COACH-PROPRIETORS
None among the servants of the public earned their living more hardly,
or took greater risks in the ordinary way of business, than the coach
proprietors. It was a business in which the few--the very few--became
rich, and the majority lived a strenuous life, with empty pockets
at the end of it. It was very truly said of them, as a class, that
they lived hard, worked hard, swore hard, and died hard. To this was
sometimes added that they held hard, by which you are to understand
that what money they _did_ succeed in getting they grasped tightly.
This last was, however, by no means a characteristic of the majority,
who very often dissipated what they had made by successful ventures on
one road by disastrous competition on another. There was never a more
speculative business than that of a coach-proprietor, and never one so
cursed with insane competition. Why embittered rivalries of this kind
should have been more common on the road than in any other line is only
to be explained by the hypothesis that a certain element of sporting
emulation entered into it; and a kind of foolish pride that impelled a
man to put and keep a line of coaches on a road to “nurse” a rival,
not always with the hope of earning a profit for himself, but with the
idea of cutting up another man’s ground.
The most outstanding figure among coach-proprietors was that of William
Chaplin. He towered above all his contemporaries in the magnitude of
his business, and was, when railways came to destroy it, first among
those few who saw the folly of opposing steam, and were both acute
enough and sufficiently fortunate to reap an additional advantage from
the new order of things, instead of being ruined by it, as many less
fortunate and less far-seeing men were.
[Illustration: MAIL-COACH HALFPENNY ISSUED BY WILLIAM WATERHOUSE.]
William James Chaplin--to give him his full baptismal name--was
born at Rochester in 1787, the son of William Chaplin, at that time
a coachman and proprietor in a small way of business on the Dover
Road. Shortly after that date it would appear that the elder Chaplin
extended his operations, and became a coach-master on a considerable
scale on some of the main roads leading out of London. However that
may have been, certain it is that his son was a practical coachman,
and thoroughly versed in every detail of driving and stabling, as well
as buying horses. To this intimate acquaintance with the conduct of
a coach and of a coaching business, as greatly as to his own native
shrewdness, he owed the extraordinary success that attended him. His
centre of operations was at the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane,
where he succeeded William Waterhouse, who had been established there
as a mail-contractor since 1792. He it was who, perhaps in imitation
of the Mail-coach Halfpenny dedicated to Palmer, issued the curious
copper token pictured here. It is quite in accord with the general
fragmentary character of the records of these not so remote times
that nothing survives by which we may state the year when Chaplin
succeeded Waterhouse at the “Swan with Two Necks,” but it was probably
about 1825. In addition to this yard, he acquired in the course of
time those of the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane, and the “Spread Eagle”
and “Cross Keys,” Gracechurch Street, together with the “Spread
Eagle” West End office, in Regent’s Circus, with the proprietorship
of several hotels. Unlike most coach-proprietors, who restricted
their operations to one or two roads, Chaplin’s coaches went in all
directions, and he owned large stables at Purley on the Brighton Road,
at Hounslow on the Western roads, and at Whetstone on the great road
to the north. The “Swan with Two Necks,” was, when he acquired
it, a yard extremely awkward of approach, being situated in a narrow
lane, and inside a low-browed entrance that taxed the ingenuity of the
coachmen to pass without accident. Once inside, you were in one of
those old courtyards without which no old coaching inn was complete.
Three tiers of galleries ran round three sides of the enclosed square,
which, from the creepers that were trailed round the old carved wooden
posts or depended from the balusters, and from the flower-boxes that
decorated the windows, was a very rustic-looking place. Chaplin had not
long settled himself here before he constructed underground stables
beneath this yard, where some two hundred horses were stalled; but the
place remained, otherwise unaltered, until about 1856, when all the
buildings were demolished, and he set himself to raise on their site
the huge pile of buildings that now fronts partly on to Gresham Street
and partly to Aldermanbury. It was one of his last works, and was, of
course, undertaken long after the coaching age had become a thing of
the past, being, indeed, intended for the headquarters of the carrying
business that had in the meantime come into existence. It is of
somewhat curious interest to note that, although the great gloomy pile
of unadorned brick bears not the slightest resemblance to the ancient
coaching inn, yet a courtyard survives, and railway vans manœuvre where
of old the mails arrived or set forth.
[Illustration: WILLIAM CHAPLIN.
