THE GOLDEN AGE, 1824–1848
It was “golden” chiefly from the sportsman’s point of view, and in
the opinions of those who found a keen delight in the perfection of
coach-building and harness-making, in the smartness of the beautiful
horses, and in the speed attained. From the sordid view-point of the
profit-and-loss account, although this was the age in which Chaplin
and a few others made their great fortunes, it was a time when the
high speed and other refinements of travelling made the path of the
coach-proprietor a thorny and uneasy one, often barren of aught but
honour. “You are ‘in it,’ I see,” said a proprietor who himself had
been severely bitten in this way, and had left the business, to a
coachman who, like many of his fellows, had long cherished an ambition
to become a coach-master, and had just acquired a share: “you are ‘in
it.’ Take care how you get out of it.” One of the prominent men in
it--Cooper, who ran a good line of coaches on the Bath Road--found
himself at last in the Bankruptcy Court, and many smaller men appeared
in the same place. The greatest increase of cost was in the item of
horses. In earlier times the stock had lasted for years, despite the
long stages and harder pulling; but in this period of good roads and
short stages, when, all things being equal, a team should have lasted
longer, the great coach-proprietors found it necessary to renew their
stock every three years. Chaplin’s method of doing this was to replace
one-third of his horses every year.
It is not to be supposed that the horses thus disposed of were always
broken down or worn out by their three years of strenuous exertion in
the fast coaches. They had only lost those agile qualities necessary
for that use, and, finding purchasers among farmers and country
tradesmen who had no occasion to gallop at eleven miles an hour, lived
very comfortably, grew sleek and fat, and must often, from roadside
paddocks, have beheld their successors slaving away in the fast
coaches; finding much satisfaction in their own altered circumstances.
Coachmen at this time usually drove between thirty and forty miles
out, and then took the up coach back, perhaps more than half a day
later. With such an arrangement the horses had the same driver, and it
was generally found that they worked much better in such cases. The
coachman’s responsibility for their condition was also undivided, and
the proprietor was easily able to weed out from his coachmen those who
lingered at the changes and made up the lost time on the road, to the
distress of their teams. It was Chaplin who made it known, by all the
vigorous language at his command, that any one of his coachmen found
in the possession of one of those instruments of torture, resembling a
cat-o’-nine-tails, for punishing horses, and known as a “short Tommy”
would be instantly dismissed. Chaplin’s direct influence and interests
may be said to have described a radius of from forty to fifty miles
from London, and within that circle the “short Tommy” was therefore but
seldom seen. One historic occasion there was, however, when such an
object did most dramatically present itself before Chaplin, who chanced
to be at a wayside inn when one of his coaches pulled up to change. On
the roof was a warder with two convicts. As the coachman, with much
deliberation, lowered himself from his box to the ground, the “short
Tommy” he had been sitting on fell in front of the windows, and as
it lay there attracted the eagle eye of that great coach-proprietor,
who, sternly bent upon executing justice upon the offender, strode
forth. The coachman, dismayed, saw his employer and the forbidden
instrument at once, in one comprehensive, understanding gaze; but he
was a resourceful man, and handed it to the warder, telling him, with
a portentous wink and a warning jerk of the head, that he had dropped
something. That worthy, entering into the spirit of the deception,
accepted the pretended cat-o’-nine-tails, and the coachman breathed
freely again.
The days of ten- or eleven mile- stages, just at this time faded away,
gave a horse one stretch of so many miles a day; but in the fast
coaches of the newer age they ran, as we have seen, out and home, six
or seven miles each way. It was to the very last a disputed point
whether it was better for a horse to do his ten or eleven miles and
have done with it for the day, or to do his two shifts of six or seven.
Many coachmen who could not depend upon their horsekeepers objected to
two sweats a day; but this division of work was a decided advantage to
the horses, if well tended, and in such cases they had the advantage of
sleeping at home every night. The number of horses kept for one of the
fast coaches of this Augustan age would have astonished the pioneers of
coaching; one horse for every mile travelled was the establishment kept
up. Slow coaches could do with fewer.
