Our great wars with France and Spain gave coaches a plentiful crop of titles, taking a higher note than merely that of party. The victory of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson, in 1805, produced innumerable “Nelsons,” “Lord Nelsons,” and “Trafalgars,” only rivalled in popularity by the “Wellingtons” and “Waterloos” ten years later. Even Blucher was honoured, in a coach named after him. Coach-proprietors, in fact, were keen to seize the popular incident of the hour, the hero of the day, or the name of the local magnate, to reflect a certain glory upon, or bespeak affection for, their enterprises. Even the “Union” coaches, which were christened in honour of that great political event, the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, and were from that date to be found on almost every great road, and in incredible numbers on the bye-roads, paled their lustre before those named after the naval and military heroes, or the glorious victories of the hour.
But when the glamour of the great achievements won on land and sea by generals and admirals and by our soldiers and sailors had waned, as it speedily did when peace came and the nation was called upon to pay the bill, it is to be feared that the “Wellingtons” and “Nelsons” did not run so frequently with a full way-bill as they had done, and that opportunist coach-proprietors in many cases renamed them in styles that more exactly fitted the humours of the time. When the comets of 1811 and 1818 appeared, flaming in the heavens, to excite the wonderment of the learned and to terrify the ignorant, the coach-proprietors were early in the field to take advantage of the event, and “Comet” coaches, intended to strike the public fancy with an idea of swift travelling, appeared on the main routes with amazing unanimity.
The Brighton “Comet,” established in 1815, ran until 1840, when the London and Brighton Railway was opened. It experienced a good many mishaps in the course of those twenty-five years. On September 2nd, 1815, when it had arrived at Castle Square, Brighton, and had discharged most of its passengers, the coachman turned it so sharply that the front wheels became locked, and in the endeavour to release them the coach was overturned. The careless coachman was himself seriously hurt, and a lady, an inside passenger, and a gentleman on the outside much bruised; but a Mr. Walker, who had just mounted the coach, had his leg broken. The “Comet” evidently went through Epsom, for it was there that another accident happened to it in later years. That coach carried no guard, and the coachman had, therefore, to act that part, as well as drive. He climbed down to take up a passenger, and while doing so the horses backed the coach into a bank and caused it to fall over. A lady travelling outside had her ribs broken. A third accident was due largely to the interference of a passenger, who met his death in consequence. The “Comet” had on this occasion nearly completed its down journey, when, at Patcham, the reins became entangled in some unexplained manner. A Mr. Schraeder, who was on the box-seat, travelling to Brighton to join his family, made an effort, despite the protests of the coachman, to get down to disentangle them, when he fell between the box and the horses, and the coach ran over him. The “Comet” ran to the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane, and seems, from Pollard’s spirited picture, to have been an exceptionally smart coach.
The great era of coaching, with its attendant competition, opened about 1820, and from that time the “Defiances,” the “Celerities,” the “Rapids,” “Expresses,” “Reindeers,” “Darts,” “Stags,” and “Antelopes” increased; while fiercely militant titles, such as those of the “Retaliator,” the “Spitfire,” “Vixen,” “Fearless,” “Dreadnought,” and “Invincible” reflected the extraordinary bitterness and animosity with which that competition was conducted. The reverse of this unamiable feature is seen in the names—breathing a spirit of goodwill, or at least of meekness, reliability, and inoffensiveness—of the “Amity,” the “Live and Let Live,” “Hope,” “Endeavour,” the “Give and Take,” “Reliance,” “Safety,” “Regulator,” “Perseverance,” “Good Intent,” and “Pilot” coaches. It is probable that some of these titles were given by small proprietors, anxious to disclaim rivalry with more powerful men. Others were intended to secure the patronage of the old ladies and the timorous, and all those to whom coach travelling, with its many accidents and hairbreadth escapes, was a disagreeable necessity.
THE BRIGHTON “COMET,” 1836. After J. Pollard.