_From the painting by Frederick Newnham._
]
In 1838, when his coaching business had reached its full height,
Chaplin owned or part-owned no fewer than 68 coaches, with 1,800
horses. Twenty-seven mails left London every night, and of these he
horsed fourteen on the first stages out of and into town. The annual
returns from his business were then put at half a million sterling.
At this critical period he resided at an hotel he owned and managed
in the Adelphi, where he worked literally day and night, supervising
the general affairs of his vast business, and yet finding time for
correcting details. Those coachmen who thought themselves secure from
observation in the midst of all these extensive operations wofully
deceived themselves. They had to reckon with one to whom every detail
was familiar--who had driven coaches himself, and was thoroughly
informed in the opportunities that existed in the stables and on the
road for cheating an employer. He knew the measure of every corn-box,
and was cognisant of the “shouldering” of fares and “swallowing” of
passengers that continually went on. For the guards thus to pocket
the short fares, not entering them on the way-bill, afterwards
sharing them with the coachman, was a practice that went back to the
very early days of coaching, and not only lasted as long as coaching
itself, but survived in a somewhat, altered form on omnibuses until
the introduction, in recent years, of tickets and the bell-punch.
It would have been impossible for coach-proprietors to end this
practice without raising the wages of their servants, and thus they
were obliged, so long as the coachmen and the guards performed their
“shouldering” and “swallowing” discreetly, to allow it to continue.
The practice was, indeed, a very lucrative one to those chartered
peculators, who made a great deal more out of it than they would in
the substitution of higher wages and a better code of morals. Like
the omnibus-proprietors until recently, coach-masters were content so
long as their takings reached a certain average sum, and it was only
when they fell below that figure, or when a fare was “shouldered”
or a passenger “swallowed” before their very eyes, that trouble
began. Chaplin could thus afford to give the toast, as often he did
give it, at festive gatherings of coachmen and guards, “Success to
‘shouldering,’ but” (with a peculiar emphasis) “do it well!”--or, in
plainer speech, “don’t get found out!”
[Illustration: THE CANTERBURY AND DOVER COACH, 1830.
_After G. S. Treguar._
]
Stories with Chaplin for a central figure were, of course, plentiful
down the road. Stable-folk told how one of their kind, who had been
requisitioning the contents of the corn-bin to an extravagant extent,
going to it with sack and lantern one night when all was still, lifting
the lid, found Chaplin himself snugly waiting within, who promptly
arose in his wrath, and, to the accompaniment of a picturesquely lurid
eloquence of which he was an undoubted master, dismissed him instanter.
The fame of that exploit must have saved Chaplin much in forage.
Although in his after-career as Member of Parliament he was a silent
representative, he could be eloquent in various ways. He had, as
already hinted, the direct and forcible method in perfection, and yet
could suit his style to all requirements. Coachmen, indeed, found him
much more dangerous in his suave and polite moments, and much preferred
to be sworn at and violently attacked, for his polite speeches
generally had a sting in their tail, and earned him, among the brethren
of the road, the descriptive, if also disrespectful, nickname of “Billy
Bite-’em-Sly.”
The portrait of him shows a physiognomy altogether unexpected, after
hearing these tales. One perceives rather a delicate and refined face
than that mentally pictured, and it is only in the piercing eyes that
his energy and determination are clearly seen.
Chaplin’s coaches were easily to be distinguished along the roads,
not only by the device of the “Swan with Two Necks” painted on them,
or later, in addition, by those of a “Spread Eagle,” “Cross Keys,” or
a “White Horse,” as those inns came under his control, but by their
colours, which were red and black--black upper-quarters and fore and
hind boots, and red under-parts and wheels.
His coaching business gave employment to two thousand people, and
included a horse-buying and veterinary department, under the control of
James Nunn, who was accustomed to procure the greater number of the
coach-horses from Horncastle Fair. J. F. Herring has left an excellent
equestrian portrait of this indispensable personage.
[Illustration: JAMES NUNN, HORSE-BUYER AND VETERINARY SURGEON TO
WILLIAM CHAPLIN.
