This, we may take it, was a rival of the old once-a-fortnight London and Edinburgh stage, travelling those 396 miles in fourteen days, and, as we infer from above, reaching Newcastle in twelve. At the same time John Dale came forward with a statement that a coach would take the road from Edinburgh for London, “towards the end of each week,” also in nine days; so that rivalries evidently existed on the great road to the north at that period. No conceivable change can satisfy everyone, and these accelerated services alarmed the innkeepers, who thought they saw their business of lodging and entertaining travellers thus doomed to decay. It was obvious that when the Edinburgh stage travelled an average of forty-four miles a day instead of a mere twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and lay on the road only eight nights instead of thirteen, innkeepers on that route must have lost much custom in the course of the year. Other innkeepers on other roads gloomily heard of these improvements, thought the times moved a great deal too rapidly, and talked of the good old days when travelling was safe and respectable, and an honest licensed victualler could earn a living. All these good folks were, no doubt, greatly relieved when this sudden burst of coaching enterprise died away, as it presently did, either because the proprietors had undertaken to perform more than they could do, or possibly for the reason that they had come to an agreement not to force the pace or cut the fares. Such rivalries and such subsequent agreements were in after years the merest commonplaces of coaching history, and if we seek them here we shall probably be by way of explaining the falling-off that left its traces twenty and thirty years later in the following announcement:—
THE EDINBURGH STAGE-COACH, for the better Accommodation of Passengers, will be altered to a new genteel Two-end Glass Machine, hung on Steel Springs, exceeding light and easy, to go in ten Days in Summer and twelve in Winter, to set out the first Tuesday in March, and continue it from Hosea Eastgate’s, the Coach and Horses in Dean-street, Soho, LONDON, and from John Somervell’s in the Canon gate, Edinburgh, every other Tuesday, and meet at Burrow-bridge on Saturday Night, and set out from thence on Monday Morning, and get to London and Edinburgh on Friday. In the Wintera o set out from London and Edinburgh every other Monday Morning, and to get to Burrow-bridge on Saturday Night; and to set out from thence on Monday Morning, and get to London and Edinburgh on Saturday Night. Passengers to pay as usual. Perform’d, if God permits, by your dutiful Servant, HOSEA EASTGATE.
Care is taken of small Parcels, paying according to their Value.
COACHING ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE EDINBURGH COURANT, 1754.
It is noteworthy that the Sunday was still kept in this year of 1754 as a day of rest. The reference to fares, in the lack of antecedent information, leaves us in ignorance of what the passengers who paid “as usual” really did pay, but it seems that the coach itself was in that year something new and wonderful—a great improvement on what had gone before. The old conveyance, hung on leather straps and with unglazed windows, was discarded, and we have a “glass coach-machine,” on steel springs, and with two ends, whatever they may have been. Also, the coach ran winter and summer. The rough woodcut accompanying this advertisement in the Edinburgh Courant for March 4th, 1754, and subsequent dates, shows us rather a coach built on the lines of the gentleman’s private carriage of that age than a stage-coach. The boasted springs are duly indicated. The driver has four horses in hand, while a postilion, with a face like an agonised turnip, has a couple of leaders.
So much for 1754 on the Great North Road; but 1763 showed that retrogression was still the note of the time in that quarter, for the Edinburgh stage set out only once a month, and only when the weather was favourable did it get to its destination in less than a fortnight.
A feeble effort made about 1739 to expedite travelling on the Exeter Road seems also to have done little. The Exeter “Flying Stage” of that year, purporting to inform the journey in three days, generally took six. In 1752 it was announced that the “‘Exeter Fast Coach,’ for the better conveyance of travellers, starts every Monday from the ‘Saracen’s Head,’ Skinner Street, Snow Hill.” This also, although it promised to get to Exeter in three days and a half, usually took six days in winter.
Its programme was thus set out:—
Monday.—Dines at Egham; lies at Murrell’s Green.
Tuesday.—Dines at Sutton; lies at the “Plume of Feathers,” in Salisbury.
Wednesday.—Dines at Blandford; lies at the “King’s Arms,” in Dorchester.
Thursday.—At one o’clock, Exeter.