To reassure the old ladies of both sexes such coaches as the “Patent Safeties” were introduced. Many of those so called were neither safe nor patent, but an exception must be made in the case of the coach invented and patented in December 1805 by the Reverend William Milton, Vicar of Heckfield, near Reading. This gentleman, who yearned for a larger sphere of action than that provided by his rural parish, and apparently did not find his duties sufficient to occupy his time, studied the subject, and produced a book in whose pages he sets forth the design of his coach and its superiority over anything that had hitherto appeared on the road. His principle not only consisted in lowering the body of the vehicle upon its axles, so reducing the centre of gravity, but in addition provided a luggage box in the rear of the coach, hung so low that it was only fourteen inches from the ground. His idea was to carry the luggage thus, instead of on the roof, so rendering it less top-heavy, and indeed, according to his theory, making the luggage act as ballast, so that the heavier the coach loaded, the safer it would be. Nor was this all. As a protection against overturning in the case of a wheel coming off, he provided what he called a small “idle wheel,” fitted to the axle a short distance inside each running wheel. In the event of a wheel flying off, the coach would only dip slightly, and run on the “idle wheel” until the coachman could bring the whole affair to a stop.
Of course this inventive clergyman found the greatest indifference among coach-proprietors towards his patent safety coach. His book reflects the disappointment he felt, and he enlarges upon the folly of men who had, time and again, been heavy losers in paying compensation claims by injured passengers, and yet would not try the merits of a vehicle which would save them in pocket and in anxiety. He at last gave an order to a firm of coach-builders, had one built to his own design, and prevailed first upon one of the London and Reading proprietors, and then the owners of a Stroud coach, to try it. The general feeling seems to have been that it was safe, but slow, and did not possess so easy a draught as that of the usual build. To these arguments he replied by saying that his luggage-box, providing room for more goods and luggage than carried on ordinary coaches, was generally filled with heavy consignments sent by the Stroud clothiers, and that the heaviness of draught was due to that cause. But explanations of weight, demonstrations of safety, and even the recommendations he had procured from a Parliamentary Committee, were useless, and Milton’s Patent Safety Coach was never more than a fugitive occupant of the road.
But still the public, horrified by the increasing number and the disastrous nature of the accidents that strewed every road with groaning passengers, were intent upon being carried safely, and so various attempts were made to reassure them. So many accidents had happened on the Brighton Road, incomparably the most travelled of all, that in the spring of 1819 it was thought necessary by a prominent firm of coach-proprietors to introduce a “safety” coach. This was the “Sovereign,” an entirely new departure in coach-building. It was at once larger and lighter than an ordinary coach. “It weighs,” said the Brighton Herald, “only 1500¼ lb.; which is 400 lb. lighter than the average of coaches built to carry luggage, and 80¾ lb. less than some gentlemen’s landaus. The different coachmen who have driven it say that on level ground it runs much lighter than others, and every mechanic knows that small wheels have the advantage at a hill.” Evidently then, the “Sovereign” was built with smaller wheels than were usual. It was, in addition, five inches broader in the gauge of the axletrees, while, according to the official description, the weight of the body was “placed five feet lower, so that when the wheels on one side are thrown off, the axle drags on the ground, and will allow the remaining wheels to be lifted twelve inches or more before the coach loses its balance. If a wheel had been thrown off any other coach while going at the rate of nine miles an hour with two outside passengers, it must have gone over; but should it take place with the safe coach, it will not incline on one side so as to make passengers uncomfortable.”
The appearance of this affair was extraordinary. It carried no outsides on the roof; they were placed in a fore-carriage like the body of a landau, constructed between the box and the body of the coach. Under the box was “a spacious lock-up receptacle for the stowage of luggage”; so it was a “safety” coach in more than one particular, and the local newspaper was of opinion that “the confidence which manufacturers and dealers have of their valuable property being secured from wet and pilfering is enough to secure for it the most decided preference, independently of its personal safety.” So great was the interest taken at Brighton in this pioneer of safety coaches that an enormous crowd of nearly two thousand persons assembled to witness the departure on its first journey, Sunday, March 21st, 1819. It made the passage to London in six hours; a speed quite up to the level of the usual performances.