_After J. F. Herring._
]
Chaplin horsed the quickest mails out of London: the Devonport, the
New Holyhead, the Bristol, and five other West-country mails starting
from Piccadilly. Passengers who had booked from his City offices were
carried to this point by omnibuses he established, and the mails were
conveyed, with the guards, in two-wheeled mail-carts from the General
Post Office. In the great number of coaches he ran there were, of
course, included some of the very best. His were those famous coaches,
the Manchester “Defiance,” a rival of Sherman’s even more famed
Manchester “Telegraph,” the Birmingham “Greyhound,” the Cambridge
“Telegraph,” Liverpool “Red Rover,” Bristol “Emerald,” Cheltenham
“Magnet,” and many others doing their ten miles and more an hour. He
also had half-shares in the brilliant “Tantivy,” London and Birmingham,
the “Stamford Regent,” the Southampton “Comet,” and others.
The signs of the times, so patent to outsiders from 1830 and onwards,
but generally hid from the vision of those most interested, were
not unheeded by this remarkably shrewd business man, who, like his
contemporary, Joseph Baxendale, had the power of seeing things and the
possible future trend of affairs from an impersonal and unprejudiced
point of view. He, above all other coach-proprietors, was deeply
interested in the continuance of the old order of things, and it
would not have been remarkable had he brought himself to the illogical
conclusion that, because he was so interested, the old order must,
could, should and would be maintained. Many other coach-proprietors
_did_ arrive at such a conclusion, not, of course, by process of
reasoning, but by force of being habitually engaged in a business
that prejudiced their minds against steam and machinery. Their first
instincts of scorn for anything that should presume to replace the
horse effectually blinded them to the reality of the coming change.
Chaplin early decided that coaches must go, and that the proper policy
was to make allies of the railways in early days, while they were not
so sure of their own success, and would be substantially grateful for
any helping hand. He and Benjamin Worthy Horne agreed with the London
and Birmingham to be their very good friends in this matter, and not
only withdrew all competitive coaches as the line advanced towards
completion, but aided the railway in those months when a gap in the
line between Denbigh Hall and Rugby cut the train journey in two.
Between those two points their coaches filled the unwontedly humble
position of feeders and go-betweens to the railway. The price of this
amiable attitude was a share with Pickford & Co. in the goods and
parcel cartage agency for the line, to the exclusion of all others.
This monopoly, as Chaplin had foreseen, was an initially valuable one,
and certain to constantly increase, side by side with the growing trade
and mileage of the railway itself. He sold most of his coaches--who
were those rash persons, greatly daring, who bought coaches in those
last days?--and realised everything except what was considered
necessary to start the new firm of Chaplin & Horne, carriers, and to
carry on the branch coach-services on routes not yet affected by the
rail. Having thus converted his fortune into hard cash and deposited it
for the time being in the bank, the next consideration was what to do
with it. All the preconceived ideas of investment were being uprooted,
and railways, which offered many chances to the capitalist, were not
in those times bracketed with Government securities as safe. Even
supposing railways in general offered inducements, those were the days
when they were not merely unproved, but when few had advanced beyond
the point of obtaining their Parliamentary powers. They were, in fact,
little but projects on paper. With these problems to consider, Chaplin
did a singular thing. Leaving his fortune on deposit, he went away and
utterly secluded himself in Switzerland for six weeks, to debate within
himself this turning-point in a career. He was now fifty-one years of
age, and might well have been content with what he had accumulated,
and with the prospects of the new firm. With the advantages he had
already secured he could have enjoyed a leisured life; but he took
the decision to embark a large portion of his cash in the London and
Southampton Railway, then under construction and very much under a
cloud of depreciation. He aimed at becoming a director on that line,
and had that desire speedily gratified, being further appointed Deputy
Chairman in 1839. By 1843 he had succeeded to the chair, and, with one
interval, remained Chairman of what became the London and South-Western
Railway until 1858, when ill-health compelled his resignation. He had
the satisfaction of seeing his belief in the future of that railway
assured. He was also a director of the Paris and Rouen, the Rouen and
Havre, and the Rhenish Railways; Sheriff of London, 1845–6; a Member
of Parliament for Salisbury, 1847–57; in politics an advanced Liberal.
He died at his residence, 2, Hyde Park Gardens, on April 24th, 1859,
in his seventy-second year, leaving property to the value of over half
a million sterling, including a quarter share in the firm of Chaplin &
Horne. William Augustus Chaplin, the eldest among his eight sons and
six daughters, succeeded him in the conduct of that business, and died,
also in his seventy-second year, at Melton Mowbray, October 9th, 1896.
[Illustration: WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CHAPLIN.]
Benjamin Worthy Horne, whose chief place of business was the “Golden
Cross,” Charing Cross, succeeded his father, William Horne, in 1828.
