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

by Charles G. Harper

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CHAPLIN.

Benjamin Worthy Horne, whose chief place of business was the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross, succeeded his father, William Horne, in 1828. William Horne, who was born in 1783, was originally a painter, but followed that trade only a few years after his apprenticeship had expired. He had at an early age married Mary Worthy, daughter of Benjamin Worthy, a wealthy wheelwright in Old Street, and in 1804 his eldest son, Benjamin Worthy Horne, was born. This marriage bringing him the command of some capital, he entered into partnership with one Roberts, a coach-proprietor established at the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane. But the partnership was dissolved at the expiration of twelve months, when Horne, making a bold stroke, purchased the “Golden Cross” of John Cross, who, having acquired a large fortune after many years in business there, was now retiring from it and entering upon a series of rash speculations which eventually ruined him and brought Thomas Cross, his son, down to poverty from the assured position of heir to that fortune, and thence to the dramatic reverse of soliciting employment as a coachman in the very yard his father once had owned.

Established thus at the “Golden Cross,” William Horne further developed the very fine coaching business he had acquired, and added to it the yards at the “Cross Keys,” Wood Street, and the “George and Blue Boar,” Holborn, together with an office at 41, Regent Circus. He soon had seven hundred horses in work, and was in the full tide of life and energy when he died in 1828, at the early age of forty-five. “His last journey,” says the obituary notice of him, “was but a short distance—St. Margaret’s churchyard, Westminster; and, as a man of talent, his remains were placed within a few feet of some of the greatest men of their age.”

Benjamin Worthy Horne was thus only twenty-four years of age when the management of this business fell to him. He soon had need of all those fierce energies that were his, for, in addition to a watchful eye upon the doings of his rivals, he had the stress and turmoil of the rebuilding of the “Golden Cross” to contend with. To him, indeed, fell the singular experience of having that central place of business rebuilt twice in three years, and the second occasion on another site. When it was first rebuilt, in 1830, Trafalgar Square was not in existence, and the inn was re-erected on the old spot at the rear of Charles I.’s statue, exactly where the south-eastern one of Landseer’s four lions, guarding the Nelson Column, now looks across towards the Grand Hotel.

But no sooner was the place rebuilt than the Metropolitan improvements in the meanwhile decided upon brought about the clearance of the site, and the present “Golden Cross” arose some distance away. At this time fifty-six coaches left that place daily, many of them bitterly competitive with those of other proprietors. Equally with his father, Benjamin Horne was an extremely keen business man, and eager to cut into any paying route. He had stables at Barnet and Finchley, to enable him to compete advantageously on the northern and north-western roads with Sherman, of the “Bull and Mouth,” and with others on those routes. As early as 1823, when the “Tally-Ho!” fast coach between London and Birmingham was first put on the road by Mrs. Ann Mountain, of the “Saracen’s Head,” Snow Hill, to do the 109 miles in 11 hours, the success of her enterprise had roused the jealousy of William Horne, who speedily started the “Independent Tally-Ho!”—setting out an hour and a quarter earlier, in order to intercept the bookings of the original conveyance. Numerous other “Tally-Ho’s!” were then established, and the racing between them on the London and Birmingham road grew fast and furious, much to the advantage of the slower coaches, whose bookings were wonderfully increased by timid passengers refusing to go any longer by these breakneck rivals.

Benjamin Worthy Horne had at one time seven mails: the old Chester and Holyhead; the Cambridge Auxiliary; the Gloucester and Cheltenham; the Dover Foreign Mail; the Norwich, through Newmarket; the Milford Haven; and the Worcester and Oxford; in addition to the Hastings, a two-horsed affair, afterwards transferred to the “Bolt-in-Tun” office in Fleet Street.

