Well, we have survived it, and I am not sure that he was accurate in his per centage of those injured in coach and railway accidents. I have known some very fatal and distressing accidents bearing a very large proportion of injuries and deaths to those in the coach. I may mention that the Lynn coach of Messrs. Hill was very good to take you to the sea, it was very hard work to get to the beach in these days. I believe Skegness consisted of a single house. The nearest place was Yarmouth, and Messrs. Hill’s car took you to Lynn, where you could join the Birmingham and Yarmouth mail. I have never forgotten my first visit to Yarmouth when a boy. From the Norwich Road you caught the first view of the sea. As you enter Yarmouth now by rail you go in over the marshes, and the last two or three miles are by the side of muddy water, and you cannot see the sea until you get on the beach. The contrast between the way by the old coach and by the rail is very striking, indeed.
In the year 1842 or 1843 it was rumoured that the London and North-Western Company were about to feel their way eastward, and the project for making the Peterborough and Northampton Railway was put into shape. Our wildest dreams never expected a railway. We had a coach, and that was quite a novelty. The Bishop and Dean and Chapter had a good deal of property on the line, and strongly opposed the railway. When the Bill came into the House of Lords it was, to our great delight, passed by a majority of One. There is an anecdote of Lord Fitzwilliam, who was an opponent of the Bill. That one day his Lordship was coming down by train, and in the same carriage was one of those gentlemen who knew everything. This gentleman was giving to a friend a history of the line, and when passing Alwalton Lynch said: “That is the road to Milton Park, and do you know that Lord Fitzwilliam opposed the Bill because they would not make him a station there?” A little further on the train stopped at Overton Station, and his Lordship got out. Just as he was shutting the door he said to the gentleman: “That little anecdote which you just told your friend about that crossing is not true, and when you say anything more about it you may say that Lord Fitzwilliam told you so.”
The Northampton line was opened in 1845, and I remember being in the Cathedral when the first engine came down. It stopped at the end of the Fair Meadow, for the Dean and Chapter prevented the line being brought any nearer the town, as they would not have Bridge Fair interfered with. The engine was only about one-third the size of what they are now, but when it blew off steam people said they would never be able to hear anything in the Cathedral! Yet now no notice is taken of what was looked upon then as a deafening noise.
We had next the London and York Railway, which then crossed the Thorpe Road near where the old mill stood. Lord Fitzwilliam compelled the Company to put the line by the side of the Syston and Peterborough Railway, where it is now. There were some amusing incidents connected with the Syston Railway. It was strongly opposed by Lord Harborough, and there were riots and fights between his men and the surveyors of the line. I will say no more about the railway system.
The communications with Peterborough would be very incomplete if one forgot the river, because the river in those days was very necessary to the comfort of the town. I daresay now, if I were to quote Cowper’s lines:
Nen’s barge-laden waves,
people might say they did not think the load is very heavy. But before the construction of the railway, and for some year’s afterwards, barges were found in very great abundance. We derived our whole coal supply from the river, and it was our great channel for carrying corn and timber. The importance of the Nene to the counties through which it passed was very great. Amongst other things was a Packet called “Simpson’s Packet,” and another belonging to Messrs. James and Thomas Hill, which conveyed light goods and passengers between Peterborough and Wisbech. I recollect the old gentleman who commanded the packet held a very high rank in the Navy indeed. He was a wooden-legged old gentleman, very much respected, and known by the name of Admiral Russell. He was commander of the Packet for many years. I do not know who succeeded him, but someone who did not attain so high a rank.
There was a joke against Mr. Whalley, M.P., that he promised to make Peterborough a Seaport. If the projected scheme had been fairly carried out according to the original intention of the promoters, there would not have been a deal of money wasted. Some think even now it should not be given up altogether, if only for the purpose of preventing the railway companies from putting too high prices on the carriage of goods in cases where speed of transit is not essential. Goods used to be brought from Wisbech in lighters, and it was a serious thing in frosty weather, because all our coals were brought by the river, and when the frost lasted long there was danger of a coal famine.
Now I may mention about the postage. When I first knew Peterborough the postage of a letter to London was 8d. A little further on it would be 10d., and go on, until it came to about 1s. 4d. When you were going to London in those days you would receive visits from your friends, who would ask you to take letters for them and put them in the 2d. Post in London, and sometimes it happened that these letters were found in your coat pocket when you got home again! The postage of a ½oz. letter was 8d., but if you cut the sheet of paper in two and used one-half as an envelope, the postage was 1s. 4d. If you divided the sheet of paper again and wrote a cheque on one quarter of it, and the receipt to be signed and returned on the other and put them into the other half sheet, the postage was again doubled. When I was at school my eldest brother, in a fit of benevolence, sent me 2s. 6d. in a letter, and I was delighted until I was told the postage was 2s. 8d. The matron, however, found a way out of it. She put the 2s. 8d. down to the governor’s account, and I had the half-crown.
These rates of postage were very heavy, but Members of Parliament had the privilege of what was called “franking” letters. They were continually being applied to for these franks. They were only allowed, however, to send a certain number of letters, and you always ran the risk of having a bill sent in from the Post Office to the person having the privilege of “franking,” and they would send a footman to you, and you would then have to pay your share. This privilege of franking was abused, and one would hear that so and so had franked a ham, and one person was said to have franked a piano! Whether this was the truth or not I do not know, but it shows the advantage of getting rid of exceptional privileges.