William Horne, who was born in 1783, was originally a painter, but
followed that trade only a few years after his apprenticeship had
expired. He had at an early age married Mary Worthy, daughter of
Benjamin Worthy, a wealthy wheelwright in Old Street, and in 1804 his
eldest son, Benjamin Worthy Horne, was born. This marriage bringing
him the command of some capital, he entered into partnership with one
Roberts, a coach-proprietor established at the “White Horse,” Fetter
Lane. But the partnership was dissolved at the expiration of twelve
months, when Horne, making a bold stroke, purchased the “Golden Cross”
of John Cross, who, having acquired a large fortune after many years in
business there, was now retiring from it and entering upon a series of
rash speculations which eventually ruined him and brought Thomas Cross,
his son, down to poverty from the assured position of heir to that
fortune, and thence to the dramatic reverse of soliciting employment as
a coachman in the very yard his father once had owned.
Established thus at the “Golden Cross,” William Horne further developed
the very fine coaching business he had acquired, and added to it the
yards at the “Cross Keys,” Wood Street, and the “George and Blue
Boar,” Holborn, together with an office at 41, Regent Circus. He soon
had seven hundred horses in work, and was in the full tide of life
and energy when he died in 1828, at the early age of forty-five. “His
last journey,” says the obituary notice of him, “was but a short
distance--St. Margaret’s churchyard, Westminster; and, as a man of
talent, his remains were placed within a few feet of some of the
greatest men of their age.”
Benjamin Worthy Horne was thus only twenty-four years of age when the
management of this business fell to him. He soon had need of all
those fierce energies that were his, for, in addition to a watchful
eye upon the doings of his rivals, he had the stress and turmoil of
the rebuilding of the “Golden Cross” to contend with. To him, indeed,
fell the singular experience of having that central place of business
rebuilt twice in three years, and the second occasion on another
site. When it was first rebuilt, in 1830, Trafalgar Square was not in
existence, and the inn was re-erected on the old spot at the rear of
Charles I.’s statue, exactly where the south-eastern one of Landseer’s
four lions, guarding the Nelson Column, now looks across towards the
Grand Hotel.
But no sooner was the place rebuilt than the Metropolitan improvements
in the meanwhile decided upon brought about the clearance of the site,
and the present “Golden Cross” arose some distance away. At this
time fifty-six coaches left that place daily, many of them bitterly
competitive with those of other proprietors. Equally with his father,
Benjamin Horne was an extremely keen business man, and eager to cut
into any paying route. He had stables at Barnet and Finchley, to enable
him to compete advantageously on the northern and north-western roads
with Sherman, of the “Bull and Mouth,” and with others on those routes.
As early as 1823, when the “Tally-Ho!” fast coach between London and
Birmingham was first put on the road by Mrs. Ann Mountain, of the
“Saracen’s Head,” Snow Hill, to do the 109 miles in 11 hours, the
success of her enterprise had roused the jealousy of William Horne, who
speedily started the “Independent Tally-Ho!”--setting out an hour and
a quarter earlier, in order to intercept the bookings of the original
conveyance. Numerous other “Tally-Ho’s!” were then established, and the
racing between them on the London and Birmingham road grew fast and
furious, much to the advantage of the slower coaches, whose bookings
were wonderfully increased by timid passengers refusing to go any
longer by these breakneck rivals.
Benjamin Worthy Horne had at one time seven mails: the old Chester and
Holyhead; the Cambridge Auxiliary; the Gloucester and Cheltenham; the
Dover Foreign Mail; the Norwich, through Newmarket; the Milford Haven;
and the Worcester and Oxford; in addition to the Hastings, a two-horsed
affair, afterwards transferred to the “Bolt-in-Tun” office in Fleet
Street.
