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STAGE-COACH
AND MAIL IN
DAYS OF YORE
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
=The Brighton Road=: Old Times and New on a Classic Highway.
=The Portsmouth Road=, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of
Old.
=The Dover Road=: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike.
=The Bath Road=: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway.
=The Exeter Road=: The Story of the West of England Highway.
=The Great North Road=: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols.
=The Norwich Road=: An East Anglian Highway.
=The Holyhead Road=: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols.
=The Cambridge, Ely, and King’s Lynn Road=: The Great Fenland
Highway.
=Cycle Rides Round London.=
=The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road=: Two Vols.
[_In the Press._
[Illustration:
MAIL-COACH PASSING ST. GEORGE’S CIRCUS, SOUTHWARK, 1797.
_After Dalgety_
]
STAGE-COACH
AND MAIL IN
DAYS OF YORE
_A PICTURESQUE HISTORY
OF THE COACHING AGE_
VOL. II
BY CHARLES G. HARPER
[Illustration]
_Illustrated from Old-Time Prints
and Pictures_
LONDON:
CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED
1903
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LATER MAILS 1
II. DOWN THE ROAD IN DAYS OF YORE. I.--A Journey from
Newcastle-on-Tyne to London in 1772 48
III. DOWN THE ROAD IN DAYS OF YORE. II.--From London to
Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1830 66
IV. ACCIDENTS 96
V. A GREAT CARRYING FIRM: THE STORY OF PICKFORD AND CO. 123
VI. ROBBERY AND ADVENTURE 144
VII. SNOW AND FLOODS 159
VIII. THE GOLDEN AGE, 1824–1848 173
IX. COACH-PROPRIETORS 194
X. COACH-PROPRIETORS (_continued_) 226
XI. THE AMATEURS 239
XII. END OF THE COACHING AGE 260
XIII. WHAT BECAME OF THE COACHMEN 292
XIV. THE OLD ENGLAND OF COACHING DAYS 322
[Illustration: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS]
SEPARATE PLATES
PAGE
1. MAIL-COACH PASSING ST. GEORGE’S CIRCUS, SOUTHWARK, 1797.
(_After Dalgety_) _Frontispiece_
2. THE WORCESTER MAIL, 1805. (_After J. A. Atkinson_) 7
3. THE MAIL. (_After J. L. Agasse_, 1842) 13
4. THE BRISTOL MAIL AT HYDE PARK CORNER, 1838. (_After J.
Doyle_) 19
5. THE YARMOUTH MAIL AT THE “COACH AND HORSES,” ILFORD.
(_After J. Pollard_) 25
6. THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING KEW BRIDGE.
(_After J. Pollard_) 29
7. THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, ARRIVING AT TEMPLE BAR.
(_After C. B. Newhouse_) 37
8. THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING WINDSOR CASTLE.
(_After Charles Hunt_, 1840) 41
9. MAIL-COACH BUILT BY WAUDE, 1830. (_Now in possession of
Messrs. Holland & Holland_) 45
10. THE “QUEEN’S HOTEL” AND GENERAL POST OFFICE. (_After T.
Allom_) 69
11. THE TURNPIKE GATE. (_From a contemporary Lithograph_) 77
12. A MIDNIGHT DISASTER ON A CROSS ROAD: FIVE MILES TO THE
NEAREST VILLAGE. (_After C. B. Newhouse_) 99
13. THE “BEAUFORT” BRIGHTON COACH. (_After W. J. Shayer_) 103
14. A QUEER PIECE OF GROUND IN A FOG: “IF WE GET OVER THE
RAILS, WE SHALL BE IN AN UGLY FIX.” (_After C. B.
Newhouse_) 111
15. ROAD VERSUS RAIL. (_After C. Cooper Henderson_, 1845) 117
16. JOSEPH BAXENDALE. (_From the Portrait by E. H.
Pickersgill, R.A._) 131
17. PICKFORD AND CO’S ROYAL FLY-VAN, ABOUT 1820. (_From a
contemporary Painting_) 139
18. THE LIONESS ATTACKING THE EXETER MAIL, OCTOBER 20TH, 1816.
(_After A. Sauerweid_) 153
19. WINTER: GOING NORTH. (_After H. Alken_) 163
20. MAIL-COACH IN A SNOW-DRIFT. (_After J. Pollard_) 167
21. MAIL-COACH IN A FLOOD. (_After J. Pollard_) 171
22. LATE FOR THE MAIL. (_After C. Cooper Henderson_, 1848) 183
23. THE SHORT STAGE. (_After J. Pollard_) 191
24. WILLIAM CHAPLIN. (_From the Painting by Frederick Newnham_) 197
25. THE CANTERBURY AND DOVER COACH, 1830. (_After G. S. Treguar_) 201
26. JAMES NUNN, HORSE-BUYER AND VETERINARY SURGEON TO WILLIAM
CHAPLIN. (_After J. F. Herring_) 205
27. WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CHAPLIN. 211
28. THE “BEDFORD TIMES,” ONE OF THE LAST COACHES TO RUN,
LEAVING THE “SWAN HOTEL,” BEDFORD. 219
29. FOUR-IN-HAND. (_After G. H. Laporte_) 243
30. SIR ST. VINCENT COTTON. 249
31. THE CONSEQUENCE OF BEING DROVE BY A GENTLEMAN. (_After H.
Alken_) 255
32. GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY’S LONDON AND BATH STEAM-CARRIAGE, 1833.
(_After G. Morton_) 265
33. THE LAST JOURNEY DOWN THE ROAD. (_After J. L. Agasse_)
275
34. THE CHESHAM COACH, 1796. (_From the Painting by Cordery_)
283
35. THE LAST OF THE “MANCHESTER DEFIANCE.” (_From a Lithograph_) 287
36. THE COACHMAN, 1832. (_After H. Alken_) 293
37. THE DRIVER, 1852. (_After H. Alken_) 297
38. THE GUARD, 1832. (_After H. Alken_) 303
39. THE GUARD, 1852. (_After H. Alken_) 309
40. “ALL RIGHT!”--THE BATH MAIL TAKING UP THE MAIL-BAGS.
