“TALLY-HO” AND “INDEPENDENT TALLY-HO,” LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM COACHES, NEARING LONDON, 1828.
From a Print after J. Pollard.
In 1825 all previous efforts were eclipsed by the “Wonder” coach, between London and Shrewsbury, established in that year. It was the first to perform much over a hundred miles a day, and, starting from the “Bull and Mouth,” St. Martin’s-le-Grand, at 6.30 a.m., was in Shrewsbury, 154 miles distant, at 10.30 the same night. It aroused extraordinary competition. A “No Wonder,” running three days a week from Birmingham lasted a season, and is heard of no more; but a more thoroughgoing rival was the “Nimrod,” from Shrewsbury, put on the road in 1834. How the proprietors of the “Wonder” started the “Stag,” and successfully “nursed” the “Nimrod,” will be found recorded under Shrewsbury. There were at this competitive time more coaches on the Holyhead Road than on any other. So far as Barnet, there were eighteen mails and one hundred and seventy-six other coaches, besides road-waggons, post-chaises, and other vehicles. Some of them turned off at Hockliffe for Manchester and Liverpool, but the greater number continued to Birmingham. The London and Birmingham “Greyhound” was started in 1829, and ran light, with an imperial on the roof, to prevent luggage being placed there. Passengers’ luggage must be sent to the office in time to be forwarded by the “Economist.” So ran the notice. Both the “Greyhound” and the “Economist” were night coaches: the latter, the luggage-carrier, starting an hour earlier. It was at one time proposed to light the “Greyhound” with gas, but when it was found that the gas-tank would take up the space in the fore-boot wanted for parcels, the idea was relinquished. The down “Greyhound” was ingeniously robbed in March 1835 by a gang who set to work very cleverly. Two inside places were booked by the thieves at the “Swan with Two Necks,” and the two remaining places at the “Angel,” Islington. When the coach reached Hockliffe, two of the confederates alighted, and the other two left at Stony Stratford. Nothing was discovered until Coventry was reached, when the guard, feeling about inside, found that one of the parcels gave way. On his leaning against it, away it went into the boot, which had been cut open, and a bank parcel, containing 300 sovereigns and a bill of exchange for £120 extracted. There is no record of the thieves ever having been discovered. They disappeared, just as did those who walked with bank-notes to the value of £4002 from the Birmingham “Balloon Post Coach,” when standing in the yard of the “Swan with Two Necks,” December 12th, 1822. £1000 was offered for the discovery of the thieves, and the notes were stopped, but the results do not appear.
Horrified horse-owners, and old-fashioned persons with prejudices against invention and progress, raise outcries against the pace of motor-cars, and have succeeded in reducing the legal speed on roads from the original 14 miles an hour allowed by Act of Parliament to the 12 miles permitted by an order of the Local Government Board; but the pace attained toward the close of the coaching era by some of the crack coaches was much higher. The rival “Tally-Ho” and “Independent Tally-Ho” coaches, for instance, ran certain stages up to 18¾ miles an hour, and only on one stage did they drop down to 12 miles. “Furious driving,” indeed, and vouched for by the contemporary Coventry Chronicle, May 8th, 1830, which well heads its report, “Extraordinary Travelling”:—
“Saturday se’night, being May-day, the usual competition took place between the London Coaches. The “Independent Tally-ho,” running between Birmingham and London, performed a feat altogether unparalleled in the annals of Coaching, having travelled the distance of one-hundred-and-nine miles in seven hours and thirty-nine minutes.
“The following is a correct account of the time it took to perform the distance, horsed by the various proprietors:—Mr. Horne, from London to Colney, seventeen-and-quarter miles, in one-hour-and-six minutes;—Mr. Bowman, from Colney to Redbourne (where the passengers, stopped six minutes for breakfast), seven-and-half miles, in twenty-six minutes;—Mr. Morris, from Redbourne to Hockliffe, twelve-and-quarter miles, in one-hour-and-four minutes;—Mr. Warden, from Hockliffe to Shenley, eleven miles, in forty-seven minutes;—Mr. May, from Shenley to Daventry, twenty-four miles, in one-hour-and-forty-nine minutes;—Mr. Garner, from Daventry to Coventry, nineteen-and-quarter miles, in one-hour-and-twelve minutes;—Mr. Radenhurst, from Coventry to Birmingham, seventeen-and-three quarter miles, in one-hour-and-fifteen minutes.
“The ‘Original Tally-ho’ performed the same distance in seven-hours-and-fifty minutes.”
The extraordinary feat of the “Independent-Tally-ho” recorded above, excelled the performances of that famous coach, the “Quicksilver” Exeter mail; but that is nothing compared with the passengers’ feat of swallowing a breakfast in the six minutes allowed for that meal at Redbourne. It is probably no great hazard to guess that those unhappy passengers had no breakfast at all on that historic occasion.
It is not to be supposed that coaching was an altogether safe method of travelling, especially when feats of this kind were indulged in; but it must be acknowledged that comparatively few of the accidents happened when racing. Among the disasters that now and again occurred, besides those recorded elsewhere in these pages, the following specimens, from October 1834 to the close of 1837, are typical:—
1834, October.—Shrewsbury “Union” overturned at Overley Hill, near Wellington. The coach was heavily laden and one of the hind wheels collapsed. One of the outsides, a Mr. Newey, of Halesowen, jumped off, but not far enough, and the coach and luggage fell on him, killing him. He died the next morning, at the Haygate inn.
1834, October.—“Nimrod.” Coachman thrown off near Haygate, and killed on the spot.