Urged on, perhaps, by the partial success of the competitive
“Tally-Ho!” he started in 1834, in alliance with Robert Nelson of
the “Belle Sauvage” and Jobson of the “Talbot” at Shrewsbury, the
“Nimrod” London and Shrewsbury coach, to compete with that pioneer of
long-distance day coaches the “Wonder,” a highly successful venture
established so early as 1825, by Sherman of the “Bull and Mouth,” and
Taylor of the “Lion” at Shrewsbury. The bitterness and bad blood thus
stirred up were almost incredible. It is not to be supposed that men
so spirited as Sherman and Isaac Taylor were content to idly see this
late-comer enter the field their own enterprise had opened, and be
allowed to cut up their profits; and so the following season witnessed
the appearance of the “Stag,” own sister to the “Wonder,” and by the
same proprietors, timed to run a little in advance of the “Nimrod,”
while the “Wonder” went slightly in the rear. Thus the hated rival was
pretty well “nursed” all the way, and did not often succeed in securing
a well-filled way-bill. The pace while this insane competition lasted
was terrific, and the coachman of the “Nimrod” on the Wolverhampton and
Shrewsbury stage was thrown off and killed. The coaches were originally
fast, being timed at 11½ miles an hour; but in the furious racing that
took place, day after day, the whole three often arrived together at
the journey’s end, two hours before time. One shrinks from computing
the pace an analysis of these figures would disclose. The fares by
the “Wonder” and “Stag” were in the meanwhile reduced by one-third;
and, partly in consequence of this “alarming sacrifice,” and a great
deal more, we may suppose, in consequence of travellers being afraid
to travel by these reckless competitors, £1500 were lost by Sherman
and his allies in twelve months. But at the end of that time they had
the satisfaction of seeing the “Nimrod” withdrawn, when the fares were
raised to their old level.
We are not told how much Horne and his friends lost in this onslaught
upon Sherman’s preserves, but it must have been a very considerable
sum. Horne ran in opposition to many proprietors, and was powerful
enough to wear down any competitors except the three or four men
whose businesses ranked with his own for size. Those proprietors who
agreed to work with rather than against him, were therefore the better
advised. When putting a new coach on a route, his practice was to offer
a share in the business to others accustomed to work along it. If they
refused, and elected to oppose him, he became dangerous. He never
allowed competition; and as he had the longer purse, generally beat his
rivals. A strictly businesslike proprietor would accordingly always
welcome Horne as a partner; but it generally happened that men who had
for years past run coaches on certain roads fell unconsciously into the
habit of thinking and acting as though they held a prescriptive right
to the whole of the traffic along them, and not only refused to ally
themselves with any one providing additional coaches, but endeavoured
to shut him out altogether. Thus Horne, although ready to work with any
proprietor, was in bitter opposition on many roads.
His was the Liverpool “Umpire,” a day coach; and his, too, the
“Bedford Times,” so far as horsing it out of London was concerned.
It was started about 1836, by Whitbread, the brewer, as a hobby, and
ran from the “George and Blue Boar.” It is singular that it made the
third Bedford coach running daily from that inn: Horne seems to have
considered that Bedford could not have too many coaches. The others
were the “Telegraph,” twice a day--8 a.m. and 2.45 p.m.--and the “Royal
Telegraph” at 9 a.m. The “Times” started at 3 p.m., and went at 10½
miles an hour, including stops. This was a very smart and exclusive
coach, built on the lines of the private drag, and ran to that
monumental Bedford hotel, the “Swan.” The “Bedford Times” was further
remarkable as one of the last-surviving of the coaches. It was not run
off the road until 1848.
Horne prided himself on his drastic ways, and was fond of recounting
his master-strokes in crushing out rivals. The particular coup on
which he loved to dwell was that of driving up to an inn belonging to
a middle-ground partner of one of his enemies, and buying up all the
horses overnight, so that in the morning, when his own coach bowled by,
the rival concern was brought to an ignominious standstill. This story,
if true, reflected no credit on either himself or the other party to
the transaction, who certainly was liable to an action for breach of
contract. There is, however, no doubt at all that Horne was the man to
have gone to the extravagant length of indemnifying the vendor--perhaps
better described as his accomplice--against any action-at-law. He
simply would not brook business rivalry.
[Illustration: THE “BEDFORD TIMES,” ONE OF THE LAST COACHES TO RUN,
LEAVING THE “SWAN HOTEL,” BEDFORD.]
[Illustration: BENJAMIN WORTHY HORNE.]
He was a tall, lathy, irritable man, of eager face, quick, nervous
speech, and rapid walk, with something of a military air in his alert,
upright figure. The very antithesis of Chaplin, who was of short
stature and possessed of a nature that nothing could ruffle, Horne
must always expend his energies on the minor details of his extensive
business, and himself do work that would have been better delegated
to subordinates. In the end this wore him out, and brought him to a
comparatively early death. Up early, no day was long enough for him,
and he economised time by taking no regular meal until evening. He was
generally to be seen eating his lunch out of a paper bag as he swung
furiously along the streets. “There’s Horne,” said one of those many
who did not love him, “with the devil at his elbow, as usual!”