(_From a contemporary Lithograph_) 341
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
Vignette (_Title-page_)
List of Illustrations ix
Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore 1
Mail-coach Halfpenny issued by William Waterhouse 196
Benjamin Worthy Horne 221
“A View of the Telegraph”: Dick Vaughan, of the Cambridge
“Telegraph.” (_From an Etching by Robert Dighton_, 1809) 301
A Stage-coachman’s Epitaph at Haddiscoe 316
[Illustration: STAGE COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE]
CHAPTER I
THE LATER MAILS
The Bristol Mail opened the mail-coach era by going at eight miles an
hour, but that was an altogether exceptional speed, and the average
mail-coach journeys were not performed at a rate of more than seven
miles an hour until long after the nineteenth century had dawned. In
1812, when Colonel Hawker travelled to Glasgow, it took the mail 57
hours’ continuous unrelaxing effort to cover the 404 miles--three
nights and two days’ discomfort. By 1836 the distance had been reduced
by eight miles, and the time to 42 hours. By 1838 it was 41 hours 17
minutes. Nowadays it can be done by quickest train in exactly eight
hours; the railway mileage 401½ miles. In 1812 it cost an inside
passenger all the way to Glasgow, for fare alone, exclusive of tips
to coachmen and guards, and the necessary expenditure for food and
drink all those weary hours, no less than £10 8s.; about 6⅙d. a mile.
To-day, £2 18s. franks you through, first-class; or 33s. third--itself
infinitely more luxurious than even the consecrated inside of a
mail-coach.
The mails starting from London were perfection in coaches, harness and
horses; but as the distance from the Metropolis increased so did the
mails become more and more shabby. Hawker, travelling north, found them
slow and slovenly, the harness generally second-hand, one horse in
plated, another in brass harness; and when they _did_ have new (which,
he tells us, was very seldom) it was put on like a labourer’s leather
breeches, and worn till it rotted, without ever being cleaned.
Of course, very few people ever did, or could have had the endurance
to, travel all that distance straight away, and so travel was further
complicated, delayed, and rendered more costly by the halts necessary
to recruit jaded nature.
Hawker evidently did it in four stages: to Ferrybridge, 179 miles,
where he rested the first night and picked up the next mail the
following; thence the 65 miles onward to Greta Bridge; on again, 59
miles, to Carlisle; and thence, finally, to Glasgow in another 101
miles. In his diary he gives “a table to show for how much a gentleman
and his servant (the former inside, with 14 lb. of luggage; the latter
outside, with 7 lb.) may go from London to Glasgow.”
_Self._ £ s. d. £ s. d.
Inside, to Ferrybridge 4 16 0
Inside, to Greta Bridge 1 12 6
Inside, to Carlisle 1 9 6
Inside, to Glasgow 2 10 0
--------- 10 8 0
_Servant._
Outside, to Ferrybridge 2 10 0
Outside, to Greta Bridge 1 2 0
Outside, to Carlisle 1 0 0
Outside, to Glasgow 1 13 0
--------- 6 5 0
_Tips._
Inside, 6 long-stage coachmen @ 2s. 0 12 0
Inside, 12 short-stage coachmen @ 1s. 0 12 0
Inside, 7 guards @ 2s. each 0 14 0
Outside, for man, @ half price above 0 19 0
--------- 2 17 0
-----------
Total £19 10 0
===========
Such were the costs and charges of a gentleman travelling to pay a
country visit in 1812, exclusive of hotel bills for self and servant on
the way.
The great factor in the acceleration of the mails was the improvement
in the roads, a work carried out by the Turnpike Trusts in fear of
the Post Office, whose surveyors had the power, under ancient Acts,
of indicting roads in bad condition. Great bitterness was stirred up
over this matter. The growing commercial and industrial towns--Glasgow
prominent among them--naturally desired direct mail-services, and
the Post Office, using their needs as means for obtaining, not only
roads kept in good condition, but sometimes entirely new roads and
short cuts, declined to start such services until such routes were
provided. It was not within the power of the Department to compel
new roads, but only to see that the old ones were maintained; but in
the case of Glasgow, to whose merchants a direct service meant much,
the Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce, and individual persons
contributed large sums for the improvement of the existing road
between that city and Carlisle, and a Turnpike Trust was formed for
one especial section, where the road was entirely reconstructed. These
districts were wholly outside Glasgow’s sphere of responsibilities, but
all this money was expended for the purpose of obtaining a direct mail
through Carlisle, instead of the old indirect one through Edinburgh;
and when obtained, of retaining it in face of the continued threats
of the Post Office to take it off unless the road was still further
improved. It certainly does not seem to have been a remarkably good
road, even after these improvements, for Colonel Hawker, travelling it
in 1812, describes it as being mended with large soft quarry-stones, at
first like brickbats and afterwards like sand.
But the subscribers who had expended so much were naturally indignant.
They pointed out that the district was a wild and difficult one and the
Trust poor, in consequence of the sparse traffic. The stage-coaches,
they said, had in some instances been withdrawn because they could not
hold their own against the competition of the mail, and the Trust lost
the tolls in consequence; while the mail, going toll-free and wearing
the road down, contributed nothing to the upkeep. They urged that the
mail should at least pay toll, and in this they were supported by every
other Turnpike Trust.
The exemption of mail-coaches from payment of tolls, a relief provided
for by the Act of 25th George III., was really a continuation of the
old policy by which the postboys of an earlier age, riding horseback
and carrying the mailbags athwart the saddle, had always passed
toll-free. Even the light mail-cart partook of this advantage, to which
there could then have been no real objection. It had been no great
matter, one way or the other, with the Turnpike Trusts, for the posts
were then infrequent and the revenue to be obtained quite a negligeable
quantity; but the appearance of mail-coaches in considerable numbers,
running constantly and carrying passengers, and yet contributing
nothing towards the upkeep of the roads, soon became a very real
grievance to those Trusts situated on the route of the mails, but in
outlying parts of the kingdom, little travelled, and where towns were
lacking and villages poor, few, and far between. Little wonder, then,
that the various Turnpike Trusts in 1810 approached Parliament for a
redress of these disabilities. They pointed out that not only was there
a greater wear and tear of the roads now the mail-coaches were running,
but that travellers, relying on the fancied security of the mails, had
deserted the stages, which in many cases had been wholly run off the
road. Pennant, writing in 1792, tells how two stages plying through
the county of Flint, and yielding £40 in tolls yearly, had been unable
to compete with the mail, and were thus withdrawn, to the consequent
loss of the Trust concerned. It was calculated, so early as 1791, by
one amateur actuary, that the total annual loss through mail exemptions
was £90,000; but another put it at only £50,000 in 1810.
