ROBBERY AND ADVENTURE
The whole art and mystery of coach-robbing began to be studied at
a very early date. In the _London Gazette_ during 1684 we find the
following extremely explicit advertisement:--
“A GENTLEMAN (passing with others in the Northampton Stage Coach on
Wednesday the 14th instant, by Harding Common about two miles from
Market-street) was set upon by four Theeves, plain in habit but
well-horsed, and there (amongst other things) robbed of a Watch;
the description of it thus, The Maker’s Name was engraven on the
Back plate in French, Gulimus Petit à Londres; it was of a large
round Figure, flat, Gold Enamelled without, with variety of Flowers
of different colours, and within a Landskip, and by a fall the
Enamel was a little cracked; It had also a black Seale-Skin plain
Case lined with Green Velvet. If any will produce it, and give
notice to Mr. Samuel Gibs, Sadler near the George Inn Northampton,
or to Mr. Cross in Wood Street, London, he shall have a Guinea
reward.”
It is to be feared that the gentleman who thus mourned his watch never
regained it.
From this time forward, until well into the nineteenth century,
highwaymen and the highway-robbery of postboys, stage-coaches,
post-chaises, and all sorts and conditions of wayfarers became
commonplaces of travel. Dick Turpin’s name has acquired an undue
prominence, on account of Harrison Ainsworth elevating him upon a
pedestal, as the hero of a romance, but his was really neither a
prominent nor an heroic figure. Innumerable other practitioners
surpassed him. Claude Du Vall, who robbed and danced on Hounslow Heath;
Abershaw, the terror of the Surrey Commons; Captain Hind, soldier and
gentleman, warring with authority; Boulter, whose depredations were
conducted all over the kingdom; the “Golden Farmer” on the Exeter Road,
outside Bagshot: all these and very many more were infinitely superior
to Turpin, and, as they phrased it, “spoke to” the coaches with great
success during their brief but crowded career. Nowadays, we hear much
of overcrowded professions; but those of the Army, the Church, and
the Law are by no means so crowded as were the ranks of the liberal
profession of highway robbery in the brave nights of crape mask and
horse-pistols at the cross-roads on the blasted heaths which then
encompassed the Metropolis; lonesome places of dreadful possibilities,
which could not have been more conveniently placed for the purpose of
these night-hawks had they been expressly designed for them.
Travellers, who looked upon being robbed once upon a journey as the
inevitable thing, very soon discovered this overcrowded state of
affairs, and resented it. Once upon a time, after the gentry who plied
their occupation on Hounslow Heath and Finchley or Putney Commons had
taken toll of purse and pocket, travellers had gone their way chuckling
at the store of notes and gold still safe in their boots and the lining
of their coats; but when every reckless blade and every discharged
footman or disbanded soldier took to the road, the polite highwayman
of the recognised robbing-places had no sooner been left behind with a
“good-night to you”--mutual good wishes and a hearty _au revoir!_ from
Du Vall or one of his brethren--than the territory of an unsuspected
set of ruffians was entered; rough-and-ready customers, who were not
content until they had got the passengers’ boots off, or had ripped up
the linings of coats and waistcoats, and then, having taken the last
stiver, bade those unhappy passengers, with a curse, begone. There was
an even deeper depth of misery--when, thus shorn and stripped, they
encountered a yet more rascally, more provincial and hungrier crew, who
in their exasperation at getting nothing, would sometimes resort to
personal violence, to vent their disappointment and ill-humour.
At this overcrowded period, when the ordinary course of business
failed, the highwaymen were even known to practise upon one another,
like the Stock Exchange brokers of to-day, who, when the public hold
aloof, sharpen their wits and fill their pockets by professional
dealings.
In 1758 the monotony of highway robbery was broken by a burglary at
the “Bull and Mouth” coach-office, at 3 o’clock one morning, when 47
parcels, chiefly containing plate and watches, were stolen. The booty
was valued at £500. The thieves carried the parcels away in a cart, and
left behind them a lighted candle, which would have burned the place
down had it not been discovered in time by a coachman.
