Richard Gamon was a member for Winchester in five several Parliaments. He had been a commissioner for salt duties, but resigned that office to enter the House. He was created a baronet in July, 1795, and died, aged sixty-nine, April 9th, 1818. His Act was not forgotten, for in his obituary notice it is duly stated that “with him originated that useful and humane law for regulating the number of outside passengers on stage-coaches.”
What with public ridicule of his original Bill and the petition of the coach-proprietors against it, Mr. Gamon and his legislative effort had, in one way and another, a stirring time. But in the same year he saw it pass into an Act, and two years later he procured an amended and stricter statute. So ridicule does not always kill.
It therefore became law that stage-coaches were not to carry more than six passengers on the roof or more than two on the box in addition to the coachman. For every passenger in excess the coachman was liable to a penalty of 40s., and if he was proprietor, or part proprietor, this penalty was raised to £4. The amended Act very materially altered this regulation. Coaches drawn by three or more horses were allowed only one passenger on the box and four on the roof, and those with fewer than three horses, one passenger on the box and three on the roof. If the pair-horse coaches did not travel farther than twenty-five miles from London, they might carry an additional passenger on the roof. The penalty for carrying excess passengers was severe, and ingeniously contrived in order to wholly suppress the practice. It was 5s. each for every supernumerary passenger, to be paid to the toll-keeper at every turnpike gate. This was a sure method, for an excess number would be instantly detected by pike-men eager for a chance to add to their income. The penalty for fraudulently setting down a passenger near a turnpike gate, and taking him up on the other side, with intent to evade this regulation, was of a different kind, but of equal severity. It was a term of imprisonment, of not less than fourteen days or more than a month. The names of the coach proprietors were to be painted in legible characters on the doors of all the coaches, with the exception of the mails.
One section of the Acts of 1788 and 1790 had a special significance. It forbade coachmen permitting other persons to drive, under a penalty of from 40s. to £5. The amateur whip, of whom later writers complained so bitterly, had evidently already been taking coaching lessons on the road, with disastrous results. The practice was not stopped by the Acts or the penalty, for in 1811 the prohibition was renewed, and the fine raised. It was then to be anything between £5 and £10, at the discretion of the magistrates.
Coachmen were viewed all round, as it were, and their failings separately ticked off and provided against. No coachman was to leave his box without reasonable cause or occasion, or for an unnecessary length of time. Furious driving now being physically possible, and frequently indulged in, was legislated for, together with any negligence or misconduct resulting in the overturning of a coach or the endangering of passengers. A guard of a stage-coach who should fire off his piece unnecessarily, or for other than defensive purposes, on the road or in any town, forfeited 20s., a penalty enlarged to £5 in 1811, and including mail-guards.
The Act of 1806, introducing itself by stating that previous Acts were ineffectual and insufficient, started off by repealing the provisions of the older ones, allowing only six outsides for four-horse coaches. They might now carry twelve outsides in summer and ten in winter, including the guard, but exclusive of coachman. In 1811 the number was reduced to ten throughout the year. The positions of the outsides were specified—one passenger on the box with the coachman, three in front of the roof, the remainder behind. Coaches with only two or three horses now carried five outsides, exclusive of the coachman; but “all stages called long coaches, or double-bodied coaches” might carry eight outsides, exclusive of coachman, but including the guard. Children in arms or under seven years of age were not to be counted, unless there were more than one, when two were to be counted as one passenger, and so on.
A curious section, bearing upon and corroborating what De Quincey and others have written upon the disdain and contempt of the insides for the outsides, is that which forbade any outside passenger to go inside or to remain inside without the consent of one at least among those already within; and when that permission was granted, the outsider was to be placed next the consenting passenger.
The height to which luggage might be piled on the roof of a coach was also carefully set forth. From March 1st, 1811, it became unlawful for any driver, owner or proprietor to permit luggage, or indeed any person, on the roof of a coach the top of which was more than 8 ft. 9 in. from the ground, or whose gauge was less than 4 ft. 6 in. Coaches must then have been of an extraordinary height to need such a clause as this. The penalty for infringing it was £5. Luggage on ordinary stage-coaches was not to exceed 2 ft. in height, or three-horsed coaches, 18 in., with a penalty of £5 for every inch in excess. Luggage might be carried to a greater height if it was not, in all, more than 10 ft 9 in. from the ground. Turnpike keepers and others were given powers to have the luggage measured, and passengers themselves might see that it was done; and drivers refusing such measurements to be taken were to be fined, on conviction, 50s. Passengers, too, came in for their share. No passenger was to sit on the luggage, or the place reserved for it, under the like penalty of 50s.
Intoxicated coachmen came in for a maximum £10 penalty, or the alternative of a term of imprisonment not less than three months or not exceeding six; insulting coachmen, or others exacting more than the proper fare, or endangering passengers’ lives, a maximum of 40s., or imprisonment of three days to one month. Mail-coach drivers, being more responsible officials, were awarded the heavier of the above penalties for any among a variety of possible offences—such as loitering, or hindering the conduct of his Majesty’s mails to the next stage, or wilfully misspending or losing time, so that the mails did not travel at the rates of speed specified by the Postmaster-General.
Licences were to specify the number of persons inside and out the coaches were authorised to carry; and any running without a licence, or carrying passengers in excess, were to be fined £10 for each passenger or additional passenger, or double if the driver were also owner or part-owner. If the offending coachman could be proved to have carried the additional passengers without the knowledge of the proprietors, and if the proprietors derived no profit from it, they escaped the penalty, which then had to be borne by the coachman, with the alternative of imprisonment.