The case of the remote country trusts was certainly a hard one. Like
all turnpikes, they were worked under Acts of Parliament, which
prescribed the amounts of tolls to be levied, and they were, further,
authorised to raise money for the improvement of the roads on the
security of the income arising from these taxes upon locomotion. The
security of money sunk in these quasi-Government enterprises had
always been considered so good that Turnpike Trust bonds and mortgages
were a very favourite form of investment; but when Parliament turned
a deaf ear to the bitter cry of the remote Trusts, the position of
those interested in the securities began to be reconsidered. The woes
of these undertakings were further added to by the action of the Post
Office, which, zealous for its new mail-services, sent out emissaries
to report upon the condition of the roads. The reports of these
officials bore severely against the very Trusts most hardly hit by
the mail-exemption, and the roads under their control were frequently
indicted for being out of repair, with the result that heavy fines were
inflicted. It had been suggested that as the Post Office on one hand
required better roads, and on the other deprived the rural Trusts of
a great part of their income, the Government should at least pay off
the debts of the various turnpikes. But nothing was done; the mails
continued to go free, and in the end the iniquity was perpetrated of
suffering the local Turnpike Acts to lapse and the roads to be dispiked
before the Trusts had paid off their loans. The greater number of Trust
“securities” therefore became worthless, and the investors in them
ruined.
[Illustration: THE WORCESTER MAIL, 1805.
_After J. A. Atkinson._
]
Mail-coaches continued to go toll-free to the very last in England,
although from 1798 they had paid toll in Ireland. In Scotland, too, the
Trusts were treated with tardy justice, and in 1813 an Act was passed
repealing the exemption in that kingdom. But what the Post Office
relinquished with one hand it took back with the other, clapping on a
halfpenny additional postage for each Scotch letter. It was like the
children’s game of “tit-for-tat.” But it did not end here. The Trusts
raised their tolls against the mail-coaches, and smiled superior.
It was then the Department’s call, and it responded by immediately
taking off a number of the mails. That ended the game in favour of St.
Martin’s-le-Grand.
Although Parliament never repealed the exemption for the whole of the
United Kingdom, it caused an estimate to be prepared of the annual cost
of paying tolls, should it ever be in a mind to grant the Trusts that
relief. It thus appeared, from the return made in 1812, that the cost
for Scotland would have been £11,229 16s. 8d.; for England, £33,536 2s.
3d.; and for Wales, £5224 3s. 10d.: total, £49,990 2s. 9d. per annum.
The mails, travelling as they did throughout the night, were subject
to many dangers. They were brilliantly lighted, generally with four,
and often with five, lamps, and cast a very dazzling illumination upon
the highway. It is true that no certainty exists as to the number of
lamps mail-coaches carried, and that old prints often show only two; so
that the practice in this important matter probably varied on different
routes and at various times. But the crack mails at the last certainly
carried five lamps--one on either side of the fore upper quarter, one
on either side of the fore boot, and another under the footboard,
casting a light upon the horses’ backs and harness. These radiant
swiftnesses, hurtling along the roads at a pace considerably over ten
miles an hour, were highly dangerous to other users of the roads, who
were half-blinded by the glare, and, alarmed by the heart-shaking
thunder of their approach and fearful of being run down, generally
drove into the ditches as the least of two evils. The mails were then,
as electric tramcars and high-powered motor-cars are now, the tyrants
of the road.
But they were not only dangerous to others. Circumstances that ought
never to have been permitted sometimes rendered them perilous to all
they carried. The possibilities of that time in wrong-doing are shown
in the practice of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (who assuredly was not the
only one) being allowed to send his refractory carriage-horses to the
mails, to be steadied. On such occasions the passengers from Oswestry
found themselves in for a wild start and a rough stage, and Sir Watkin
had the steam taken out of his high-mettled horses at an imminent risk
to the lives and limbs of the lieges.
From 1825, when the era of the fast day-coaches began, the mails
gradually lost the proud pre-eminence they had kept for more than
forty years. Even though they had been accelerated from time to
time as roads improved, they went no quicker than the new-comers,
and very often not so quick, from point to point. They suffered the
disabilities of travelling by night, when careful coachmen dared not
let their horses out to their best speed, and of being subject to the
delays of Post Office business; and so, although they might, and did,
make wonderful speed between stages, the showing on the whole journey
could not compare with the times of the fast day-coaches, which halted
only for changing horses and for meals, and, enjoying the perfection
of quick-changing, often got away in fifty seconds from every halt.
Going at more seasonable hours, the day-coaches now began to seriously
compete with the mails, whose old-time supporters, although still
sensible of the dignity of travelling by mail, were equally alive to
the comfort and convenience of going by daylight. Modern writers,
enlarging upon the times of our ancestors, lay great stress upon
the endurance our hearty grandfathers “cheerfully” displayed, and
show us great, bluff, burly, red-cheeked men, who enjoyed this long
night-travelling. But that is an absurdity. They did _not_ enjoy
it; they were not all bluff and burly; and that they welcomed the
change that gave them swift travelling by day instead of night is
obvious from the instant success of the fast day-coaches, and from
the later business-history of the mails. Mail-contractors, who in
the prosperous days of no competition were screwed down by the Post
Office to incredible mileage figures, began to grumble; but for long
they grumbled in vain. Even in 1834 the Post Office continued to pay
only 2d. a mile on 42 mails, 1½d. a mile on 34, and only one received
as much as 4d. The Liverpool and Manchester carried the mailbags for
nothing, and three actually paid the Post Office for the privilege. At
this time the old rule forbidding more than three outside passengers
on the mails was relaxed. This indulgence began in Scotland, where the
contractors, in consideration of the sparseness of the population and
the scarcity of chance passengers on the way, were allowed a fourth
outside passenger; and eventually many of the mails, like the stages,
carried from eight to twelve outsides. This, however, did not suffice,
for those passengers did not often present themselves; and at last the
contractors really did not care to obtain the Post Office business,
finding it pay better to devote their attention to fast day-coaches
on their own account.
[Illustration: THE MAIL.
_After J. L. Agasse, 1824._
]
Thus the Post Office found itself in a novel and unwonted position.
Coach-proprietors and contractors, instead of anxiously endeavouring to
obtain the mail-contracts, held aloof, and the Post Office surveyors,
when renewals were necessary, found _they_ had to make the advances
and do the courting. Then the tables were turned with a vengeance! For
Benjamin Horne’s “Foreign Mail,” carrying what were called the “black
bags” (_i.e._ black tarpaulin to protect the mail from sea-water)
between London and Dover, 1s. 3¾d. per double mile was paid; 11⅙d.
for the Carmarthen and Pembroke; and 8d., and then 9d., for the
Norwich Mail, by Newmarket, strongly opposed as it was by the Norwich
“Telegraph,” and therefore loading badly on that lonely road. For the
Chester, originally contracted for at 1s. a mile, then down to 3d., and
in 1826 up to 4d., 6d. was paid, on account of passengers going by the
direct Holyhead Mail, and the Holyhead itself was raised to the same
figure when fast day-stages had begun to run from Shrewsbury.