This was followed in May 1766 by an incident standing out in highly
humorous relief. The _Public Advertiser_ in that month announced:--“A
few nights ago, among the passengers that were going in the stage
from Bath to London, were two supposed females that had taken outside
places. As they were climbing to their seats it was observed that one
of them had men’s shoes and stockings on, and upon further search,
Breeches were discovered also: this consequently alarming the company,
the person thus disguised was taken into custody and locked up for the
night. The next day he was brought before a magistrate, and upon a
strict examination into matters, it appeared that he was a respectable
tradesman who, having cash and bills to a large amount on him, thus
disguised himself to escape the too urgent notice of the ‘Travelling
Collectors.’”
Turnpike Trusts at this time encouraged Sabbatarian feeling by charging
double on Sundays; but “knowing” travellers sometimes travelled on that
day, and submitted to that imposition as the cheaper of two evils.
The one they thus escaped was the imminent risk of being molested
by highwaymen and stripped of all their valuables; for those gay
“Collectors,” as they delighted to style themselves, did not attend to
business on the Sabbath. We are not, from this, to suppose that the
highwaymen were at church, or at home, reading improving literature.
Not at all: they did not expect wayfarers, and so took the day off. The
Sunday Trading Act for many years forbidding Lord’s Day employment,
prevented coaches running then, and so helped to give the hard-worked
nocturnal gentlemen of the road their needed weekly rest, and ensured
them from missing very much. Yet anxious travellers did sometimes go on
Sundays, and risk an information. When at last the mail-coaches were
started, to go seven times a week, and the Post Office itself set the
example of Sunday travel, away went the highwayman’s week-ends and the
travellers’ respite from wayside “Stand and deliver!” The stages then
plied on Sundays also.
As for the mails, they were immune from attack. The Post Office
early issued a warning against sending gold by them; but it did so,
not from fear of the highwaymen, but “from the prejudice it does
the coin by the friction.” Highwaymen were, in fact, little feared
either by the Department or by the mail-passengers, for not only did
the guard’s embattled condition secure them from attack, but the
Post Office introduced enactments dealing very severely with highway
robbery applied to the mail-coaches. The standing reward offered the
liege-subjects of the king for arresting an ordinary highwayman was
raised to £200 in the case of an attack on the mail, further augmented
by another £100 if within five miles of London. Mail-coaches, by
consequence, were left severely alone by the Turpins, Abershaws, and
others of their kind; and it has been said that a mail-coach, unlike
the old postboys carrying the mail-bags, was never attacked.
Although this is very likely true, it must not be supposed that the
mails were never robbed. The distinction drawn is clear. Violence
was not shown, but robberies were frequent, often on a sensational
scale. One February night in 1810, some unknown persons wrenched off
the lock of the hind-boot on one of the mails and made away with no
fewer than sixteen North-Country bags. Where was the guard? Probably
kissing the pretty barmaid. Again, on November 9th, in that same year,
nine bags were stolen from a mail at Bedford; and so frequent grew
robberies of all sorts that in January 1813 the Superintendent of Mails
was constrained to issue a warning notice to his officials:--“The
guards are desired by Mr. Hasker to be particularly attentive to their
mail-box. Depredations are committed every night on some stage-coaches
by stealing parcels. I shall relate a few, which I trust will make you
circumspect. The Bristol mail-coach has been robbed within a week of
the bankers’ parcel, value £1000 or upwards. The Bristol mail-coach was
robbed of money the 3rd instant to a large amount. The ‘Expedition’
coach has been twice robbed in the last week--the last time of all the
parcels out of the seats. The ‘Telegraph’ was robbed last Monday night
between the Saracen’s Head, Aldgate, and Whitechapel Church, of all the
parcels out of the dicky. It was broken open while the guard was on it,
standing up blowing his horn. The York mail was robbed of parcels out
of the seats to a large amount.”
