Opposition--A quick change--How to do it--Accident to the Yeovil
mail--A gallop for our lives--Unconscious passengers--Western
whips--Parliamentary obstruction.
Although opposition was fierce, certain rules of etiquette and honour
were most rigidly observed on the road, which rendered immunity from
accidents much more general than would have been supposed. It was an
understood thing that no coach should pass another actually in motion
unless invited to do so by the coachman driving the leading coach at
the time. The race became much more exciting in cases where there was a
little diversity in the roads between two points in the destination.
The change in the fast coaches, where the horsekeeper and his mate
knew their business, was effected in a minute and a half; and, like
everything else connected with the fast coaches, required to be done
strictly according to rule.
The man receiving the leader, near or off-side, seizes the rein behind
the saddle or pad, and draws it out of the head-terret of the wheeler,
then, doubling it several times, he passes of it through the terret,
unhooks the coch-eyes the traces, and the leaders are free. Though
still coupled they should be accustomed to walk aside a few paces, out
of the way of the coach.
The horsekeeper at the heads of the wheelers should first double the
rein through the terret, to prevent its being trodden upon and cut;
then, by raising the end of the pole, unhook the pole-chain, which will
admit of the horse standing back in his work, and enable the traces
to be easily lifted off the roller-bolts, the wheelers being uncoupled
before he leaves their heads.
The fresh team, when brought out, should be placed behind the spot
where the coach pulls up, so that they may walk straight up into their
places without having to be turned round, which always entails delay.
The fresh team being "in-spanned," the coachman or guard (or both)
assisting in running and buckling the reins, the business is complete.
However quickly the change may be effected, it behoves a coachman to
look round before he takes his reins, as a very trifling omission may
give rise to serious delay, if not dangerous trouble. I have known
the most careful horsekeepers forget to couple the wheel-horses,
which, especially in the dark, when it is more likely to happen, is an
omission nothing but the greatest judgment and patience on the part
of the coachman can render harmless, since most coach-teams, more
frequently than not, jump forward into their work, and are not so
easily stopped.
It is in cases of this description that so many accidents are
prevented, in the present day, by the use of that admirable invention
the patent break. We are indebted to the French for this very useful
appliance, and although many wheel-horses are spoiled by the too
frequent use of it, the number of accidents and broken knees which are
averted must be untold.
To pull up a heavily-loaded coach on a descent requires strength of
arm, as well as power in the wheelers, to stop it; whereas, after
having stopped the coach with a good strong break, the pulling up of
the horses is comparatively easy. How different from the days when
we had nothing but the old skid (or slipper) and chain, which was
very little used except on the heavy coaches and over the most severe
pitches, on account of the loss of time occasioned by its adjustment
and removal.
Accidents, however, are not always to be avoided by pulling-up, as I
shall show by relating an incident which occurred to me many years ago
in the West of England, in which nothing could have saved our limbs or
necks but my having recourse to the opposite alternative, and keeping
the team at the top of their speed for dear life.
I was indulging in my favourite pastime and driving the "Yeovil"
mail. We were full inside, and there were two gentlemen besides
the professional coachman, Jack Everett, outside. I had a little
short-legged quick team, belonging to Mrs. Stevens, of the Halfmoon,
from Crewkerne to Chard. They were accustomed to do this ground very
fast, but would not stop an ounce down the hills.
The roads being hard and slippery, and, having a load, I took the
precaution to put on the shoe to come down Chard Hill. We were swinging
along merrily when suddenly the skid chain, in jumping over a stone,
parted. This catastrophe allowed the coach to slip uncomfortably and
suddenly upon the shoulders and cruppers of the wheelers, and one of
them, being a bit of a rogue, evinced his disapprobation by giving
several sudden bolting lurches and throwing himself upon the pole.
In one of these evolutions more sudden and violent than the rest the
pole snapped off in the futchells!
Here was a predicament! Half-way down one of the ugliest hills in
England, with a resolute frightened team and a broken pole. Nothing
for it but to put them along and keep them galloping. The broken pole
bobbing and dancing along at the end of the chains helped me
materially to do this. The leaders finding the bars at the end of the
whippletree all gone mad, took the hint and went off as hard as they
could lay legs to the ground. My only care was to keep them straight,
and the pace so good as to prevent the coach getting upon the lock, in
which case we must have gone over.
[Illustration: THE "YEOVIL" MAIL.]
It was a fearful moment, and never in all my coaching experience have I
passed through such a crisis.
"Let 'em have it!" cries Jack Everett.
"Nothing but the pace can save us!" cries Fred North, the guard.
She rocked, they galloped, we shouted to encourage them. Fortunately
they were very evenly matched in pace. If there had been one shirk it
must have been fatal.
Providence protected us on this occasion, and I had the good fortune to
keep the pace up till we got upon a level, and then gradually stopped
her, and, by way of a finale, we had a rattling good kicking match
before we could get the wheelers away from the coach.
I have been in many coach accidents, some of which, I regret to say,
have been much more serious in their results, but I always consider
that our lives were in greater jeopardy for the four or five minutes
after that pole snapped than during any other epoch of my life.
