A very prosperous coach in later years, always loading well, was the “Peveril of the Peak,” competing with the “Telegraph” and the “Defiance” by dint of leaving London at a somewhat later hour. Another fast night coach was the “Red Rover,” by Robert Nelson, of the “Belle Sauvage,” Ludgate Hill. It started at 7 p.m. and accomplished the journey, by way of the comparatively level Holyhead Road to Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and thence by Newcastle-under-Lyme and Congleton, in twenty hours. There was no mistaking the “Red Rover,” for not only was the coach itself red, but the guards wore red hats and red coats. Sherman soon bought out Nelson, and took the “Red Rover”; but Nelson immediately put on another along the same route, calling it the “Beehive.” It went to the other extreme, and set out at 8 a.m., arriving at Manchester at 4 o’clock the next morning. It sounded the last note in coaching convenience, for not only was it fitted inside with a reading-lamp, and the inside seats provided with spring cushions, but every seat was numbered in order to avoid disputes.
In 1834, competition between coach proprietors on the chief routes grew so keen that a war of extermination broke out; the stronger men striving to crush the smaller by reducing fares below a paying level. On this road it became possible for a while to travel at half the former fares, and to journey the 186 miles to Manchester for 40s. inside, and 20s. out; but cheap travel was dearly bought in the accidents occasioned through this extravagant rivalry. In addition, were the usual and inevitable mischances of the highway. Thus the Manchester “Defiance” was upset in August 1835 at Brailsford, through the horses shying at a white gate, when a Mr. Holbrook was killed; and the “Peveril of the Peak” was overturned in September 1836, a passenger and the coachman being crushed to death.
Those coach proprietors with the longest purses would, of course, in time have crushed the smaller men in this war of cheap prices; and already, before the railway came to sweep big men and little into one common limbo, those with slender resources were feeling the pinch of daily expenses, and could sometimes hardly settle their turnpike accounts—especially heavy on this road.
The onerous burden of the tolls payable by stage-coaches can scarcely be realised, save by stating a specific example. The amount incurred on a single journey to Manchester was no less than £5 13s. 5d., and this was by no means exceptional. Of course, the coach did not stop to pay toll at every gate, the practice being to settle monthly. The burden seems a heavy one for coach proprietors, but was, like every other tax, levied in the end upon the consumer, being finally paid by the coach passengers in their fares, calculated on the basis of the coach proprietors’ expenses.
At last, in 1837, with the opening of the London and Birmingham Railway to Manchester, this petty warfare was stilled, and the business of the coach proprietors seemed to be ended. In 1836, when the railway had been opened as far as Birmingham, Chaplin and Benjamin Worthy Horne, two of the largest proprietors, had been induced to withdraw from the road, and to throw their interest on the side of the new methods; but Sherman refused to hear anything of the kind. He was the most courageous, not to say the most obstinate, of men; thoroughly British in the characteristics of doggedness and unwillingness to own himself beaten. He did not believe in railways, until the stern fact of his coaches running empty along the road convinced him, at a considerable loss; and when in 1837 temporary trouble arose between the public and the railway, and some were already regretting the old days, he dashed in and re-established his “Red Rover” coach, which lasted a year or more, losing money heavily when the Manchester people and the railway had composed their quarrel.
EDWARD SHERMAN
The character-sketch of Sherman, here begun, may here be fitly concluded. Without doubt a man of strong character, he had many peculiarities, among them a decided taste for extravagance in dress and jewellery, remarkable even at that time, when dress was very exuberant indeed. Instead of sporting a shirt front, his chest displayed an expanse of black satin, plentifully covered with diamond pins. One day a thief came behind him in the street, reached a hand over his shoulder, and made off with a valuable specimen. Sherman afterwards had them all attached to a chain.
His fighting temper, if it stood him in good stead among his fellow coach proprietors, certainly, as we have seen, involved him in heavy losses in quarrelling with railways, before he found them too strong for him. To lose money was to him an especial grief. The very sight of sovereigns was a solace to him, and he kept a hundred in a tankard, deposited in his safe at the “Bull and Mouth,” so that he might always have the pleasure of handling the gold.
He had—according to private information—a number of children “that he ought not to have had,” whatever that may mean. His last years were sad, for his relatives exploited his temper and some eccentricities he had developed, and procured his committal, as a lunatic, to Bethlem Hospital, where he died in 1866. There are those yet living who remember him there, and tell how he was put away with little legitimate excuse.
The “Bull and Mouth” was carried on by his executor, E. Sanderson, until 1869, when it was purchased by the late Quartermaine East, and re-named the “Queen’s Hotel.”