Many of these robberies cited by Hasker were, it will be noticed, from
stage-coaches. Despite this warning note, small thefts continued. Then,
in 1822, came the classic instance--the robbery from the Ipswich Mail,
when notes worth £31,198 mysteriously disappeared. A month later the
bulk of them, to the value of £28,000, was returned, only a few, worth
£3000, having been successfully negotiated. On the night of June 6th,
1826, seven bags were taken from the Dover Mail between Chatham and
Rainham; and in the following year a new sensation was provided by the
Warwick Mail being robbed of £20,000.
But the closing great robbery of the coaching age was that of £5000 in
notes from the “Potter” (Manchester and Stafford) coach, October 1839.
The notes, in a parcel addressed to a bank at Hanley, were extracted
from the hind-boot when the coach was near Congleton.
Adventures, says the proverb, are to the adventurous; but in coaching
times they befell those who desired a quiet life, equally with the
seekers after sensation and experience. Fortunately for the peace of
mind of our grandfathers, the startling adventure that befell the up
Exeter Mail at Winterslow Hut, on the night of October 20th, 1816,
was unique. The coach had left Salisbury in the usual way, and had
proceeded several miles, when what was thought to be a large calf was
seen trotting beside the horses in the darkness. When the lonely inn of
Winterslow Hut was reached, the team had become extremely nervous, and
could scarcely be kept under control. At the moment when the coachman
pulled up, one of the horses was seized by the supposed calf, and the
others of the terrified team began to kick and plunge violently. The
guard very promptly drew his blunderbuss, and was about to shoot this
mysterious assailant, when several men, accompanied by a large mastiff,
came on the scene; and it appeared that this ferocious “calf” was
really a lioness, escaped from a travelling menagerie, and these men
come in pursuit. The dog was holloaed on to the attack, and the lioness
thereupon left the horse, and, seizing him, tore the wretched animal to
pieces.
At length she was secured by a rope, and taken off in captivity. The
leading horse was fearfully mangled, but survived, and was exhibited
for a time, with great financial success, by the showman whose
lioness had wrought the mischief. When the interest had subsided,
“Pomegranate”--for that was the name of the horse--was sold. He had
been foaled in 1809, and was a thoroughbred, with rather too much
spirit for his owner, who had sold him out of his stable for his bad
temper. The severe work in coaches of that period soon took the unruly
nature out of such animals, and no complaint was made of him in his
long after-career on the Brighton and Petworth stage-coach.
This exciting episode was, of course, the wonder of that age, and two
coaching artists made capital out of it, in the shape of very effective
plates. James Bollard was the author of one; the other was by one
Sauerweid, whose name is not familiar in work of this kind.
Dark nights in wild country were fruitful in strange experiences,
aided, doubtless, by the potency of the parting glass as well as
by the blackness of the night and the ruggedness of the way. The
adventures of Jack Creery and Joe Lord, coachman and guard of the
pair-horse Lancaster and Kirkby Stephen Mail, one snowy night, form a
case in point. They had the coach to themselves, for it was not good
travelling weather. Creery, we are told, “felt sleepy”--a pretty way
of saying he was intoxicated--and so the guard took the reins. In
driving, this worthy, whose condition seems to have been only a shade
better than that of his companion, wandered in the snow into a by-lane
between Kirkby Stephen and Kirkby Lonsdale, and so lost his way. After
floundering about for some time, he aroused Creery, and their united
efforts, after alighting many times to read the signposts, brought them
in the middle of the night to a village, where they were found by
the aroused villagers loudly knocking at the church door, under the
impression that it was a public-house. That snowstorm must have been a
particularly blinding one, or the brandy at their last house of call
unusually strong.
[Illustration: THE LIONESS ATTACKING THE EXETER MAIL, OCTOBER 20th,
1816.