A Committee of the House of Commons had sat upon this question before
these prices were given, and much evidence was taken; but these revised
tariffs did by no means end the matter. Substantial contractors would
in many instances have nothing to do with the Post Office, and the
Department could not run the risk of employing irresponsible men
who could not be held to their undertakings. In some few instances
ordinary night-stages were given the business, and it was seriously
proposed to employ the guards of existing stage-coaches to take charge
of the bags, but this was never carried out. In the midst of all these
worries, when it seemed as though the despatch of the mails must
needs, in the altered conditions of the time, be eventually changed
from night to day, railways came to relieve official anxieties, which
existed not only on account of the increasing cost, but also on the
score of the continually growing bulk of mail-matter, piled up to
mountainous heights on the roof, instead of, as originally, being
easily stowed away in the depths of the hind boot. It was considered a
great advantage of the mail-coaches built by Waude in these last days
that they were not only built with a low centre of gravity, but that,
with a dropped hind axle, they made a deeper and more capacious boot
possible, in which were stowed the more valuable portions of the mail.
Had railways not at the very cynthia of the moment come to supply a
“felt want,” certainly the mails must on many roads have been carried
by mail-vans devoted exclusively to the service. But in 1830 the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway carried mailbags, and in anticipation
of the opening throughout of the London and Birmingham, the first long
route, in September 1838, an Act of Parliament was passed on August
14th in that year, authorising the conveyance of mails by railways. We
must not, however, suppose that such instant advantage was always taken
of new methods. That would not be according to the traditions of the
Post Office. Accordingly, we find that, although what is now the London
and South-Western Railway was opened between Nine Elms and Portsmouth
in May 1840, it was not until 1842 that the Portsmouth Mail went by
rail. For two years it continued to perform the 73 miles 3 furlongs
in 9 hours 10 minutes, when it might have gone by train in 6 hours 10
minutes less.
With these changes, London lost an annual spectacle of considerable
interest. From 1791 the procession of the mail-coaches on the King’s
birthday had been the grand show occasion of the Post Office year. No
efforts and no expense were spared by the loyal contractors (loyal in
spite of the ofttimes arbitrary dealings of the Post Office with them)
to grace the day; and Vidler and Parratt, who for many years had the
monopoly of supplying the coaches, equalled them in the zeal displayed.
The coaches were drawn up at twelve, noon, to the whole number of
twenty-seven, at the factory on Millbank, beautiful in new paint and
new gilding; the Bristol Mail, as the senior, leading, the others
in the like order of their establishment. On this occasion the Post
Office provided each guard with a new gold-laced hat and scarlet coat,
and the mail-contractors who horsed the coaches, not to be outdone,
found scarlet coats for their coachmen, in addition to providing new
harness. The coachmen and guards, unwilling to be beaten in this
loyal competition, provided themselves with huge nosegays, as big as
cauliflowers. When, as in the reign of William IV., the King’s birthday
fell in a pleasant time of the year, the procession of the mails was a
beautiful and popular sight, attracting not only the general public,
but the very numerous sporting folks, who welcomed the opportunity
of seeing at their best, and all together, the one hundred and two
noble horses that drew the mails from the Metropolis to all parts of
the kingdom. Everything, indeed, was very special to the occasion.
Each coach was provided with a gorgeous hammer-cloth, a species of
upholstery certainly not in use on ordinary journeys. No one was
allowed on the roof, but the coachman and guard had the privilege of
two tickets each for friends for the inside. Great, as may be supposed,
was the competition for these. For the contractors themselves there was
the cold collation provided by Vidler and Parratt at Millbank, at three
o’clock, when the procession was over.
[Illustration: THE BRISTOL MAIL AT HYDE PARK CORNER, 1838.
_After J. Doyle._
]
The route varied somewhat with the circumstances of the time, always
including the residence of the Postmaster-General for the time being.
Punctually at noon it started off, headed by a horseman, and with
another horseman between each coach. Nearing St. James’s Palace, it was
generally reduced to a snail’s pace, for the crowd always assembled
densely there, on the chance of seeing the King; and the authorities
of that period were not clever at clearing a route. Imagine now the
front of Carlton House Palace, or St. James’s, and the Londoners of
that age assembled in their thousands. The procession with difficulty
approaches, and halts. Two barrels of porter--Barclay & Perkins’
best--are in position in front of the Royal residence, and to each
coachman and guard is handed a capacious pewter pot--it is a sight
to make a Good Templar weep. The King and Queen and the Royal family
now appear at an open window, the King removing his hat and bowing,
to a storm of applause--as though he had done something really clever
or wonderful. Now the coachman of the Bristol Mail uncovers, and
holding high the shining pewter, exclaims: “We drink to the health
of His Gracious Majesty: God bless him!” and suiting the action to
the words, dips his nose into the pot, which in an incredibly short
time is completely inverted and emptied. Fifty-three other voices
simultaneously repeat the same words, and fifty-three pint pots are in
like manner drained in the twinkling of an eye. The King and his family
now retire, and the procession prepares to move on; but the mob, moved
by loyalty and the sight of the beer-barrels, grows clamorous: “King,
King! Queen, Queen!” cry a thousand voices; while a thousand more yell,
“Beer, beer!” When at length the King does return, to bow once more, he
gazes upon two thousand people struggling for two half-empty barrels,
which in the scuffle have upset, and speedily become empty. Meanwhile
the coaches have moved off, to complete their tour to the General Post
Office, and thence back to Millbank.
These processions, from some cause or another not now easily to be
discovered, were omitted in 1829 and 1830. May 17th, 1838, when
twenty-five mails paraded, was the last occasion; for already the
railway was threatening the road, and when Queen Victoria’s birthday
recurred the ranks of the mails were sadly broken.
This memorable year, 1837, then, was the last unbroken year of the
mail-coaches starting from London. Since September 23rd, 1829, when the
old General Post Office in Lombard Street was deserted for the great
building in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, they had come and gone. The first
ever to enter its gates, as the result of keen competition, had been
the up Holyhead Mail of that date; the last was the Dover Mail, in 1844.
The mail-coaches loaded up about half-past seven at their respective
inns, and then assembled at the Post Office Yard to receive the bags.
All, that is to say, except seven West of England mails--the Bath,
Bristol, Devonport, Exeter, Gloucester, Southampton and Stroud--whose
coaches started from Piccadilly, the bags being conveyed to them at
that point by mail-cart. There were thus twenty-one coaches starting
nightly from the General Post Office precisely at 8 o’clock. Here is a
list of the mails setting out every night throughout the year:--
A LIST OF MAIL-COACHES STARTING NIGHTLY FROM LONDON IN 1837.
