These prime facts grasped, Lawrence set himself to alter the course that traffic had taken for centuries, and devoted his life to this one aim. It was, as may readily be supposed, no easy matter, and he was obliged to begin his reforms slowly. Thus, on July 3rd, 1779, we find him setting up a post-coach to Holyhead by Wrexham, Mold, St. Asaph, and Conway, three times a week, and in one and a half days, in conjunction with other innkeepers. The fare was £2 2s.

This ceased in 1783, but in the meanwhile, in conjunction with some London innkeepers, he had started the first stage-coach to perform the whole journey between London and Holyhead. This was established in May, 1780, going through Coventry, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Llangollen, Corwen, Llanrwst, and Conway. In November of that year Lawrence removed from the “Raven and Bell” to the “Lion,” next door, a larger house, and announced his determination to pursue with unremitting industry the object he had in view, of securing the Chester traffic for Shrewsbury.

This bold pronouncement roused the Chester proprietors and the innkeepers along that route to fury. They threatened Payton with opposition to his Birmingham, Oxford, and London coaches if he did not break his connection with Lawrence, and when Payton declined to listen to them, established themselves as a confederacy at the “Raven and Bell,” just vacated by his partner, and put the “Defiance” coach on the road to London, by Worcester. Lawrence, in his turn, perhaps somewhat alarmed by the storm he had raised, issued an advertisement, thanking the public for their patronage, and entreating further support in his attempts to open up a direct road to Holyhead. Without this encouragement, he said, “several years’ labour and great expense he has been at (together with the great advantage to the town of Shrewsbury) would be entirely lost.”

He was not content with advertising, but travelled largely, and waited upon many people of influence for their interest in obtaining the improvement of the route on which he had set his heart; and prevailed upon several persons who had been upper servants in great English families to establish inns at the several stages. His exertions were not fruitless. Several of the principal travellers began to travel the Shrewsbury route, and not only saved some miles and avoided the Conway ferry, but had the additional advantage of superior accommodation. Lawrence had a powerful ally in the press, and the Shrewsbury Chronicle is early found recording successes. Thus, February 3rd, 1781, the Editor “is happy to inform the publick that the travelling through this town daily increases,” and from that time proceeded to record the names of important personages who passed through, in preference to Chester. In the same year Lawrence still further enlarged his views, and inspired the Chronicle with the statement: “We have not a doubt, from the rapid increase of business on this road, that, if proper application is made, one, if not both, of the Irish mails will pass through the town.” He had, in fact, been making interest with the Post Office to that end. The mails of that day, however, were not coaches, but mounted postboys; the first mail-coach in England not being established until August, 1784.

Lawrence indeed went to surprising lengths, and seems to have constituted himself a species of informal road-authority, to judge from the Shrewsbury Chronicle of April 13th, 1782, in whose columns care is taken to “inform the publick that the new road through Wales, viâ Llanrwst, has by the activity of Mr. Lawrence been kept open, notwithstanding most other roads were rendered impassable by the heavy falls of snow.” In the September of that year, Lawrence had another triumph, for Earl Temple, the new Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, travelled by Shrewsbury, and lay at the “Lion,” where he was received in state by the Mayor and Corporation. “His lordship,” we learn, “said he was extremely glad the Shrewsbury road had been recommended to him, as he found it not only considerably nearer, but the accommodations were in every respect perfectly to his satisfaction.”

In February, 1784, we still find Lawrence “determined to use every effort to establish effectually what he has so long laboured at a great expence to accomplish,” but it was not until 1802 that his exertions procured the commencement of a shorter line of road, branching off at Pentre Voelas from his previous route by Llanrwst and Conway and going to Bangor by the present route, viâ Bettws and Capel Curig. He was aided in this by the Lord Penrhyn of that time, with whom it had long been a favourite scheme, and who, to ensure its popularity with travellers, built the great inn beside it at Capel Curig. By the completion of this road a saving of eight miles was effected.

Meanwhile Palmer had established mail-coaches, and Lawrence had secured an “Oxford, Birmingham, and Shrewsbury Mail, on Mr. Palmer’s plan,” so early as September 5th, 1785. But it went no further until 1808, when it was extended to Holyhead.

New times, however, had now dawned, and the modernised Holyhead Road was coming into existence, under the control of greater forces than Lawrence could have brought to bear. The Government and Telford between them planned the “New Parliamentary Road,” which by July 1817 was sufficiently advanced for the mails to be sent this way. The “Oxford, Birmingham and Shrewsbury Mail” was therefore discontinued beyond Birmingham, and the “New Holyhead Mail” began to run from London by the present Holyhead Road, in thirty-eight hours. Shrewsbury had at last achieved its due, and the “Chester and Holyhead Mail,” a slower coach, by Northampton and Stafford, was regarded as altogether an inferior affair.

XXII

When at last Lawrence was gathered to his fathers and new men took up the business of coaching, the daily Mail-coach to Holyhead and the two stages, running twice a week, were increased to seven coaches to or from London daily, in addition to numerous local stages. There were the “Oxonian Express,” through to Holyhead, by High Wycombe, Oxford, and Birmingham; the “Union,” by the same route, going no further than Shrewsbury; the “Shamrock,” to Holyhead, by Coventry and Birmingham; the “New Mail,” to Holyhead by the same route; the “Prince of Wales,” to Holyhead, by Oxford and Birmingham; and two Post-coaches. One could then actually do the journey between London and Shrewsbury in eighteen hours. There were also Crowley’s and Hearne’s vans and waggons, three-horsed and six-horsed, for the carriage of goods, plodding very soberly and with much jingling of harness and whip cracking, accomplishing the distance in three or four days.