In 1784 the “Expedition” coach is first mentioned as running between London and Norwich, by way of Newmarket and Thetford. The “expedition” consisted in going 108 miles in 17½ hours, including stops, or a net running speed of about seven miles an hour.
THE “READING TELEGRAPH,” PASSING WINDSOR CASTLE.
After J. Pollard.
“Balloon” coaches were first heard of in 1785, when a plentiful scattering of that name over the country proved how deep an impression had been made upon the public mind by the balloon ascents of Lunardi in the previous year. A stone monument marks the spot beside the Cambridge Road, near Ware, on which that aerial traveller descended after his first flight in this country; and the coaches long carried an echo of the wonderment then excited. Coach-proprietors had, indeed, by this time begun to see the commercial advantage of impressing the public with a sounding name. Already, by long use and wont, cars had become blunted by the name of the Flying Machines, which had fallen unmeaningly upon several generations accustomed to liberally discount the absurd pretension. No one at this time, it is safe to say, ever received a mental impression of flying when a flying coach was named. The name had become a mere convention. The Balloon was therefore a godsend to coach-proprietors who, in naming their conveyances after it, succeeded for a while in reviving an outworn figure of speed, and thus again suggested the idea of their coaches gracefully navigating the empyrean, rather than painfully staggering along the rutty roads.
The “Defiance” coaches bring us closer to the great Augustan era of smart coaches and great emulation along the road. The earliest coach of this name was put on the Leeds and Hull road in 1784, and became the parent of many more. Extraordinary ingenuity was used in the selection of “telling” names, supposed to instantly discover the character of a coach to travellers. The various “Highflyers,” for example, spoke to sporting men of a speed that might be neck or nothing. The typical sportsman would book by the “Highflyer,” the “Vixen,” “Spitfire,” the “Flying Childers,” “Lightning,” or “Rapid,” while the typical parson would go by the “Regulator,” the “Reliance,” or, best of all, if opportunity offered, by the “Good Intent.”
It is curious to note in how arbitrary a geographical manner these names were distributed. It is no use seeking a “Highflyer” in the history of the Brighton Road. “Highflyers” were Yorkshire products, and almost exclusively confined to the Great North Road and its affluents. There, indeed, they were numerous. The old original of the name was started in 1788, and kept the road between London and Edinburgh until 1840. There were at least six others.
“Telegraph” coaches, however, were not peculiar to any one road or district. Introduced about 1781 on the Leeds and Newcastle road, there were two others in Yorkshire, and in 1805 and 1811 “New Telegraph” and “Telegraph” coaches were on the Brighton Road. In the ’twenties a “Southampton Telegraph,” a “Manchester Telegraph,” and a “Reading Telegraph” flourished; while beyond all others in their fame and exploits were the immortal “Exeter Telegraph,” started in 1826 by Mrs. Ann Nelson, of the “Bull,” Aldgate, to travel the 173 miles between Piccadilly and Exeter in 17 hours, and the “Manchester Telegraph” day coach of 1833, doing 180 miles in 18 hours. Before the advance of the Great Western Railway brought the “Exeter Telegraph” off the road, it had cut down the length of the journey by three hours, Coaches rejoicing in this name—a synonym for speed—were necessarily the fastest on the road, but they did not, of course, obtain the title from the electric telegraph, invented only in 1838. It was derived from the system of semaphore signalling, the quickest method of communication then known, by which messages were signalled between London and the coast, from lofty hills even yet marked on the Ordnance maps, “Telegraph Hill.” Of how inconceivably swift telegraphy would in a comparatively short time become, the old coach-proprietors could have had not the remotest inkling, but they did not suffer from excess of modesty, and had the instantaneous signalling of electricity been known in their time, it would by no means have deterred them from christening their coaches in impudent rivalry with it.
THE EXETER MAIL, 1809. After J. A. Atkinson.
The “Exeter Telegraph” was put on to compete with another, and equally famous, coach, the Devonport Mail, generally known in coaching annals as the “Quicksilver.” This celebrated mail started about 1820. Passing through Exeter, it went on to Plymouth and Devonport, and performed the whole journey in 21 hours 14 minutes, an average speed, including stops, of 10 miles 1¾ furlongs an hour. “Quicksilvers,” of course, became fashionable on other roads after the fame of this performance had spread.