_After A. Sauerweid._
]
Not often was coaching history marked by such a gruesome incident as
that which befell a coach on the Norwich Road. At Ingatestone a lady,
who was the only inside passenger, was discovered to have died. Her
son, travelling outside, was informed, but after some hesitation it was
decided that the coach should proceed to its destination at Colchester.
At Chelmsford, however, two ladies presented themselves as would-be
passengers. Inside seats only were available, all the outsides being
occupied. They were informed of the circumstances, and that they could
therefore not be booked; but were so anxious to go by the coach that
they overcame their natural scruples, and rode with the dead woman to
the journey’s end.
Of winter travelling we have already heard something, and shall hear
more. How it struck one contemporary with those times we may learn from
a reminiscent old traveller, who, having had much experience of old
coaching methods, preferred the railway age--at least in winter. Thus
he recalls some of his experiences:--
“For a day and night journey the agony was, on two occasions, so
intense that, although then in my youth, and hardy enough, I was
obliged to get off the coach and sleep a night on the road; by which
I don’t mean under the hedge, but in one of those fine old (and
highly expensive) inns that then were to be found at more or less
regular intervals along the great highways. Posting, generally with
four horses--a highly extravagant way of travelling, but one in great
favour with those who could afford it--maintained correspondingly high
charges at all these houses of entertainment. It was all very well
to rhapsodise over the climbing roses, the fragrant honeysuckle and
the odorous jessamine that wreathed the portals of the wayside inn in
summer, or to become eloquent over the roaring fire, at whose ruddy
blaze you toasted your feet in winter, but you had to pay--and to pay
pretty heavily--for these luxuries. I will suppose that the traveller
stopped for dinner, which, if left to the landlady, generally consisted
of eels, or other fresh-water fish, dressed in a variety of ways, roast
fowl, lamb or mutton cutlets, bread, cheese, and celery, for which a
charge of six or seven shillings was made. If the meal took place after
dark, there was an additional item of two shillings or half a crown
for wax lights. Then, ‘for the good of the house’ and your own certain
discomfort, there was a bottle of fine crusted port (probably two days
in bottle) seven shillings; or a bottle of fiery sherry, just drawn
from the wood, six shillings. To all these charges must be added the
waiter’s fee of one shilling or eighteenpence a head. ‘Sleeping on the
road’ absolved you from some of these costs, but it was expensive in
its own way. It involved tea or supper, chambermaid and boots, as well
as bed and breakfast. Breakfast, with ham and eggs, three shillings;
tea, with a few slices of thin bread-and-butter, eighteenpence or two
shillings; a soda and brandy, eighteenpence.
“Once, in the depth of winter, I left Bramham Park, the seat of George
Lane-Fox, on the Great North Road, to proceed to London, with a journey
before me of 190 miles. I was well wrapped up, with enough straw round
my feet to conceal a covey of partridges; still, after going about 37
miles, I felt myself so benumbed that I began to think whether it would
be wise to go on, or get off and sacrifice my fare to London. Upon
reaching Bawtry I felt more comfortable, the guard at Doncaster having
lent me a tarpaulin lined with sheepskin; so I resolutely determined to
brave the pitiless storm of snow, now whitening the ground.
“‘Half an hour for supper,’ exclaimed the waiter, as we pulled up
at the ‘Crown.’ Down I got, entered the room, where there was a
bright fire blazing, devoured some cold beef, drank a glass of hot
brandy-and-water, and bravely went forth to face the elements. By this
time the snow had increased, the wind had got up, and my heart failed.
Back I rushed to the bar, ordered a bed, and remained there for the
night, finishing my journey the following day.
“Again, in coming from Bath by a night coach, I was so saturated with
wet and shivering with cold that I got out at Reading, rushed to the
‘Bear,’ and slept there the night.”
Such was the best travelling that money could buy in the days before
England was--according to the coachmen--made a gridiron by the
railways.