+--------------------+------+---------------------+-------+----------+
| | | | | Average |
| | | | | speed |
| Mails. |Miles.| Inn whence starting.| Time. | per hour,|
| | | | | stops |
| | | | | included.|
+--------------------+------+---------------------+-------+----------+
| | | | H. M. | M. F. |
| Bristol | 122 | Swan with Two Necks | 11 45 | 10 3 |
| Devonport | 216 | Spread Eagle, | 21 14 | 10 1¾ |
| (“Quicksilver”) | | Gracechurch Street| | |
| Birmingham | 119 | King’s Arms, | 11 56 | 9 7¾ |
| | | Holborn Bridge | | |
| Bath | 109 | Swan with Two Necks | 11 0 | 9 7¾ |
| Manchester | 187 | ” ” ” | 19 0 | 9 6⅔ |
| Halifax | 196 | ” ” ” | 20 5 | 9 6 |
| Liverpool | 203 | ” ” ” | 20 50 | 9 6 |
| Holyhead | 261 | ” ” ” | 26 55 | 9 5⅔ |
| Norwich, by Ipswich| 113 | ” ” ” | 11 38 | 9 5⅔ |
| Exeter | 173 | ” ” ” | 18 12 | 9 4 |
| Hull (New Holland | 172 | Spread Eagle, | 18 12 | 9 4 |
| Ferry) | | Gracechurch Street| | |
| Leeds | 197 | Bull and Mouth | 20 52 | 9 3½ |
| Glasgow | 396 | ” ” | 42 0 | 9 3⅖ |
| Southampton | 80 | Swan with Two Necks | 8 30 | 9 3⅓ |
| Edinburgh | 399 | Bull and Mouth | 42 23 | 9 3⅓ |
| Chester | 190 | Golden Cross | 20 16 | 9 3 |
| Gloucester and | 224 | ” ” | 24 0 | 9 2⅔ |
| Carmarthen | | | | |
| Worcester | 115 | Bull and Mouth | 12 20 | 9 2½ |
| Yarmouth | 124 | White Horse, Fetter | 13 30 | 9 1½ |
| | | Lane | | |
| Louth | 148 | Bell and Crown, | 15 56 | 9 0 |
| | | Holborn | | |
| Norwich, by | 118 | Belle Sauvage | 13 5 | 9 0 |
| Newmarket | | | | |
| Stroud | 105 | Swan with Two Necks | 11 47 | 9 0 |
| Wells | 133 | Bell and Crown | 14 43 | 9 0 |
| Falmouth | 271 | Bull and Mouth | 31 55 | 8 4 |
| Dover | 73 | Golden Cross | 8 57 | 8 1¼ |
| Hastings | 67 | Bolt-in-Tun, Fleet | 8 15 | 8 0 |
| | | Street | | |
| Portsmouth | 73 | White Horse | 9 10 | 7 7-5/7|
| Brighton | 55 | Blossoms Inn | 7 20 | 7 4 |
+--------------------+------+---------------------+-------+----------+
With the exception of the Brighton, Portsmouth, Dover and Hastings,
they were all splendidly-appointed four-horse coaches; but those four
places being only at short distances, speed was unnecessary, and they
were only provided with pair-horse mails. Had a speed similar to that
maintained on most other mails been kept up, letters and passengers
would have reached the coast in the middle of the night.
The so-called “Yarmouth Mail” was, we are told by those who travelled
on it, an ordinary stage-coach, carrying the usual four inside and
twelve outside, chartered by the Post Office to carry the mail-bags;
but the old print, engraved here, does not bear out that contention.
The _arrival_ of the mails in London was an early morning affair.
First of all came the Leeds, at five minutes past four, followed at an
interval of over an hour--5.15--by the Glasgow, and then, at 5.39, by
the Edinburgh. All arrived by 7 o’clock.
There was then, as now, no Sunday delivery of letters in London, and
Saturday nights were, by consequence, saturnalias for the up-mails.
Although the clock might have been set with accuracy by their
passing at any other time, their coming into London on Sundays was
a happy-go-lucky, chance affair. The coachmen would arrange to meet
on the Saturday nights at such junctions of the different routes as
Andover, Hounslow, Puckeridge, and Hockliffe, and so in company have
what they very descriptively termed a “roaring time.”
[Illustration: THE YARMOUTH MAIL, AT THE “COACH AND HORSES,” ILFORD.
_After J. Pollard._
]
In 1836 the fastest mail ran on a provincial route. This was the short
28-miles service between Liverpool and Preston, maintained at 10 miles
5 furlongs an hour. The slowest was the 19-miles Canterbury and Deal,
at 6 miles an hour, including stops for changing. The average speed of
all the mails was as low as 8 miles 7 furlongs an hour.
In 1838 there were 59 four-horse mails in England and Wales, 16 in
Scotland, and 29 in Ireland, in addition to a total number of 70
pair-horse: some 180 mails in all. It was in this year that--the
novelty of railways creating a desire for fast travelling--the
Post Office yielded to the cry for speed, and, abandoning the
usual conservative attitude, went too far in the other direction,
overstepping the bounds of common safety. For some time the mails
between Glasgow and Carlisle, and Carlisle and Edinburgh were run to
clear 11 miles an hour, which meant an average pace of 13 miles an
hour. These were popularly called the “calico mails,” because of their
lightness. The time allowed between Carlisle and Glasgow, 96 miles,
was 8 hours 32 minutes, and it was a sight to see it come down Stanwix
Brow on a summer evening. It met, however, with so many accidents that
cautious folk always avoided it, preferring the orthodox 10 miles an
hour--especially by lamplight in the rugged Cheviots. Even at that pace
there had been more than enough risk, as these incidents from Post
Office records of three years earlier clearly show:--
_1835._
February 5. Edinburgh and Aberdeen Mail overturned.
9. Devonport Mail overturned.
10. Scarborough and York Mail overturned.
16. Belfast and Enniskillen Mail overturned.
16. Dublin and Derry Mail overturned.
17. Scarborough and Hull Mail overturned.
17. York and Doncaster Mail overturned.
20. Thirty-five mail-horses burnt alive at Reading.
24. Louth Mail overturned.
25. Gloucester Mail overturned.
No place was better served by the Post Office than Exeter in the last
years of the road, and few so well. Before 1837 it had no fewer than
three mails, and in that year a fourth was added. All four started
simultaneously from the General Post Office, and reached the Queen City
of the West within a few hours of one another every day. On its own
merits, Exeter did not deserve or need all these travelling and postal
facilities, and it was only because it stood at the converging-point of
many routes that it obtained them. Only one mail, indeed, was dedicated
especially to Exeter, and that was the last-established, the “New
Exeter,” put on the road in 1837. The others continued to Devonport
or to Falmouth, then a port, a mail-packet and naval station of great
prominence, where the West Indian mails landed, and whence they were
shipped. To the mail-coaches making for Devonport and Falmouth, Exeter
was, therefore, only an incident.
