the work was naturally
done in such a hasty manner that the coach started in far from good
condition.
The coach masters objected to this payment of one shilling for drawing
and cleaning, and stated that if it was enforced they would require
threepence per mile instead of one penny, which would have made a
difference of twenty thousand pounds a year to the post-office
revenue. In the end an agreement was made with the patentee, and the
post-office paid the bills.
In 1791, Mr. Bezant, who was an engineer from Henley-on-Thames, died,
and the business fell into the hands of Mr. Vidler, his partner, and
in the following year there were one hundred and twenty of those
coaches in use on the mail roads. Their weight was from 16 cwt. to 16
cwt. 2 qrs.
I have not been able to find any time-bills for this early stage of
the work, and do not, therefore, know at what pace the mail coaches
were expected to travel, but, judging from the rather unique
instruction issued to a guard in the year 1796, great pace on the road
was not desired. Perhaps, however, this omission is not important, as
the time of arrival at the journey's end must have depended very much
upon how many accidents were experienced on the road. It reminds me of
the coachman on the Dover road, who, on being asked by a passenger
what time he arrived in London, replied, "That the proper hour was six
o'clock, but that he had been every hour of the four-and-twenty after
it."
INSTRUCTIONS TO A GUARD GIVEN IN 1796.
"You remember you are to go down with the coach to Weymouth, and
come up with the last Tuesday afternoon. Take care that they do
not drive fast, make long stops or get drunk. I have told you this
all before."
The following letter addressed in the same year to one of the horse
contractors throws some light upon the way in which the work was done.
"Some time since, hearing that your harness was in a very unfit
state to do duty, I sent you a set, as is the custom of the office
to supply contractors whose harness and reins are bad, when they
do not attend to the representatives of the office. The harness
cost fourteen guineas, but, as they had been used a few times with
the 'King's Royal,' Weymouth, you will only be charged twelve for
them."
Who would have supposed that from so unpromising a beginning there
should have developed the most perfect system of road travelling which
the world has ever seen? Verily, it goes to prove the truth of the old
adage that "practice makes perfect."
This same year, on 11th May, the Liverpool and Hull mail coach was
stopped by a pressgang outside Liverpool. A rather serious affray took
place, but no mischief was done. The Mayor of Liverpool was
communicated with, and asked to give such instructions to the
lieutenant of the gang as would prevent any further molestation.
Probably, the pressgang saw some passengers on the mail which they
supposed to be seafaring men, but it goes to show that the relative
positions and rights of the different branches of His Majesty's
service were not well understood. However this might have been, it
appears that the guards and coachmen of the mails were capable of
exerting their rights of free passage along the road to, at least,
their full extent. In July, 1796, three gentlemen were riding on
horseback, when the Liverpool and Manchester mail coach came up behind
them. It would appear that they did not attempt to get out of the way,
whereupon the coachman is stated to have used his whip to one of them,
and the guard pulled another off his horse, and then brought out his
firearm, and threatened to shoot them. According to the guard's
statement the gentleman, without speaking a word, stopped the horses
of the coach by laying hold of the reins, and nearly overturned it.
The coachman flogged the gentleman and his horse; the guard got down
and begged them to be off, and when they were going to strike him he
threatened to shoot them, upon which they let them go. After a full
inquiry from passengers, etc., it was found that the guard's statement
was false, and he was instantly dismissed, as was also the coachman.
From the following instructions given in 1796, to a contractor, asking
how the coachman should act under certain circumstances, it appears
that passengers were apt to be very inconsiderate and difficult to
manage in those days, as they continued to be later on.
"Stick to your bill, and never mind what passengers say respecting
waiting over time. Is it not the fault of the landlord to keep them so
long? Some day, when you have waited a considerable time, say five or
eight minutes longer than is allowed by the bill, drive away and leave
them behind, only take care that you have a witness that you called
them out two or three times. Then let them get forward how they can."
This is much more consideration than was generally shown in later
years.
I was once driving a mail when I had a Yankee gentleman for one of the
outside passengers, who was disposed to give trouble in this way, and
after being nearly left behind once or twice, he told me that I was
bound to give him five minutes at every change of horses. I told him I
would not give him two if I could help it, and would leave him behind
as soon as look at him. I guess he was smarter in his movements for
the rest of the journey.
The following instructions, issued to the guards in the same year,
seem to point to their having delivered single letters as they passed
through the villages, but I certainly never saw such a thing done in
later years. In all the towns there were probably post-offices, though
such things were then few and far between, not as they are now, in
every village.
"You are not to stop at any place to leave letters, etc., but to blow
your horn to give the people notice that you have got letters for
them; therefore, if they do not choose to come out to receive them,
don't you get down from your dickey, but take them on, and bring them
back with you on your next journey. You are ordered by your
instructions to blow your horn when you pass through a town or
village. Be careful to perform this duty, or I shall be obliged to
punish you."
In the months of January and February, 1795, the whole country was
visited by most serious storms and floods. It is described in the
post-office minutes as "dreadful;" great holes were made in the roads,
and many accidents happened through both coachman and guard being
chucked from their boxes, and frequently coaches arrived having lost
the guard from that cause. Many bridges were washed away all over the
country, of which three alone were between Doncaster and Ferrybridge.
The mail coach between Edinburgh and Newcastle took a day longer than
usual to do the journey. Nearly all the coaches that attempted to
perform their journeys had to take circuitous routes on account of
floods. Bridges were washed away, roads rendered impassable by great
holes in them, and, in Scotland and the north of England, blocked by
snow. In the south, a fast thaw set in, which suddenly changed to
intense cold, leaving roads simply sheets of ice. Through the combined
exertions of the postmasters, a large number of whom were also mail
contractors, many of the roads were cleared sufficiently to admit of
the coaches running, but it was months before the mails began to
arrive with punctuality, and many mail coach routes had to be altered
on account of the roads and bridges not being repaired. This was
owing, in most instances, to the road commissioners and local
authorities failing to come to settlement in supplying the money for
the work to be done, and in many instances the Postmaster-General was
compelled to indict them for neglecting to put the road in good
repair. The guards suffered very much from the intense cold and
dampness, and many were allowed, in addition to the half-guinea per
week wages, a further half-guinea, as, on account of their having no
passengers to carry, they received no "vails." All their doctors'
bills were paid, and the following are but a few of the many guards
who received rewards for the manner in which they performed their
duty.
John Rees, guard from Swansea to Bristol, who, in consequence of the
waters being so rapid, was obliged to proceed by horse, when near
Bridgend, was up to his shoulders, and in that condition, in the
night, did not wait to change his clothes, but proceeded on his duty;
was awarded one guinea.
Thomas Sweatman, guard to the Chester mail, was obliged to alight from
his mail box at Hockliffe to fix the bars and put on some traces, up
to his hips in water in the middle of the night, after which it froze
severely, and he came in that condition to London; awarded half a
guinea.
John Jelfs rode all the way from Cirencester to Oxford, and Oxford to
Cirencester through snow and water, the coach not being able to
proceed; awarded five shillings.
To our modern notions, the post-office authorities hardly erred on the
side of liberality, but half a guinea was thought much more of in
those days.