Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore, Volume 2 (of 2) / A picturesque history of the coaching age

by Charles G. Harper

The London and Southampton Railway was opened to Woking May 23rd, 1838, and to Winchfield September 24th following, and by so much the travels of the “Quicksilver” and the other West-country coaches were shortened. For some months they all resorted to that station, and then to Basingstoke, when the line was opened so far. June 10th, 1839. This shortening of the coach route was accompanied by the following advertisement in the Times during October 1838, the forerunner of many others:—

THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, ARRIVING AT TEMPLE BAR, 1834. After C. B. Newhouse.

“Bagshot, Surrey—49 Horses and harness. To Coach Proprietors, Mail Contractors, Post Masters, and Others.—To be Sold by Auction, by Mr. Robinson, on the premises, ‘King’s Arms’ Inn, Bagshot, on Friday, November 2, 1838, at twelve o’clock precisely, by order of Mr. Scarborough, in consequence of the coaches going per Railway.

“About Forty superior, good-sized, strengthy, short-legged, quick-actioned, fresh horses, and six sets of four-horse harness, which have been working the Exeter ‘Telegraph,’ Southampton and Gosport Fast Coaches, and one stage of the Devonport Mail. The above genuine Stock merits the particular Attention of all Persons requiring known good Horses, which are for unreserved sale, entirely on Account of the Coaches being removed from the Road to the Railway.”

In Thomas Sopwith’s diary we find this significant passage: “On the 11th May, 1840, the coaches discontinued running between York and London, although the railways were circuitous.” Thus the glories of the Great North Road began to fade, but it was not until 1842 that the Edinburgh Mail was taken off the road between London, York, and Newcastle. July 5th, 1847, witnessed the last journey of the mail on that storied road, in the departure of the coach from Newcastle-on-Tyne for Edinburgh. The next day the North British Railway was opened.

The local Derby and Manchester Mail was one of the last to go. It went off in October 1858. But away up in the far north of Scotland, where Nature at her wildest, and civilisation and population at their sparsest, placed physical and financial obstacles before the railway engineers, it was not until August 1st, 1874, that the mail-coach era closed, in the last journey of the mail-coach between Wick and Thurso. That same day the Highland Railway was opened, and in the whole length and breadth of England and Scotland mail-coaches had ceased to exist.

THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING WINDSOR CASTLE.
After Charles Hunt, 1840.

The mail-coaches in their prime were noble vehicles. Disdaining any display of gilt lettering or varied colour commonly to be seen on the competitive stage-coaches, they were yet remarkably striking. The lower part of the body has been variously described as chocolate, maroon, and scarlet. Maroon certainly was the colour of the later mails, and “chocolate” is obviously an error on the part of some writer whose colour-sense was not particularly exact; but we can only reconcile the “scarlet” and “maroon” by supposing that the earlier colouring was in fact the more vivid of the two. The fore and hind boots were black, together with the upper quarters of the body, and were saved from being too sombre by the Royal cipher in gold on the fore boot, the number of the mail on the hind, and, emblazoned on the upper quarters, four devices eloquent of the majesty of the united kingdoms and their knightly orders. There shone the cross of St. George, with its encircling garter and the proud motto, “Honi soit qui mal y pense”; the Scotch thistle, with the warning “Nemo me impune lacessit”; the shamrock and an attendant star, with the Quis separabit? query (not yet resolved); and three Royal crowns, with the legend of the Bath, “Tria juncta in uno.” The Royal arms were emblazoned on the door-panels, and old prints show that occasionally the four under quarters had devices somewhat similar to those above. The name of each particular mail appeared in unobtrusive gold letters. The under-carriage and wheels were scarlet, or “Post Office red,” and the harness, with the exception of the Royal cypher and the coach-bars on the blinkers, was perfectly plain.