But there was one more change before the caravan in 1817. Already the popular voice, unwilling to enunciate three syllables when one could be made to serve, had clipped the name to “van,” and as vans all covered vehicles of the kind have been known ever since.
At the time when Baxendale appeared upon the scene the headquarters of the business were still at Manchester, and the London establishments had been for many years past at the “Castle,” Wood Street, and the “White Bear,” Basinghall Street. To the first house, then a galleried inn of the ancient type, at the corner of Wood Street and what is now Gresham Street, but was then Lad Lane, the London and Manchester waggons and caravans resorted; and to and from the “White Bear” went the Leicester and Nottingham traffic.
Coming with a fresh mind to the carrying problems that confronted the firm, the new partner decided that London, and not Manchester, ought to be its central point, and so soon as he obtained control he accordingly removed the head offices to the Metropolis. Canal-traffic, too, engaged his earnest attention, and the scope of the firm’s activities were extended enormously in that direction. The Regent’s Canal was opened in 1820, and when that opening took place the newly built wharves of Pickford & Co. were ready, beside the City Basin. To and from that point came and went the water-borne trade, in the fly-boats of the firm, simultaneously with the fly-vans on the roads.
These developments brought other changes, and in 1826 the existing headquarter offices of Pickford & Co. were built in Gresham Street, adjoining the “Castle” Inn.
JOSEPH BAXENDALE.
From the portrait by E. H. Pickersgill, R.A.
It will be interesting to see what was the cost of carriage of goods at this period. It was the carriers’ Golden Age, when, for distances of a little over a hundred miles from London—as, for example, Leicester and Birmingham—the carriage of goods by waggon or caravan could be charged at 5s. per cwt., or £5 per ton; when by coach the rates for small parcels were 1d. a pound; and even by canal—that last effort in cheap transport before railways—the charges were 2s. 9d. per cwt., or £2 15s. per ton.
He who reorganised the old business of Pickford’s demands extended notice in these pages. A portrait of him, a three-quarter length, painted by Pickersgill, R.A., about 1847, has the illusion common to all three-quarter-length portraits of giving an appearance of great stature. Mr. Baxendale was a man of broad shoulder, and not above the middle height. While in many respects a good portrait of him, it is said by those who knew him best to fail in not giving expression to the native kindliness and humour that underlaid his keen business instincts. “Cheerful and witty in conversation,” says one who knew him well, “he ever had a word of encouragement for the youngsters, and was universally beloved by those whom he employed.”
To those who served him to the best of their ability he was a never-failing friend, and, at a time when business firms did not usually trouble themselves about the comfort of their servants, took pains to secure their well-being. In the galleries of the old “Castle” Inn he constructed a coffee- and club-room for his carmen, and provided similar conveniences at his other establishments. The old inn has long been demolished, but the headquarters of the firm still remains next door, and adjoins the modern Railway Goods Receiving Office of the “Swan with Two Necks,” built on the site of the old coaching establishment of Chaplin’s.
Never was such a man for improving maxims as Joseph Baxendale. He was a great admirer of Poor Richard’s Almanack and its racy maxims, written by Daniel Webster, and carefully caused a broadsheet containing a selection of them to be printed. He also tried his own hand at composing pithy sentences on the virtues of punctuality and method, and caused leaflets of these, together with Poor Richard’s homely literature, to be circulated and posted in all conspicuous places in the establishments of Pickford & Co. in London and the provinces, and on the roads and canals where his vans travelled or his fly-boats voyaged. Here is one of his compositions in this way:—