It was, perhaps, well for him that Chaplin, calm and level-headed,
came and entered into discussion on the railway question at that
critical time when the fortunes of coach-proprietors were to be saved
or lost by a simple declaration of policy. The time was 1837, the
occasion the approaching opening of the first section of the London
and Birmingham Railway. Should they hold out against the new order of
things, as Sherman was bent upon doing, or should they enter into that
alliance with the railway for which the railway people themselves were
diplomatically angling? Chaplin thought they should, and proposed an
amalgamation of their two interests. Horne was not so sure of railway
success, and might have continued on his own way, but Chaplin, who was
an old friend, urged his own views. “We shall lose £10,000 apiece if
we don’t work with them,” he said, “and you won’t like that, Benny,
my boy.” Eventually Horne agreed, and the firm of Chaplin & Horne was
founded.
Dark rumours were current at the time that to this newly constituted
firm a sum of several thousands of pounds was paid by the London and
Birmingham directors as the price of their friendship; but, however
that may be, the allied coach-proprietors agreed to withdraw their
coaches from the Birmingham Road, and to throw the weight of their
interest and influence on the side of the railway. In return, they
were given the contract for the parcel agency of the line. Chaplin
had perceived, as Baxendale had already done in the case of the goods
traffic, that this agency would be very valuable, and to his far-seeing
counsel Horne owed much.
Henry Horne, one of Benjamin Worthy Horne’s nine brothers, became a
partner with him in 1836, and was a member of this firm of Chaplin &
Horne for many years. He survived his brother, and was at the head
of affairs when the London and North-Western Railway took over the
parcel business and the London receiving offices in 1874. Henry was
the kindest-hearted of men, and old coaching-men down on their luck
always found him a sure draw for a loan or a gift. Wise by dint of long
experience, he laid down a golden rule that it was cheaper in the end
to give £50 than to lend £100.
When the fierce old fighting days of the road were ended and the
business of Chaplin & Horne was set afoot, the restless energies of
Benjamin Worthy Horne found an outlet in the management of the goods
business in connection with the railway, and he was constantly in
and out at Euston and Camden. In those early days the London and
North-Western Railway headquarters staff was managed on somewhat lax
and primitive lines, and if a departmental manager thought he wanted
a little holiday, he took it, without a word to any one. To a strict
and keen business man like Horne these proceedings seemed particularly
strange, and were often, doubtless, the source of much annoyance and
waste of time. He had the unchallenged run of the offices, and was so
used to finding the various managers away, on some pretext or another,
that he would humorously assume their absence on all occasions. With
his abrupt manner, he would burst boisterously into a room, and
exclaim--
Ah! Manager Number One out--
Gone fishing, no doubt!
At the next office, whether the manager happened to be in or not, he
would enter with the same assumption of his absence, and say--
Manager Number Two
Nothing to do--
Of course, gone fishing also!
To his especial aversion David Stevenson, the goods manager, whom he
considered to have usurped many of his firm’s rights and privileges, he
would enter tragically with--
Aha! Manager Stevenson--
Gone about his private theatricals!
and fix the enraged Stevenson with the haughty stare common to the
transpontine drama of the time. The sting of it lay in the fact that
Stevenson belonged to an amateur dramatic society.
The goods department at Camden was taken over by the London and
North-Western Railway in Benjamin Worthy Horne’s time, long before
the general parcels and receiving-office branch was absorbed. The
decision to terminate the contract was a source of much annoyance to
him, on account of the reason given, which was that the business was
not efficiently conducted. Although he was a man who in general had a
horror of going to law, this stigma upon his business methods so stung
him that he brought an action against the railway company for breach
of contract, in order to vindicate his position. This was going to
law for an idea, and as the company had a perfect right to terminate
the contract, the action of course failed; but it was made abundantly
evident that the business was efficiently carried on, and that the
railway was only proposing to take it over because the time was ripe
for such a development. His heavy costs, amounting to £1200, were
afterwards very handsomely refunded to Mr. Horne by the railway.
It remains to say that although there was no keener or more ruthless
man of business than Benjamin Worthy Horne, he was privately a
considerate and kindly man, helpful and charitable to those less
successful than himself.
He had a pretty estate at Highlands, Mereworth, and a town residence at
33, Russell Square. He died at the latter place, April 14th, 1870, aged
sixty-six, leaving property valued at £250,000.