The average price paid for a coach-horse at this period was £30, but
some were acquired for a mere trifle, owing to their being vicious or
unmanageable in private hands. The private owner’s dilemma was the
coach-proprietor’s opportunity. It mattered little to him what defects
of temper a horse possessed so long as he was sound in wind and limb.
For the rest, a little discipline, harnessed with three others, all
subject to the rule of those very able disciplinarians, the coachmen,
quickly sufficed to bring such an animal to reason. There were thus
some very queer animals drawing the coaches in these last years.
Some were purchased with a doubtful title. In such a case, to prevent
his being recognised and claimed, the horse would be worked on the
night mail.
The coachman’s ideal was a team matching in colour, but few proprietors
ever aimed at such perfection. The cost was great, and nothing, save
the gratification of the eye, was gained.
With these business details the travelling public had no concern, and
it was only the box-seat passengers who learnt the history of some of
these cheap acquisitions from private stables. The box-seat passenger
was generally a sporting character, aspiring to that companionship with
the coachman from his love of horses and driving, but it naturally
often happened that some stolid person, whose only desire was to be
carried safely and who took no interest in driving, found himself
perched on that place of honour. When such an one became the unwilling
confidant of the coachman he was apt to hear some nerve-shaking things.
“See that ’ere near wheeler?” said one Jehu. “Run avay vith a old
gennelman last veek, he did; broke his neck; friends just goin’ to
shoot ’im; guv’nor gave couple o’ suvrings for ’im, and ’ere ’e is.
’Ope we shan’t be upset!” The nervous passenger effected an exchange
for an inside place with a sporting passenger at the next stage--which
was precisely the result anticipated by the coachman.
At this time, when the fast day-coaches were in every respect as
well-appointed as a gentleman’s private drag, it was the keenest
ambition of every dashing young traveller to occupy this box-seat--an
ambition generally satisfied by putting in an early appearance at the
starting-point and tipping the head yard-porter, who thereupon placed
a rug or some stable-cloths on it. These tips were not, as generally
supposed, the coachman’s perquisite. His turn came later on, down the
road.
The yard-porter was as a much more important official than the present
generation might suppose, and in busy yards, such as those of the “Bull
and Mouth” or the “Swan with Two Necks,” his weekly income from tips
probably amounted to £5, or more. Nor was he merely the man with a pail
of water, a broom and a pitchfork conjured up mentally by the sound of
his title; his was an important department, and himself the ruler of
many subordinates, whose duties ranged from grooming and bedding-down
the horses and cleaning the stables to washing the coaches and cleaning
and polishing the harness and metal-work.
At this period the public found themselves swiftly flying where they
had formerly slowly and laboriously crawled, and generally compared
ancient travelling with modern, greatly to the advantage of modern
times. But if the coach-proprietors who were at such pains to compete
with one another in establishing these swift and well-appointed coaches
were of opinion that in so doing they were earning the admiration of
the entire travelling public, they were very soon undeceived, and
those weaker brethren who could not command the influence and the
capital by which only could a fast coach be appointed and established,
found that, after all, there was no immediate prospect of their being
run off the road, and that a considerable section of the public
actually preferred to travel in slow coaches, and would by no means
consent to be whirled through the country at eleven miles an hour,
with only hurried intervals for meals. “The art of travelling,”
said an anonymous writer in 1827, “has undergone great alterations
in the course of the last thirty years; these are not altogether
improvements.” One of these changes for the worse, in the opinion of
this unknown scribe, was that in the thunder of ten miles an hour there
was no opportunity for conversation. That must be a powerful tongue, he
thought, which could make itself heard amid the reverberations of such
incessant and intemperate whirlings. He could not help looking back
with some regret to the good old times when five or six miles an hour
was the utmost speed. _Then_ there was something sober and sedate in
the fit-out and the set-out. All the faces in the inner-yard were so
grave and full of importance, and there was some seriousness in taking
leave. (Good reason, too, for such gravity and seriousness, think we
of later ages.) How scrupulous and polite were the inside passengers,
in making mutual accommodation of legs and arms, band-boxes,
sandwich-baskets and umbrellas! Then, too, says this delightful
snob, there was some difference between the inside and the outside
passengers: the gentlefolks within were not confounded with the people
on the outside. Distinctions were then better observed, and preserved.