Urged on, perhaps, by the partial success of the competitive “Tally-Ho!” he started in 1834, in alliance with Robert Nelson of the “Belle Sauvage” and Jobson of the “Talbot” at Shrewsbury, the “Nimrod” London and Shrewsbury coach, to compete with that pioneer of long-distance day coaches the “Wonder,” a highly successful venture established so early as 1825, by Sherman of the “Bull and Mouth,” and Taylor of the “Lion” at Shrewsbury. The bitterness and bad blood thus stirred up were almost incredible. It is not to be supposed that men so spirited as Sherman and Isaac Taylor were content to idly see this late-comer enter the field their own enterprise had opened, and be allowed to cut up their profits; and so the following season witnessed the appearance of the “Stag,” own sister to the “Wonder,” and by the same proprietors, timed to run a little in advance of the “Nimrod,” while the “Wonder” went slightly in the rear. Thus the hated rival was pretty well “nursed” all the way, and did not often succeed in securing a well-filled way-bill. The pace while this insane competition lasted was terrific, and the coachman of the “Nimrod” on the Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury stage was thrown off and killed. The coaches were originally fast, being timed at 11½ miles an hour; but in the furious racing that took place, day after day, the whole three often arrived together at the journey’s end, two hours before time. One shrinks from computing the pace an analysis of these figures would disclose. The fares by the “Wonder” and “Stag” were in the meanwhile reduced by one-third; and, partly in consequence of this “alarming sacrifice,” and a great deal more, we may suppose, in consequence of travellers being afraid to travel by these reckless competitors, £1500 were lost by Sherman and his allies in twelve months. But at the end of that time they had the satisfaction of seeing the “Nimrod” withdrawn, when the fares were raised to their old level.

We are not told how much Horne and his friends lost in this onslaught upon Sherman’s preserves, but it must have been a very considerable sum. Horne ran in opposition to many proprietors, and was powerful enough to wear down any competitors except the three or four men whose businesses ranked with his own for size. Those proprietors who agreed to work with rather than against him, were therefore the better advised. When putting a new coach on a route, his practice was to offer a share in the business to others accustomed to work along it. If they refused, and elected to oppose him, he became dangerous. He never allowed competition; and as he had the longer purse, generally beat his rivals. A strictly businesslike proprietor would accordingly always welcome Horne as a partner; but it generally happened that men who had for years past run coaches on certain roads fell unconsciously into the habit of thinking and acting as though they held a prescriptive right to the whole of the traffic along them, and not only refused to ally themselves with any one providing additional coaches, but endeavoured to shut him out altogether. Thus Horne, although ready to work with any proprietor, was in bitter opposition on many roads.

His was the Liverpool “Umpire,” a day coach; and his, too, the “Bedford Times,” so far as horsing it out of London was concerned. It was started about 1836, by Whitbread, the brewer, as a hobby, and ran from the “George and Blue Boar.” It is singular that it made the third Bedford coach running daily from that inn: Horne seems to have considered that Bedford could not have too many coaches. The others were the “Telegraph,” twice a day—8 a.m. and 2.45 p.m.—and the “Royal Telegraph” at 9 a.m. The “Times” started at 3 p.m., and went at 10½ miles an hour, including stops. This was a very smart and exclusive coach, built on the lines of the private drag, and ran to that monumental Bedford hotel, the “Swan.” The “Bedford Times” was further remarkable as one of the last-surviving of the coaches. It was not run off the road until 1848.

Horne prided himself on his drastic ways, and was fond of recounting his master-strokes in crushing out rivals. The particular coup on which he loved to dwell was that of driving up to an inn belonging to a middle-ground partner of one of his enemies, and buying up all the horses overnight, so that in the morning, when his own coach bowled by, the rival concern was brought to an ignominious standstill. This story, if true, reflected no credit on either himself or the other party to the transaction, who certainly was liable to an action for breach of contract. There is, however, no doubt at all that Horne was the man to have gone to the extravagant length of indemnifying the vendor—perhaps better described as his accomplice—against any action-at-law. He simply would not brook business rivalry.