Rarely, if ever, has there been a similar accident upon a plain open
road. Poles are often snapped by inexperienced coachmen getting upon
the lock in attempting to turn without room, and trusting to the
strength of the pole to drag the coach across the road.
Not a hundred yards from the place where I pulled up the mail stood
the yard and premises of a working wheelwright, who improvised, in
a marvellously short time, a temporary pole, and by attaching the
main-bar to a chain leading from the foot-bed, and splicing it to
the pole, we did not lose three-quarters of an hour by the whole
_contretemps_. Moreover, strange to say, until the wheelers began
trying to write their names on the front-boot at the bottom of the
hill, the four inside passengers were perfectly unconscious that there
had been anything wrong! One of the party--a lady--remarked to me that
"the mail travelled so delightfully fast that it appeared to have wings
instead of wheels."
When the iron monster had invaded England, and the investment of the
principal towns was nearly complete, the last corner which remained to
the coaches was the far West, where the business was carried on with
great energy and spirit to the very last.
Exeter became the great centre. About seventy coaches left the city
daily, Sundays excepted--the "Dorchester" and "London," the "Falmouth,"
"Plymouth," "Bath," "Launceston," and "Truro" mails. The "London"
mail (direct), commonly called the "Quicksilver," was said to be
the fastest mail in England, performing the journey (one hundred and
sixty-six miles) in twenty hours, except during fogs or heavy snow.
This mail was driven out of London by Charles Ward (now the proprietor
of the Paxton Yard, Knightsbridge), who left the White Horse Cellars
(now the Bath Hotel), Piccadilly, at eight every evening, until Mr.
Chaplin shifted his booking office to the Regent Circus.
The numerous coaches working between Exeter and the west coast were
principally horsed by Cockrane, New London Inn; Pratt, Old London (now
the Buda), and Stevens, Halfmoon Hotel.
The day and night travelling was kept up until fairly driven off by the
common enemy.
During the two or three years before the railway was opened this part
of England became the warm corner for coaching; and all the talent of
the road, having been elbowed out of other places, flocked to the
West. Charles and Henry Ward, Tim Carter, Jack Everett, Bill Harbridge,
Bill Williams, and Wood, not forgetting Jack Goodwin, the guard, who
was one of the best key-buglers that ever rode behind a coach.
This incursion of talent aroused the energies of some of the Devonshire
whips engaged at that time, M. Hervey, Sam Granville, Harry Gillard,
Paul Collyns, William Skinner, etc.
There were four Johnsons, all first-class coachmen, sons of a tailor at
Marlborough, who were working up to the last days of coaching. Anthony
Deane--or Gentleman Deane, as he was commonly called--drove the only
mail left after the opening of the rail to Plymouth--the "Cornish" mail
to Launceston.
After she was taken off the road he did not long survive, but died at
Okehampton. He was a fine coachman, a good nurse, and an admirable
timekeeper.
The "Telegraph," when first put on by Stevens of the Halfmoon, left
Exeter at 6.30 A.M., breakfasted at Ilminster, dined at the Star at
Andover, and reached Hyde Park Corner at 9.30 P.M., thus performing a
journey of one hundred and sixty-six miles in fifteen hours, including
stoppages. There was some encouragement to coaching in those days. A
good mail was a real good property. The "Quicksilver" mail and the
"Dorchester" mail, alone, paid the rent (twelve hundred pounds per
annum) of the New London Inn. The profits of the former were a thousand
pounds per annum; and those of the "Dorchester" two hundred pounds; the
profits of the first-named being augmented by the fact of the booking
office, both ways, being at Exeter. The mails from London on the second
of each month were always a little behind time, being so heavily laden
with the magazines and periodicals.
In spite of the tremendous pace at which the mails travelled, accidents
were very rare. All coaches were heavily laden about Christmas time
with parcels and presents. On one occasion, the "Defiance" from Exeter,
with an unreasonable top-load, was overtaken by a dense fog, and the
coachman (Beavis), getting off the road before he got to Ilminster, was
upset and the driver killed upon the spot. An eminent friend and patron
of the road, Mr. E. A. Sanders, took the matter in hand, and collected
upwards of eight hundred pounds for the widow and children, with which,
as the latter grew up, he started them all in life.
There were many fast coaches besides the ordinary six-insider, such
as the "Balloon" and "Traveller," from Pratt's, New London, the
"Defiance," a fast coach, from the Clarence Hotel, Congleton, the
"Favourite" (subscription), and several others.
In the year 1835, all the Exeter and London coaches were stopped by
heavy snow, at Mere, on the borders of Salisbury Plain. Amongst the
passengers were the late Earl of Devon, the Bishop of Exeter, Mr.
Charles Buller, and seven other members of Parliament, all on their way
to attend the opening of the session. They were delayed a whole week.
As the London coaches were gradually knocked off by the advance of the
rail, the competition upon other roads out of Exeter became more rife,
and the opposition warmer.