Older stage-coach conversation, he continued, was apt to be conducted
with caution, for a false opening might make an ill companion on a long
journey. So approaches were made skilfully, and with deliberation. A
man was thought excessively forward and talkative if he had got into
politics before he had well cleared the outskirts of London, and the
first half-hour was generally occupied with the light skirmishings of
talk, with reconnoitrings of one’s opposite neighbour’s countenance,
and a variety of all-round questions and answers put and returned
merely to ascertain how far the passengers were to be companions. These
had to be framed with the utmost discretion. With what vivacity and air
of pleasant expectation would one then ask an agreeable-looking person,
“Are you going all the way to Toppington?” or, on the other hand, if
the inside had its full complement of six, how carefully, and with
what a discreetly modulated voice, in order to avoid all suspicion of
wishing a speedy riddance, one would ask the same question of an unduly
stout person, who occupied much more than his or her share of room.
The best conversational opening was considered to be, “Well, we are now
off the stones. What a beautiful morning! How charming the outskirts of
town! Pray, does not that house belong to----?”
Going up-hill one walked, to ease the horses, insides and outsides
then equal; the insides, greatly condescending, holding converse
with the occupants of the roof, always, however, with the strict
understanding--no less strict if not mentioned--that this gracious act
must not be taken advantage of by those outsiders claiming acquaintance
when the coach stopped at the inns, where this all-important difference
in caste was recognised by distinct eating apartments being provided.
Those were the good old days, according to this critic, when these
customs were strictly observed, and when there was not only time to
eat, but almost to digest at coach-dinners and breakfasts; when, too,
there were generally a few minutes to spare while the horses were being
got ready, so that the passengers could wander round the town and copy
any curious epitaphs for the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, or do a little
shopping.
Coachmen were of somewhat similar opinions. “Lord! sir,” said Hine,
coach-proprietor and coachman on the Brighton Road, in 1831, who was,
much against his will, obliged to accelerate his coaches in order to
keep pace with newcomers, but did not relish the necessity, “we don’t
travel half so comfortably now as we used to do. It is all hurry and
bustle nowadays, sir--no time even for a pipe and glass of grog.” Not
comfortable for the coachmen, who sadly missed their wayside, and often
wholly unauthorised, halts.
Cobbett, surly though his nature was, could not withhold admiration
when noticing these latter-day coaches. “Next to a fox-hunt,” he says,
“the finest sight in England is a stage-coach just ready to start. A
great sheep- or cattle-fair is a beautiful sight; but in a stage-coach
you see more of what man is capable of performing. The vehicle itself;
the harness, all so complete and so neatly arranged, so strong, and
clean, and good; the beautiful horses, impatient to be off; the inside
full, and the outside covered, in every part, with men, women, and
children, boxes, bags, bundles; the coachman, taking his reins in one
hand and his whip in the other, gives a signal with his foot, and away
they go, at the rate of seven miles an hour--the population and the
property of a hamlet. One of these coaches coming in, after a long
journey, is a sight not less interesting. The horses are now all sweat
and foam, the reek from their bodies ascending like a cloud. The whole
equipage is covered, perhaps, with dust and dirt. But still, on it
comes, as steady as the hand of the clock. As a proof of the perfection
to which this mode of travelling has been brought, there is one coach
which goes between Exeter and London, whose proprietors agree to
forfeit eightpence for every minute the coach is behind its time at any
of its stages; and this coach, I believe, travels eight miles an hour,
and that, too, upon a very hilly, and at some seasons a very deep,
road.”
[Illustration: LATE FOR THE MAIL.
