COACHING RECORDS
On February 4th, 1834, the “Criterion,” driven by Charles Harbour, outstripping the old performances of the “Vivid,” and beating the previous wonderfully quick journey of the “Red Rover,” carried down King William’s Speech on the opening of Parliament in 3 hours and 40 minutes, a coach record that has not been surpassed, nor quite equalled, on this road, not even by Selby on his great drive of July 13th, 1888, his times being out and in respectively, 3 hours 56 minutes, and 3 hours 54 minutes. Then again, on another road, on May Day, 1830, the “Independent Tally-ho,” running from London to Birmingham, covered those 109 miles in 7 hours 39 minutes, a better record than Selby’s London to Brighton and back drive by eleven minutes, with an additional mile to the course. Another coach, the “Original Tally-ho,” did the same distance in 7 hours 50 minutes. The “Criterion” fared ill under its new name, and gained an unenviable notoriety on June 7th, 1834, being overturned in a collision with a dray in the Borough. Many of the passengers were injured; Sir William Cosway, who was climbing over the roof when the collision occurred, was killed.
In 1839, the coaching era, full-blown even to decay, began to pewk and wither before the coming of steam, long heralded and now but too sure. The tale of coaches now decreased to twenty-three; fares, which had fallen in the cut-throat competition of coach proprietors with their fellows in previous years to 10s. inside, 5s. outside for the single journey, now rose to 21s. and 12s. Every man that horsed a coach, seeing now was the shearing time for the public, ere the now building railway was opened, strove to make as much as possible ere he closed his yards, sold his stock, broke his coach up for firewood, and took himself off the road.
Sentiment hung round the expiring age of coaching, and has cast a halo on old-time ways of travelling, so that we often fail to note the disadvantages and discomforts endured in those days; but, amid regrets which were often simply maudlin, occur now and again witticisms true and tersely epigrammatic, as thus:
For the neat wayside inn and a dish of cold meat
You’ve a gorgeous saloon, but there’s nothing to eat;
and a contributor to the Sporting Magazine observes, very happily, that “even in a ‘case’ in a coach, it’s ‘there you are’; whereas in a railway carriage it’s ‘where are you?’” in case of an accident.
On September 21st, 1841, the Brighton Railway was opened throughout, from London to Brighton, and with that event the coaching era for this road virtually died. Professional coach proprietors who wished to retain the competencies they had accumulated were well advised to shun all competition with steam, and others had been wise enough to cut their losses; for the Road for the next sixty years was to become a discarded institution and the Rail was entering into a long and undisputed possession of the carrying trade.
The Brighton Mail, however—or mails, for Chaplin had started a Day Mail in 1838—continued a few months longer. The Day Mail ceased in October, 1841, but the Night Mail held the road until March, 1842.