[Illustration: THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING KEW BRIDGE.
_After J. Pollard._
]
The “Old Exeter” Mail, continued on to Falmouth, kept consistently
to the main Exeter Road, through Salisbury, Dorchester and Bridport.
Before 1837 it had performed the journey to Exeter in 20 hours and to
Falmouth in 34¾ hours, but was then accelerated one hour as between
London and Exeter, and although slightly decelerated onwards, the gain
on the whole distance was 49 minutes.
Five minutes in advance of this ran the “Quicksilver” Devonport Mail,
as far as Salisbury, where, until 1837, it branched off, going by
Shaftesbury, Sherborne and Yeovil, a route 5¾ miles shorter than the
other. It was 1¾ hours quicker than the “Old Exeter” as far as that
city. Here is the time-table of the “Quicksilver” at that period, to
Exeter:--
LEAVING GENERAL POST OFFICE AT 8 P.M.
+--------+-------------+------------+
| Miles. | Places. | Due. |
+--------+-------------+------------+
| 12 | Hounslow | 9.12 p.m. |
| 19 | Staines | 9.56 ” |
| 29 | Bagshot | 11.0 ” |
| 67 | Andover | 2.42 a.m. |
| 84 | Salisbury | 4.27 ” |
| 105 | Shaftesbury | 6.41 ” |
| 126 | Yeovil | 8.56 ” |
| 135 | Crewkerne | 10.12 ” |
| 143 | Chard | 11.0 ” |
| 156 | Honiton | 12.31 p.m. |
| 173 | Exeter | 2.14 ” |
+--------+-------------+------------+
Thus 18 hours 14 minutes were allowed for the 173 miles. In 1837 the
“Quicksilver” was put on the “upper road” by Amesbury and Ilminster,
and her pace again accelerated; this time by 1 hour 38 minutes to
Exeter and 4 hours 39 minutes to Falmouth. This then became the fastest
long-distance mail in the kingdom, maintaining a speed, including
stops, of nearly 10¼ miles an hour between London and Devonport. It
should be remembered, when considering the subject of speed, that the
mails had not only to change horses and stay for supper and breakfast,
like the stage-coaches, but also had to call at the post offices to
deliver and collect the mailbags, and all time so expended had to be
made up. The “Quicksilver” must needs have gone some stages at 12 miles
an hour.
Time also had to be kept in all kinds of weather, and the guard--who
was the servant of the Post Office, and not, as the coachman was, of
the mail-contractors--was bound to see that time was kept, and had
power, whenever it was being lost, to order out post-horses at the
expense of the contractors. Six, and sometimes eight, horses were often
thus attached to the mails. The route of the “Quicksilver” from 1837
was according to the following time-bill:--
LEAVING GENERAL POST OFFICE AT 8 P.M.
+------+--------------+-----------+
|Miles.| Places. | Due. |
| +--------------+-----------+
| 12 | Hounslow | 9.8 p.m.|
| 19 | Staines | 9.48 ” |
| 29 | Bagshot | 10.47 ” |
| 67 | Andover | 2.20 a.m.|
| 80 | Amesbury | 3.39 ” |
| 90 | Deptford Inn | 4.34 ” |
| 97 | Chicklade | 5.15 a.m.|
| 125 | Ilchester | 7.50 ” |
| 137 | Ilminster | 8.58 ” |
| 154 | Honiton | 11.0 ” |
| 170 | Exeter | 12.34 p.m.|
+------+--------------+-----------+
| Time: 16 hours 34 minutes. |
+---------------------------------+
The complete official time-bill for the whole distance is appended:--
TIME-BILL, LONDON, EXETER AND DEVONPORT (“QUICKSILVER”) MAIL, 1837.
+---------+---------+-------+--------+-------------------------------+
|Contrac- |Number of| | | |
| tors’ | Passen- | | Time |Despatched from the General |
| Names. | gers. |Stages.|Allowed.| Post Office, the of , |
+---------+----+----+-------+--------+ 1837 at 8 p.m. |
| |In. |Out.| M. F. | H. M. |Coach No. {With timepiece |
| | | | | | sent out {safe, No. to .|
| | | | | |Arrived at the Gloucester |
| | | | | | Coffee-House at . |
| | | | | | |
| | | |{12 2 |} |Hounslow. |
| Chaplin | | |{ 7 1 |} 2 47 |Staines. |
| | | |{ 9 7 |} |Bagshot. Arrived 10.47 p.m. |
| | | | | | |
| | | |{ 9 1 |} |Hartford Bridge. |
| Company | | |{10 1 |} 2 54 |Basingstoke. |
| | | |{ 8 0 |} |Overton. |
| | | |{ 3 5 |} |Whitchurch. Arrived 1.41 a.m. |
| | | | | | |
| Broad | | |{ 6 7 | 0 39 |Andover. Arrived 2.20 a.m. |
| | | |{13 7 | 1 19 |Amesbury. Arrived 3.39 a.m. |
| | | | | | |
| Ward | | | 9 5 | 0 55 |Deptford Inn. Arrived 4.34 a.m.|
| Davis | | |{ 0 5 |} |Wiley. |
| | | |{ 6 5 |} 0 41 |Chicklade. Arrived 5.15 a.m. |
| | | | | |(Bags dropped for Hindon, 1 |
| | | | | | mile distant.) |
| | | |{ 6 6 |} |Mere. |
| Whitmash| | |{ 7 0 |} 2 59 |Wincanton. |
| | | |{13 4 |} |Ilchester. |
| | | |{ 4 1 |} |Cart Gate. Arrived 8.14 a.m. |
| | | | | | |
| | | |{ 2 6 |} |Water Gore, 6 miles from South |
| | | |{ |} | Petherton. |
| Jeffery | | |{ |} 0 44 |Bags dropped for that place. |
| | | |{ 5 1 |} |Ilminster. Arrived 8.58 a.m. |
| | | | | | |
| Soaring | | | 8 1 |} 0 25 |Breakfast 25 minutes. Dep. 9.23|
| | | | |} 0 46 |Yarcombe, Heathfield Arms. |
| | | | | | Arrived 10.9 a.m. |
| | | | | | |
| Wheaton | | | 8 7 | 0 51 |Honiton. Arrived 11 a.m. |
| | | | | | |
| | | |{16 4 | 1 34 |Exeter. Arrived 12.34 p.m. |
| Cockram | | |{ | 0 10 |Ten minutes allowed. |
| | | |{10 3 |} |Chudleigh. |
| | | |{ 9 3 |} 1 57 |Ashburton. Arrived 2.41 p.m. |
| | | | | | |
| | | |{13 2 |} |Ivybridge. |
| | | |{ 6 6 |} |Bags dropped at Ridgway for |
| Elliott | | |{ |} 2 33 | Plympton, 3 furlongs distant.|
| | | |{ 4 0 |} |Plymouth. Arrived at the Post |
| | | |{ 1 7 |} | Office, Devonport, the of |
| | | | | | , 1837, at 5.14 p.m. by |
| | | | | | timepiece. At by clock. |
| | | +-------+--------+Coach No. { Delivered timepiece|
| | | |216 1 | 21 14 | arr. .{ safe, No. to .|
+---------+----+----+-------+--------+-------------------------------+
The time of working each stage is to be reckoned from the coach’s
arrival, and as any lost time is to be recovered in the course
of the stage, it is the coachman’s duty to be as expeditious as
possible, and to report the horsekeepers if they are not always
ready when the coach arrives, and active in getting it off. The
guard is to give his best assistance in changing, whenever his
official duties do not prevent it.