_After C. Cooper Henderson, 1848._
]
Yes, but had Cobbett written in still later years, he would have found
the “Quicksilver” attaining, between the stages, a speed of nearly
12 miles an hour, and an average speed, including stops, of 11 miles,
while a quite ordinary performance with the Shrewsbury “Wonder” was
158 miles in 14 hours 45 minutes, including stops on the way totalling
80 minutes. This gives a net average speed of a little over 11½ miles
an hour. The Manchester “Telegraph” and other flyers made equally good
performances. The “Tantivy,” one of the most famous of coaches, did not
equal these feats.
The “Tantivy,” London and Birmingham coach, was started in 1832.
It left the “Blossoms” inn, Lawrence Lane, at 7 a.m., and was in
Birmingham by 7 p.m. The distance, by the route followed, through
Maidenhead, Henley, Oxford, Woodstock, Shipston-on-Stour, and
Stratford-on-Avon, was 125 miles, and, deducting one hour for changing
and refreshing, the speed was only slightly over 11 miles an hour. This
coach derived its name from the old word “Tantivy”--an imitative sound
as old as the seventeenth century, and often used in the literature
of that time, supposed to reproduce the note of the huntsman’s horn,
and conjuring up ideas of speed. For Cracknell, the most famous of the
coachmen of the “Tantivy,” who once drove the 125 miles at one sitting,
and generally drove it between London and Oxford, the “Tantivy Trot,”
quoted elsewhere in these pages, was written. Harry Salisbury drove
between Oxford and Birmingham. Among its other coachmen was Jerry
Howse. Costar and Waddell, of Oxford, horsed the “Tantivy” between
Woodstock and London, and Gardner, of Stratford-on-Avon, part-horsed
it onwards, not wholly to the satisfaction of Salisbury, who used to
declare that the team out of his yard was worth about £25 the lot, and
that they had once belonged to Shakespeare.
Competition in speed led naturally to rivalry in the building,
upholstering, and general appointments of the coaches. Sherman’s
Manchester “Estafette” was a splendid turn-out, holding its own
against many rivals in the last years of the coaching age. Inside was
a time-table elegantly engraved on ivory, showing all towns, distances
and intermediate times, illuminated at night by a reflector lamp. It
was at this time seriously proposed to light the coaches with gas,
with the double object of securing better lighting and effecting a
saving on the very heavy bills for oil consumed on the night coaches.
The idea was generally abandoned when it was found that the gas tanks
would be very heavy and that they would take up all the room in one
of the boots, generally reserved for luggage. Coachmen and guards,
too, professed anxiety lest they, sitting directly over the fore and
hind boots, should be blown up. But, before the project was finally
abandoned, it was fully proved that it was practicable, and in January
1827 the Glasgow and Paisley coaches were lit with gas, much to the
amazement of the country folk. “Guid Lord, Sandy,” said an old woman to
her husband, “they’ve laid gas-pipes all the way frae Glasgae Cross to
Paisley!” But they had done nothing of the sort; the gas was carried,
as already indicated, in a reservoir stowed away in the front boot.
Competition having already raged around the question of speed, and
having introduced unwonted luxuries in travelling, turned next to the
more deadly form of rate-cutting. In 1834 the coach-proprietors on
three great routes were engaged in this game of Beggar-my-neighbour.
In that year the fares to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester fell
to less than half their former price, and it was possible to travel to
Birmingham for 20s. inside and 10s. out, or to Liverpool or Manchester
for 40s. inside or 20s. out. They had little chance of being raised
again, for, by the time the weaker men had been crushed out of
existence, the railways were threatening the whole industry of coaching.
But reducing the fares by one-half was not always the last word in
these bitter contests. There was a period on the Brighton Road when one
might have been carried those 52 miles in 6 hours for 5s., with a free
lunch and wine at the end of the journey and your money returned if the
coach did not keep its time. The “Golden Age,” indeed!
At this period, when the long-distance coaching business was so
severely cut up, those proprietors who served the districts surrounding
London did exceedingly well. Coaching annals are almost silent on
the subject of these suburban coaches, for, being drawn by only two
horses, they were regarded by the four-in-hand artists with contempt.
It has thus, in the absence of available information, often puzzled
inquiring minds in the present generation to understand how the heavy
passenger traffic was conducted between London and the outlying towns
and villages within a radius of twenty miles. Those districts were
served by these “short stages,” as they were called--coaches drawn
by two horses, and making two or more journeys each way daily. There
was an incredibly large number of these useful vehicles, which were
in relation to the mails and fast long-distance coaches what the
suburban trains are to the expresses in our own day. The ordinary
coach-proprietors had rarely anything to do with these conveyances,
which came to and set out from a number of obscure inns and
coach-offices in all parts of the City and the West End.
One of these short stages is mentioned in _David Copperfield_, where
David’s page-boy, stealing Dora’s watch and selling it, purchases a
second-hand flute and expends the balance of his ill-gotten gains
in incessantly travelling up and down the road between London and
Uxbridge. Evidently a lover of the road, this larcenous page-boy. Most
boys in buttons (and certainly the typical page-boy of the typical
farce) would have expended the plunder in pastry or tobacco. This
particular specimen, the diligent Dickens-reader will remember, was
taken to Bow Street on the completion of his fifteenth journey,
when four shillings and sixpence and the second-hand flute--which
he couldn’t play--were found upon him. If we were contemplating an
examination-paper on _David Copperfield_, with special reference to
prices and social life early in the nineteenth century, we might put
the following poser:--“State the average price obtainable on the
average lady’s gold watch, and, deducting the purchase price of a
second-hand flute, deduce from the resulting sum, and from the facts
of the boy having made the journey fifteen times and still being in
possession of four-and-sixpence, the cost of a single outside journey
between London and Uxbridge.”
The fare was, as a matter of fact, half a crown. There were no fewer
than seven short stages between London and Uxbridge daily, each making
two journeys. What of those London inns whence they started? Where are
they now? Echo does not answer “where?” as she is commonly said to do,
because it is not in the nature of echoes to repeat the first word of
a sentence. No; echo merely reverberates “now?” with a questioning
inflection.
The “Goose and Gridiron,” whose proper name was originally the “Swan
and Harp,” in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was one of these starting-points.
From the same inn went the Richmond and many other suburban stages.
That old inn was demolished about 1888. The “Boar and Castle and
Oxford Hotel,” No. 6, Oxford Street, was another house of call for
the Uxbridge stages. It vanished long ago, and those who seek it will
only find on its site the Oxford Music Hall and Restaurant--bearing a
different number, for the street was renumbered in 1881. The “Boar and
Castle” was a large, plain, stucco-fronted house, with its name writ
large across the front in raised letters.
As for the “Old Bell,” another of these starting-points of the Uxbridge
coaches, it was pulled down in 1897. It stood on the site of Gamage’s,
in Holborn, opposite Fetter Lane. Of another Uxbridge house, the
“Bull,” a few doors away, the sign, the figure of a ferocious black
bull, very properly chained and fastened by a secure girth, still
exists on the frontage, but “Black Bull Chambers,” a set of grimy
modern “model” dwellings, now occupy the coach-yard. The “Bell and
Crown,” afterwards “Ridler’s,” next Furnival’s Inn, has been swept away
to help make room for an extension of the Prudential Assurance Offices,
and the “New Inn,” 52, Old Bailey, has given place to warehouses and
the premises of a firm of wholesale newsagents. Away westward, the
Uxbridge and other short stages called at the “Green Man and Still,”
at the corner of Argyll Street, Oxford Circus, and at the “Gloucester
Warehouse,” near Park Lane. The last-named was rebuilt forty years ago,
but the “Green Man and Still” was only demolished in February 1901.
[Illustration: THE SHORT STAGE.
_After J. Pollard._
]
The time taken over the eighteen miles between the City and Uxbridge
was three hours. To Richmond in 1821, when short stages ran
frequently from five different inns, the time was an hour and a half.
As many as fourteen coaches ran to that town in 1838, most of them
making six journeys a day. Shillibeer and his omnibuses, introduced
in 1829, had by that time rendered the exclusive short-stages
old-fashioned, and they were gradually replaced by the more commodious
and popular vehicles, whose occupants were in turn looked down upon by
the short-stage passengers, just as _they_ had been despised by the
four-horse coaches.