By command of the Postmaster-General.
GEORGE LOUIS, _Surveyor and Superintendent._
The “New Exeter” Mail went at the moderate inclusive speed of 9 miles
an hour, and reached Exeter, where it stopped altogether, 1 hour 38
minutes later than the “Quicksilver.” The fourth of this company went a
circuitous route down the Bath Road to Bath, Bridgewater, and Taunton,
and did not get into Exeter until 3.57 p.m. Halting ten minutes, it
went on to Devonport, and stopped there at 10.5 that night.
The tabulated form given on opposite page will clearly show how the
West of England mails went in 1837.
The starting of the “Quicksilver” and the other West-country mails was
a recognised London sight. That of the “Telegraph” would have been
also, only it left Piccadilly at 5.30 in the morning, when no one
was about besides the unhappy passengers, except the stable-helpers.
Chaplin, who horsed the “Quicksilver” and other Western mails from
town, did not start them from the General Post Office, but from the
Gloucester Coffee-House, Piccadilly. The mail-bags were brought from
St. Martin’s-le-Grand in a mail-cart, and the City passengers in an
omnibus. The mails set out from Piccadilly at 8.30 p.m.
THE WEST OF ENGLAND MAILS, 1837.
+-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+
| | | |Devonport | | |
| | |Old Exeter | (“Quick- | |Devonport |
|Miles| Places. | Mail, | silver”) |New Exeter |Mail, by |
| | | continued |Mail, con-| Mail. |Bath and |
| | | to |tinued to | |Taunton. |
| | | Falmouth. | Falmouth.| | |
+-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+
| |General Post | | | | |
| | Office, | | | | |
| |London dep.| 8.0 p.m. | 8.0 p.m.| 8.0 p.m. | 8.0 p.m.|
| 12 |Hounslow arr.| | | | 9.12 ” |
| 19 |Staines | | | 9.56 ” | |
| 23 | Slough | | | | |
| 29 | Maidenhead | | | |10.40 ” |
| 58 | Newbury | | | | 1.53 a.m.|
| 77 | Marlborough | | | | 3.43 ” |
| 91 | Devizes | | | | 5.6 ” |
| 109 | Bath | | | | 7.0 ” |
| 149 | Bridgewater | | | |11.30 ” |
| 160 | Taunton | | | |12.35 p.m.|
| 180 | Cullumpton | | | | 2.42 ” |
| 29 |Bagshot | |10.47 p.m.| | |
| 67 |Andover | | 2.20 a.m.| 2.42 a.m. | |
| 84 | Salisbury | 4.52 a.m. | | 4.27 ” | |
| 124½|Dorchester | 8.57 ” | | 8.53 ” | |
| 126 | Yeovil | | | | |
| 137 |Bridport |10.5 ” | |11.0 ” | |
| 143 | Chard | | | | |
| 80 |Amesbury | | 3.39 ” | | |
| 125 |Ilchester | | 7.50 ” | | |
| | Honiton | |11.0 ” |12.31 p.m. | |
| | EXETER {arr.| 2.59 p.m. |12.34 p.m.| 2.12 ” | 3.57 ” |
| | dep.| 3.9 ” |12.44 ” |===========| 4.7 ” |
| 210 |Newton Abbot arr.| | | | 6.33 ” |
| 218 |Totnes | | | | 7.25 ” |
| 190 | Ashburton | | 2.41 ” | | |
| 214 | Plymouth | | 5.5 ” | | |
| | DEVONPORT {arr.| | 5.14 ” | |10.5 ” |
| | {dep.| | 5.41 ” | |==========|
| 234 | Liskeard arr.| | 7.55 ” | | |
| 246 | Lostwithiel | | 9.12 ” | | |
| 252 | St. Austell | |10.20 ” | | |
| 266 | Truro | |11.55 ” | | |
| 271 | FALMOUTH | 3.55 a.m. | 1.5 a.m.| | |
+-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+
| | |31 h. 55 m.|29 h. 5 m.|18 h. 12 m.|26 h. 5 m.|
+-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+
It was at Andover that the “Quicksilver,” from 1837, leaving its
contemporary mails, climbed up past Abbot’s Ann to Park House and
the bleak Wiltshire downs, along a lonely road, and finally came, up
hill, out of Amesbury to the most exposed part of Salisbury Plain,
at Stonehenge, in the early hours of the morning. The “Quicksilver”
was a favourite subject with the artists of that day, who were never
weary of pictorially representing it. They have shown it passing
Kew Bridge, and the old “Star and Garter,” on the outward journey,
in daylight--presumably the longest day in the year, because it did
not reach that point until 9 p.m. Two of them have, separately and
individually, shown us the famous attack by the lioness in 1816; and
two others have pictured it on the up journey, passing Windsor Castle,
and entering the City at Temple Bar; but no one has ever represented
the “Quicksilver” passing beneath that gaunt and storm-beaten relic of
a prehistoric age, Stonehenge. One of them, however, did a somewhat
remarkable thing. The picture of the “Quicksilver” passing within
sight of Windsor was executed and published in 1840, two years after
the gallant old mail had been taken off that portion of the road,
to be conveyed by railway. Perhaps the print was, so to speak, a
post-mortem one, intended to keep the memory of the old days fresh in
the recollection of travellers by the mail.
The London and Southampton Railway was opened to Woking May 23rd,
1838, and to Winchfield September 24th following, and by so much the
travels of the “Quicksilver” and the other West-country coaches were
shortened. For some months they all resorted to that station, and then
to Basingstoke, when the line was opened so far. June 10th, 1839.
This shortening of the coach route was accompanied by the following
advertisement in the _Times_ during October 1838, the forerunner of
many others:--
[Illustration: THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, ARRIVING AT TEMPLE
BAR, 1834.
_After C. B. Newhouse._
]
“Bagshot, Surrey--49 Horses and harness. To Coach Proprietors, Mail
Contractors, Post Masters, and Others.--To be Sold by Auction, by Mr.
Robinson, on the premises, ‘King’s Arms’ Inn, Bagshot, on Friday,
November 2, 1838, at twelve o’clock precisely, by order of Mr.
Scarborough, in consequence of the coaches going per Railway.
“About Forty superior, good-sized, strengthy, short-legged,
quick-actioned, fresh horses, and six sets of four-horse harness, which
have been working the Exeter ‘Telegraph,’ Southampton and Gosport
Fast Coaches, and one stage of the Devonport Mail. The above genuine
Stock merits the particular Attention of all Persons requiring known
good Horses, which are for unreserved sale, entirely on Account of the
Coaches being removed from the Road to the Railway.”
In Thomas Sopwith’s diary we find this significant passage: “On the
11th May, 1840, the coaches discontinued running between York and
London, although the railways were circuitous.” Thus the glories
of the Great North Road began to fade, but it was not until 1842
that the Edinburgh Mail was taken off the road between London,
York, and Newcastle. July 5th, 1847, witnessed the last journey of
the mail on that storied road, in the departure of the coach from
Newcastle-on-Tyne for Edinburgh. The next day the North British Railway
was opened.
The local Derby and Manchester Mail was one of the last to go. It
went off in October 1858. But away up in the far north of Scotland,
where Nature at her wildest, and civilisation and population at their
sparsest, placed physical and financial obstacles before the railway
engineers, it was not until August 1st, 1874, that the mail-coach era
closed, in the last journey of the mail-coach between Wick and Thurso.
That same day the Highland Railway was opened, and in the whole length
and breadth of England and Scotland mail-coaches had ceased to exist.
[Illustration: THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING WINDSOR CASTLE.
_After Charles Hunt, 1840._
]
The mail-coaches in their prime were noble vehicles. Disdaining any
display of gilt lettering or varied colour commonly to be seen on the
competitive stage-coaches, they were yet remarkably striking. The
lower part of the body has been variously described as chocolate,
maroon, and scarlet. Maroon certainly was the colour of the later
mails, and “chocolate” is obviously an error on the part of some
writer whose colour-sense was not particularly exact; but we can only
reconcile the “scarlet” and “maroon” by supposing that the earlier
colouring was in fact the more vivid of the two. The fore and hind
boots were black, together with the upper quarters of the body, and
were saved from being too sombre by the Royal cipher in gold on the
fore boot, the number of the mail on the hind, and, emblazoned on
the upper quarters, four devices eloquent of the majesty of the
united kingdoms and their knightly orders. There shone the cross of
St. George, with its encircling garter and the proud motto, “_Honi
soit qui mal y pense_”; the Scotch thistle, with the warning “_Nemo me
impune lacessit_”; the shamrock and an attendant star, with the _Quis
separabit?_ query (not yet resolved); and three Royal crowns, with
the legend of the Bath, “_Tria juncta in uno_.” The Royal arms were
emblazoned on the door-panels, and old prints show that occasionally
the four under quarters had devices somewhat similar to those above.
The name of each particular mail appeared in unobtrusive gold letters.
The under-carriage and wheels were scarlet, or “Post Office red,” and
the harness, with the exception of the Royal cypher and the coach-bars
on the blinkers, was perfectly plain.
One at least of the mail-coaches still survives. This is a London and
York mail, built by Waude, of the Old Kent Road, in 1830, and now a
relic of the days of yore treasured by Messrs. Holland & Holland, of
Oxford Street. Since being run off the road as a mail, it has had a
curiously varied history. In 1875 and the following season, when the
coaching revival was in full vigour, it appeared on the Dorking Road,
and so won the affections of Captain “Billy” Cooper, whose hobby that
route then was, that he had an exact copy built. In the summer of 1877
it was running between Stratford-on-Avon and Leamington. In 1879 Mr.
Charles A. R. Hoare, the banker, had it at Tunbridge Wells, and also
ordered a copy. Since then the old mail-coach has been in retirement,
emerging now and again as the “Old Times” coach, to emphasise the
trophies of improvement and progress in the Lord Mayor’s Shows of
1896, 1899 and 1901, in the wake of electric and petrol motor-cars,
driven and occupied by coachmen and passengers dressed to resemble our
ancestors of a hundred years ago.
[Illustration: MAIL-COACH BUILT BY WAUDE, 1830.
_Now in possession of Messrs. Holland & Holland._
]
The coach is substantially and in general lines as built in 1830. The
wheels have been renewed, the hind boot has a door inserted at the
back, and the interior has been relined; but otherwise it is the coach
that ran when William IV. was king. It is a characteristic Waude coach,
low-hung, and built with straight sides, instead of the bowed-out type
common to the products of Vidler’s factory. It wears, in consequence,
a more elegant appearance than most coaches of that time; but it must
be confessed that what it gained in the eyes of passers-by it must
have lost in the estimation of the insides, for the interior is not
a little cramped by those straight sides. The guard’s seat on the
“dickey”--or what in earlier times was more generally known as the
“backgammon-board”--remains, but his sheepskin or tiger-skin covering,
to protect his legs from the cold, is gone. The trapdoor into the hind
boot can be seen. Through this the mails were thrust, and the guard sat
throughout the journey with his feet on it. Immediately in front
of him were the spare bars, while above, in the still-remaining case,
reposed the indispensable blunderbuss. The original lamps, in their
reversible cases, remain. There were four of them--one on either fore
quarter, and one on either side of the fore boot, while a smaller one
hung from beneath the footboard, just above the wheelers. The guard had
a small hand-lamp of his own to aid him in sorting his small parcels.
The door-panels have apparently been repainted since the old days,
for, although they still keep the maroon colour characteristic of the
mail-coaches, the Royal arms are gone, and in their stead appears the
script monogram, in gold, “V.R.”